Agenda item

(time limit 15 minutes)

Council was asked to note the minutes of the following Joint Authority and Partnership meetings and the relevant spokespersons to respond to questions from Members.

The minutes of the Joint Authorities and Partnerships were submitted as follows:

Members raised the following questions:

Councillor Hamblett asked the following question in relation to GMCA 165/21

Education, work and skills activity update

Point 3 records that: That the progress made to date on the European Social Fund Skills for Growth Programme be noted. Could I ask what funding has been made available to replace the European Social Fund Skills for Growth Programme since our departure from the EU?

Councillor Ali, Deputy Cabinet Member for Education and Skills replied that under the exit agreement, there was a continuation of existing commitments from the European Social Investment Framework until December 2023.The replacement fund was the Shared Prosperity Fund worth £2.6bn (£0.4bn in 2022-23, £0.7bn in 2023-24 and £1.5bn in 2024-25).

The Government as part of its levelling up commitent created the Shared Prosperity Fund which should have seen £3m being targeted at Oldham but locally projects managed to just access c. £0.5m. GM in total only benefited to the value of c. £4.5m from an expected £12m. The Council remained concerned that the government was not concerned in investing in Levelling up the North.

Councillor Al-Hamdani asked the following question in relation to GMCA 168/21 Greater Manchester Gender Based Violence Strategy

The minutes note that "it was important that Government also recognised the seismic issue and stepped up their level of support". The Law Commission recently published its recommendation to create a new crime of Public Sexual Harassment – in line with the Liberal Democrat motion agreed universally by this Council – but declined to recommend making misogyny a hate crime. Does the member responsible feel that this is going far enough? Would they agree with me that it is important that the Government sends out a stronger message against misogyny, and that more work needs to be done with a view to adopting misogyny as a hate crime?

Councillor Shah, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Economic and Social Reform responded that this was an easy question to answer because yes, she absolutely believed that misogyny should be a hate crime, and unlike our Prime Minister, she believed that the scale of the issue was more of a reason to address it.

In Oldham we recognised and understood the harmful impact of misogyny and there was a wealth of ongoing work to raise awareness and respond.

We supported the introduction of any legislation which held perpetrators to account for their targeted behaviour toward people on the basis of protected characteristics, and which recognised aggravating factors that needed to be considered during sentencing.

This included the Law Commission’s recommendation to extend the existing offence of stirring up hatred to include doing so on the grounds of sex and gender. This would make it a criminal offence to promote misogynistic views and this was vital.

Introducing new offences was not enough. It was also critical that new measures resulted in meaningful enforcement action. The government needed to ensure that there were both the resources available and a willingness to prosecute new offences. The message from the government about misogyny needes to be seen to result in action.

Councillor Williamson asked the following question in relation to GMCA 172/21 GMCA, Environment Agency and United Utilities Memorandum of Understanding

There have been an increasing number of instances of United Utilities disputing whether repair works in the borough are their responsibility. Could the cabinet member responsible tell me if any data is being kept on the number of cases where this has happened, and if this Memorandum of Understanding will help the Council reduce the number of occasions on which this is happening?

Councillor Chadderton, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, replied that she agreed it felt like United Utilities were trying to pass the buck and the reality was that Oldham Council and its residents would continue to be affected as a result of these ongoing disputes.

The issue had been raised at a North West and also GMCA level. It was disappointing that there had only been a slight improvement to the service provided so far.

The Council kept a log with information of all the incidents and disputes that came in that involved United Utilities, however concerns remained and the Council was not convinced that the Memorandum of Understanding will reduce the number of occasions that this was happening.

These type of issues were always subjective and each issue was investigated on a case by case basis so it was very hard to conclude who exactly was responsible for the issue on many occasions. 

The Council had recently been allocated specific personnel to deal with at United Utilities, so there was now a very specific point of contact for when issues arose. However, faced with the number of historic and ongoing cases it remained a concern as to how this could be resolved.

Councillor Sykes asked the following question in relation to GMCA 202/21

Greater Manchester Brownfield Housing Fund – Reallocation of Tranche 2 additional 10% monies

What is Oldham’s share of the £96.9M the minute refers to, and bearing in mind the amount of brownfield land in Oldham, is that a fair and equitable share or, as usual, are we being short changed?

Councillor Roberts, Cabinet Member for Housing, replied that the figure of £96.9m, in the minute referred to, was the total amount of Brownfield Housing Land Funding secured by GMCA from government to date, for allocation on qualifying residential development schemes across the whole of the GM City Region.

Oldham had secured a total of £8.1 Million Brownfield Housing Fund Grant to support the delivery of up to 500 new homes across 4 sites. The Council had secured provisional allocations of £2 M and £4.5 M for proposed developments at Derker and Southlink respectively. First Choice Homes had secured £1 M to deliver the redevelopment of Westvale and Countryside Properties secured £0.6 M to help deliver new homes at Bullcote Lane, Royton.

The Council would of course continue to closely monitor whether any further opportunities to deliver the quality new affordable homes that were needed came forward and if so would bid accordingly, doing everything possible to ensure that Oldham received its fair share of any funding opportunities that were on offer.

Councillor Al-Hamdani asked the following question in relation to GMPCFP/25/21 iOPS

The minutes state that the Chief Constable aimed to be in a position by the end of the year (2021) to know whether the current system was fit for purpose. We are now in our final meeting of the year, and no decision yet appears to have been taken on whether the system is fit for purpose.  At a cost of £27 million and rising, can the member responsible give me a yes/no answer as to whether a decision is going to be taken in the next three weeks?

The minutes also note that the Panel noted the difficulties that are faced in introducing any new software system into a large-scale organisation. Could the member responsible give me a simple list of other police forces have faced similar problems to those in Greater Manchester?

Councillor Williams responded that other police forces had experienced difficulties but not to the same extent. GMP had experience issues others had not. In relation to the first part of the question, he had checked today and been told there may be an answer by the end of next month. If iOPS was to be replaced, it would take at least two years and iOPS would have to be used for that time. The other option would be to stick with it and fix it. There were may meetings taking place with a range of people involved in iOPS and there should be a decision by the end of January. Whatever the decision, it needed to be absolutely right.

Councillor H Gloster asked the following question in relation to Commissioning Partnership Board, p97

Does the member response think it is satisfactory from minutes of this important body from April 21, 8 months ago are only now being presented to the Council? I for one do not!

Councillor Chauhan, Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care, replied that minutes sent to Full Council must have been approved at the following meeting of the relevant Committee or Board before being part of the Council agenda. Since the meeting in April 2021, the next meeting of the Commissioning Partnership Board was held on the 21st October, where the minutes from April were approved.

Members were able to view the minutes online before they went to the following meeting and Full Council and Members could also attend the meeting.

RESOLVED that:

1.    The minutes of the Joint Authorities and Partnership meetings as detailed in the report be noted.

2.    The questions and responses provided be noted.