Agenda and minutes

To note the Committee’s terms of reference as set out below:

1.     To scrutinise the Council’s cultural and environmental policies and the provision, planning, financing, management and performance of services relating to culture, environment, regeneration, community safety, parking strategy and operations, and the voluntary sector provided by the Supporting Communities and Corporate Services Directorates and other service providers.

2.     To be the Council’s Crime and Disorder Committee.

RESOLVED –

THAT the Committee’s terms of reference be noted.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Rishi Madlani.

Members will be asked to declare any pecuniary, non-pecuniary and any other interests in respect of items on the agenda.

There were none.

Webcasting of the Meeting

The Chair to announce the following: “In addition to the rights by law that the public and press have to record and film public meetings, I would like to remind everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and can be viewed on our website for six months after the meeting.  After that time, webcasts are archived and can be made available on DVD upon request.

If you are seated in the room it is likely that the Council’s cameras will capture your image and you are deemed to be consenting to being filmed and to the use of those images and sound recordings for webcasting and/or training purposes.”

Any other announcements

The Chair announced that the meeting was broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and could be viewed on the website for six months after the meeting.  After that time, webcasts were archived and could be made available on DVD upon request. Those who were seated in the room or participated via Teams were deemed to have consented to their contributions being recorded and broadcast and to the use of those sound recordings and images for webcasting and/or training purposes.

Requests to speak at the Committee on a matter within its terms of reference must be made in writing to the clerk named on the front of this agenda by 5pm two working days before the meeting.

The Chair advised that one deputation request had been received but not accepted from Save the London Motorcycling Group, as he could not see any more that could be done at scrutiny level, further to their appearance at the Culture and Environment Scrutiny meeting in February 2024.

There were none.

To consider and approve the minutes of the meetings held on 22nd January 2024, 6th and 26th February 2024 respectively.

A Committee member queried whether there was any response to an issue that he had raised at 6^th February meeting regarding steps that had been taken to resolve issues raised by a disabled resident in Hampstead Town Ward.

Officers agreed to provide the member with a response.

Action By Director of Environment and Sustainability.

RESOLVED –

THAT the minutes of the meetings held on 22^nd January 2024, 6^th and 26^th February 2024 be signed as accurate records.

Report of the Director of Environment and Sustainability.

The report:

·       Provides an update on the progress made during the first full year of delivery of the Council’s statutory Air Quality Action Plan: the ‘Camden Clean Air Action Plan 2023-2026’. 69% of ‘Clean Air Outcomes’ set out in the Action Plan are categorised as ‘in progress’ or ‘completed (ongoing)’.

·       Presents an overview of the latest full year of air quality monitoring data for Camden, which shows that annual nitrogen dioxide air pollutant reduced at the majority of automatic monitoring sites, and fine particulate matter air pollution reduced at all monitoring sites.

·       Sets out the priority activities for the forthcoming year and brings to the attention of the Committee some proposed activities and policy changes that may require the Committee’s consideration. These include the ‘Year of Clean Air for Camden Schools’, the continuation of the ‘London Wood Burning Project’, and the delivery of projects funded through successful bids to the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund.

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Environment and Sustainability.

In response to questions, the Air Programme Quality Manager Tom Parkes and Richard Bradbury (Director of Environment and Sustainability) made the following points:

