Reporting Back: Full Council

Three separate motions were put forward at the Summer meeting of Bury’s full Council. Councillor Michael Powell reports:

Liberal Democrat group motion- Supporting Private Renters and Selective Licencing
Our motion concerned securing a fair deal for private renters to ensure that they are protected from poor housing management and low standards from a minority of those operating in the sector. The motion suggested trialling the use of ‘selective licencing’ schemes, which require landlords in finite geographical areas to register with the Council enabling certain standards to be enforced. These schemes are already being used successfully in other Greater Manchester authorities, such as Manchester and Oldham. The motion was passed unanimously with support from all parties on the Council and the Liberal Democrat group will check in with the Council over the coming weeks to see what progress has been made on this motion.


Conservative motion- Creating a Bury Council Covid-19 Recovery Plan
The Conservative Council group put forward a motion calling for the creation of a detailed recovery plan as the borough begins to recover from the crisis. The plan included a focus on economic impact and ensuring financial resilience, health and social care recovery, ensuring Council services are delivered efficiently and supporting local businesses and residents. The Liberal Democrat group supported the motion as we recognised the importance of establishing a wide-reaching recovery plan to get the borough through the next stage as it rebuilds from the pandemic, although we also highlighted that such a plan needs to touch on other areas such as education and providing further support for vulnerable people. The motion was not passed as it did not achieve the support of Labour Councillors, who argued that there was not enough detail.

Labour motion- Calling for an independent enquiry into the handling of coronavirus
The motion from the Labour group called for the Council to support an independent enquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic. The Liberal Democrat group supported this motion on the basis that there are a number of important questions related to the Government’s response which remain unanswered and need clarification. The motion was passed with the support of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Radcliffe First Councillors.

Mental health and education gap of homeschooling must be addressed

Responding to Office of National Statistics published last week on the impact of homeschooling during the coronavirus pandemic, Liberal Democrats are calling for urgent action to tackle the health and education impact of lockdown on children.

Education Spokesperson Layla Moran MP said: “Coronavirus has clearly impacted every aspect of life, including the wellbeing of parents and children, and the quality of education the majority of children receive. We must ensure no one is left behind.

“If it wasn’t for years of cuts to our schools and government failing to consult adequately with teachers and school leaders, it wouldn’t be this way. Ministers must now increase the necessary provision of laptops and introduce a Summer Learning Fund that supports the most disadvantaged children.

“Moreover, the Government must address the mental health impact of the pandemic by signposting the appropriate support services to every household, and properly funding the charities that provide those services.”

Coronavirus and homeschooling in Great Britain: April to June 2020 can be found here.
 
Between 7 May and 7 June 2020, 87% of parents said a child in their household had been homeschooled because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with the percentage decreasing as the age of the only or eldest child increased.
 
Over half (52%) of parents with school-aged children said a child in their household was struggling to continue their education while at home, with just over three in four of these parents (77%) giving lack of motivation as one of the reasons.
 
While under 1 in 10 (9%) parents with a child who was struggling gave a lack of devices as a reason for struggling, this was significantly higher for households with one adult (21%) than households with two or more adults (7%).
 
Between 3 April and 10 May 2020, of parents who were homeschooling, one in three women (34%) agreed that it was negatively affecting their well-being compared with one in five men (20%), while 43% of homeschooling parents agreed that it was negatively affecting the well-being of their children.
 
See below for full details of the Liberal Democrats’ five-point plan for reopening schools to more pupils in England.  

  • Increase capacity for physical learning, by combining local spare space registers, so that local councils and school leaders can find suitable empty buildings in the community to use as learning spaces.
  • Recruit an army of extra teachers to cope with demand. The Government should launch a Teach for Britain recruitment campaign to bring out-of-work supply teachers and recently-retired teachers into schools so more pupils can return. This builds on the success of the Social Work Together campaign, developed with the Local Government Association. Ministers should work with unions to get more teachers into learning spaces in any one school day.
  • End the online learning void for thousands of children. Ministers should develop a bold strategy to leave no child behind by partnering with the private sector to get laptops and internet access to any disadvantaged child currently unable to learn online. The Government’s current target to provide 230,000 laptops has left out too many children. Councils are neither receiving the equipment they have asked for, nor seeing high uptake rates for the kit they’re given. The Government should launch a major advertising campaign to encourage families and children to ask for equipment, backed up by working with schools to get more physical resources including textbooks to children lacking internet or computer access.
  • Design a flexible, phased reopening that follows the science and has the trust of parents and the profession by being developed with them, following the lead of Kirsty Williams in Wales. Schools should aim to begin the next academic year on time in September, but double the autumn half-term break to two weeks. We must recognise that many schools are doing a fantastic job at phased reopening, and ensure local authorities, academy trusts and government are learning from their successes.
  • Halt the widening of the disadvantage gap. The Government should combine the summer provision of free school meals with an emergency uplift in child benefit of £150 per child per month, with £100 for every subsequent child, during this crisis. The catch-up premium should be worth at least £700 for every disadvantaged child eligible for the pupil premium, to enable schools and charities to give them a much-needed boost in the next academic year. Ministers should create a Summer Learning Fund so that councils can run summer learning camps for children, focused on local authorities in the most deprived areas. This will prepare children for September and give many children a positive environment in which to learn and re-acclimatise to an educational environment. The Government should fund places on these courses for children on free school meals.

Reporting Back: Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Three separate reports were presented to the Summer meeting of the Council’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee. Councillor Michael Powell Reports.

