Agenda

The Civic Mayor to make any appropriate announcements.

At this juncture the Civic Mayor will retire from the Chair and the Chair of Council Business shall assume the Chair for the remaining business.

That the Minutes of the proceedings of the Meeting of Council held on 29 September 2015 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair of Council Business (or other person presiding) (Minutes attached).

To receive any declarations of interest from Members of the Council.

To receive any announcements or communications from the Chair of Council Business, the Executive Leader, Members of the Executive Cabinet or the Chief Executive.

The Chair of Council Business to invite the Executive Leader, Councillor Kieran Quinn, to give his keynote address and the implications of the Comprehensive Spending Review, following which the Leader of the Opposition Group will be entitled to respond with a final right of reply reserved for the Executive Leader

To consider any questions submitted by Members of the public in accordance with Standing Orders 31.12 and 31.13.

To receive the minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Cabinet held on 21 October 2015.

To receive the minutes of the meeting of the Senior Staffing Panel held on 16 November 2015 and to agree the following recommendations:

That Peter Timmins, Interim Assistant Director (Finance) be appointed as the Section 151 Officer from 23 November 2015 for 6 to 12 months to enable the recruitment and successful appointment of a Section 151 Officer.

To receive the minutes of the Meeting of the Democratic Processes Working Group held on 26 October 2015.

To consider the attached report of the Executive Leader/Executive Director (Governance and Resources).

To consider any changes to the membership of Council bodies.

To consider the attached report of the Executive Director (Governance and Resources).

(a)       To consider the following motion in the name of Councillor L. Travis

That this Council notes that on 4 November 2015, the Department of Health confirmed that it would be reducing it’s spending on public health grants to local authorities by £200 million this financial year.

This is part of the further £3 billion of spending cuts to the current financial year announced by the Government in June this year, and follows a consultation in which Tameside Council, AGMA, and national health and social care leaders all appealed against the cut, pointing out the short sightedness of cutting cost effective interventions with clear long term benefits to health and prosperity.

The decision to reduce funding for public health has come as a big disappointment, and confirmation of 6.2% in year reduction so far through the financial year is badly planned, ill-timed and potentially life-threatening.

For Tameside this cut means an in-year reduction in funding for preventive services of approximately £1M, and will inevitably result in greater demand for health and social care services in the future.

NHS commissioned services including Health Visiting and School Nursing will inevitably be hit by these cuts.

These cuts are surprising given the Government’s commitment to the NHS Five Year Forward View, which has prevention as a key element. Drawing back on prevention locally risks jeopardising the realisation of the vision and benefits of the local health and social care programme Care Together. Our aim to achieve sustainable reductions in health inequalities and improvement in life expectancy will be compromised. Rebalancing investment and activity within a sustainable and cost effective model of collaborative working will be slowed down.

This Council firmly believes that it is more important than ever that the distribution of available resources reflects the assessed needs of areas – which means their levels of deprivation - and their ability to raise resources.  Unfortunately, the latest announcement follows the same approach as those of the past four years, and will mean that the greatest impact of the cuts will be on the most deprived authorities, such as Tameside.

Given the recent announcement, Tameside Council is extremely concerned about how the Public Health grant will be treated in any future allocation formula.

This Council thereforecalls upon the Government to:-

(i)         Abandon its short-sighted and contradictory approach to cuts  in public health funding, when in actual fact it should invest more in prevention and health improvement, with allocations based upon need; and

(ii)        honour its previous commitments to public health funding as set out in the local government finance settlement in March 2015.

(b)       To consider the following motion in the name of Councillor B. Holland

That this Council recalls the 2010 pledge by the Prime Minister, David Cameron MP, to lead the ‘Greenest Government Ever’.

This Council is therefore surprised by the proposals put forward by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to further cut the feed in tariff (FIT) payable for electricity generated by Solar Photovoltaic (PV) cells.

The  ...  view the full agenda text for item 13.

To answer questions (if any) asked under Standing Order 17.2, for which due notice has been given by a Member of the Council.

To consider any other items which the Chair of Council Business (or other person presiding) is of the opinion shall be dealt with as a matter of urgency.