Bury Market Covid-19 Recovery Plan:
– The reopening of Bury Market for non-essential retail took place on 15th June, apart from businesses for which restrictions were extended to 4th July such as cafes, hairdressers, nail bars, beauty salons and barbers.
– The Market has remained partially open (approximately 12 stalls) throughout the lockdown to support food Traders providing a service to our vulnerable residents, including home deliveries. Social media support has also been provided.
– A plan has been published to guide the recovery of the market after the Covid-10 crisis. The main challenge in the long term is to attract footfall to ensure the markets viability whilst simultaneously ensuring the safety of visitors to the market.
– Amendments are proposed to the Markets Rules and Regulations, including a review of current opening and closing times.
– A Capital Programme is underway with £1.38 million going to be invested in making further improvements to the Market, phased over the next four years. The work could include the replacement of Market Hall glazing panels, addressing open Market roofing issues, Market Hall toilet refurbishment and an upgrade of Market’s parade area.

Bury and Radcliffe Town Regeneration Schemes:
– The Council have begun work on a new masterplan for Bury town centre to ensure Bury is fully prepared for the economic consequences that will arise from coronavirus and to establish a clear and deliverable plan to support economic recovery.
– The masterplan is very much in the early stages but will seek to address the town’s role as a retail and leisure destination, commercial development, improved town centre living, develop the tourism and cultural sectors and improve linkages between the town centre and surrounding assets and neighbourhoods.
– The Council recently unveiled a Strategic Regeneration Framework for Radcliffe aiming to shape the future of the town over the next 10 to 15 years. The public consultation on the SRF began on 22nd June and will run until 3rd August.
– The key elements recommended in the draft SRF include the creation of a central hub in the town centre, the creation of new leisure facilities, a focused retail strategy, improved public open spaces and a new Secondary school.

Resetting the education service in Bury:
– The report provided a further update on the progress being made by the Local Education Authority during the Covid-19 pandemic to reset the education service.
– Individual risk assessments have been carried out by all education settings across the borough to ensure social social distances and enable social bubbles to be created to avoid mixing different cohorts unnecessarily. 
– The aggregate total of pupils attending Bury schools on Tues 23 June 2020 is 3584; this marks a further growth in the returns.
– A medium term recovery work plan has been established for at least the next academic year, which will include providing support to children in three vulnerable groups- those who are transitioning from one education establishment to another, children with SEND and the newly vulnerable and those children who have fallen further behind in their learning than their peers.
–  A substantial programme of work will be required according to the Council’s education authority if they are to secure the lost learning for many of the borough’s vulnerable children. In this recovery the Council say they have some additional resource and support; from HMI, the RSC, from central government, and within local partnerships.

The papers for the meeting are here.

Reporting Back: Greater Manchester CA Scrutiny

Report back on High Rise building fire risks and financial impact of Covid-19.

Earlier this week was the regular meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority Corporate Issues and Resource Scrutiny Committee. This brings together 15 councillors from across Greater Manchester. Bury is represented by Prestwich councillor Tim Pickstone, who also chairs the committee this year.

High Rise Building Fire Risk Residents Survey
Following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, the Greater Manchester High Rise Task Force was established to ensure that the area was prepared to respond to a major incident and that all high rise building are safe from fire, and that residents feel safe.

As part of assessing how safe residents feel, a survey of residents was undertaken in the latter part of 2019.

65% of residents said they are concerned about having a fire in their home.
77% of residents who lived in a building where cladding was identified as a risks were concerned.
97% of respondents said that they would trust GMFRS to provide advice.

One of the most significant concerns was the financial impact on apartment owners. Some residents had experienced a 400% increase in service charges and others reported that they had been presented with significant bills (e.g. to remove cladding).

I asked about the financial impact on apartment owners, as I understand mortgage lenders are refusing to lend for properties where there are cladding issues, and in particular whether this was also affecting the ‘non high rise’ apartment blocks which are not covered by the current guidelines.

The full report on the residents survey is here.

Financial Impact of Covid-19 on Greater Manchester Local Authorities
The Combined Authority Finance Director gave members an update on the financial impact of Covid-19 on local government in the area.

The first part of the report concerned the impact on the individual Districts (e.g. Bury). All local councils have experienced extra costs, as a result of Covid-19, the bulk of which have been around social care costs, but also significant costs around highways, transport public health and housing.

Local councils have also had significant loss of income. Around 60% of this has been a loss of ‘commercial income’ – anything from rented property to fees and charges. Roughly 40% is lost taxation income – either lost business rates or lost council tax receipts.

There has been Government grant to help with some of this, but largely this hasn’t covered the lost income.

The second area of the report was on the financial impact on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. By far the most significant issues are with:

  • Retained Business Rate losses – Greater Manchester is part of a pilot scheme for local areas to ‘keep’ (some of the) increases in Business Rates that they generate. For Greater Manchester as a whole this has been successful, as new commercial buildings have opened in recent years. However this is very unlikely to be the case this year and perhaps in future years, so this will have an impact on what the CA can spend.
  • Metrolink – obviously use of Metrolink was severely impacted during Metrolink, and remains significantly lower than ‘normal’. The Government has given GM £25 million to help cover this, which covers the bulk of this loss. At the moment Government grant only goes to 3 August 2020, so there is a major issue about lost Metrolink income going forwards.

I asked about the long term impact of the loss of ticket income. Most of the money for the new lines was from borrowing, and the ticket income is paying for that borrowing. I also asked about potential Government funding for new lines, and whether there were any ‘ready to go’ applications being considered.

The financial impact paper is here.