• It was difficult to separate Camden’s effort in reducing emissions from other boroughs without there being a significant investment in atmospheric modelling. It was difficult to determine the exact contribution of Camden projects and policies on air quality.
• The technological improvements to vehicles had made a significant improvement in air quality, Camden’s transport strategy had also supported a move away from private vehicles towards sustainable active travel with the use of public transport also strengthening the reduction in air pollution seen from regional policies.
• The reduction in particulate matter 2.5 air pollution was more affected by emissions from other parts of the country as well as internationally.
• Camden through its air quality programme tried to lead by example using case studies to encourage other local authorities to adopt a similar approach in tackling local emissions and also setting a framework for looking at various different types of activities collectively.
• With regards to benchmarking, each borough had a statutory obligation to monitor air quality but there was not a unified approach to the types of monitoring locations chosen.
• Although reductions in air pollution might be compared yearly between different Councils it was not necessarily a true reflection of the amount of success that had been achieved in those areas. However, the statutory framework enabled Councils to assess whether they were legally compliant with air quality levels.
• The Council had a good working relationship with London Cleaner Initiative over the past 4 years, which included the distribution of air quality sensor networks in the borough, worked with different schools in the borough to promote among pupils and parents the idea of air quality being one of a different mixture of environmental issues that schools could take positive local action to challenge.
• The Council’s interaction with London Cleaner Initiative had enabled them to become a London wide organisation. From the Council’s point of view this had proved extremely useful in having a leverage into the commercial sector and also serving as an advocate for policy changes. The Council would continue to work with this organisation.
• The Air Quality Team had a good working relationship with the Green Spaces Team, both teams had fed into each other’s respective action plans, though the Air Quality Programme did not focus too much on greening and trees because that was sufficiently covered in the green spaces programme.
• There was more focus on having the right type of green space for the location, this mostly involved working with other organisations to understand what was right for different places, such as encouraging the creation of green walls and vegetation to serve as physical barriers on roads next to school playgrounds.
• In terms of the linkages between monitored air quality and health outcomes it was quite difficult to attribute direct outcomes to measured air  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Report of the Director of Environment and Sustainability.

This report sets out the Council’s responses to the Report of the Circular Economy Scrutiny Panel (November 2023) whose report was presented to the Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee on 13^th November 2023.

The special scrutiny panel was established by the Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee (C&E) to investigate the ‘application of the circular economy in the work of Camden Council and support for the principles of circularity in the public and private sectors in the Borough’.

The report contained 43 recommendations for the Cabinet Member for a Sustainable Camden to consider and this report provides a response to each of the recommendations.

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Environment and Sustainability.

In response to questions, Richard Bradbury (Director of Environment and Sustainability) made the following points:

·       Officers agreed with a member’s suggestion that school children could be allowed to bring in food boxes to take leftovers home after school.

·       In terms of magic breakfast there were different products within that offer, Community Safety colleagues were doing some work around moving surplus food within the community in a more sustainable way. Officers agreed to provide the Committee with information on the work the Council was doing on the magic breakfast within the community.

ACTION BY: The Director of Environment and Sustainability.

·       With regards to food waste and most of the initiatives being on-line, the suggestion to include the information on the community recipe book and recipes in the Camden seasonal magazine to reach the digitally excluded was a good idea which could be considered.

·       In relation to food recycling, the Council was investing a lot in the collection of food recycling. The problems with these collections from flats above shops was an issue which the Council was working on with other boroughs as it was more of a city-wide issue.

·       With regards to the comment about the initiatives not reaching the north of the borough, the Council had worked where it could with all communities including Kilburn where work was carried on with the library of things.

·       With regards to textiles, the Council was working with all groups across schools to promote and encourage the school clothing initiative.

·       The food waste recycling was a separate structure to the recycling of general waste.

·       The work of the Circular Economy Panel, the process and ideas developed had been helpful for the Council.

·       As had been highlighted by the Circular Economy Panel Camden did not have all the levers to generate change, it could play an advocacy role and identify key stakeholders in the borough such as the Climate Change Alliance of which ASOS was a member.

·       Engaging at a London level by using organisations such as the World Living Project could help drive some of the initiatives suggested by the Circular economy Panel through the Council using its soft power in those conversations.

·       With regards to listing all the different charity shops on the Council’s website, it would be much better if users went straight to the general search engine on the internet rather than the Camden website. As when these things go on the Council’s website it was a huge resource issue for the Council to keep updating it. However, some thought could be put into how the Council could provide a link to this level of information.

·       The decision that food waste collections be expanded to cover all properties in 2025 was the development and evolution of the Government’s national strategy.

·       With regards to the impact of vaping legislation in Camden. from a trading standards perspective any new regulation that was introduced involved the Council working with businesses  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Report of the Executive Director Corporate Services.

The Council is committed to working with partners, community groups and people with lived experience to eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).

This report sets out the Council’s strategic priorities, approach and progress in relation to VAWG. In particular, it focusses on the commitment to women’s safety in the public realm and the work taking place to advance this.

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Director Corporate Services.

Members made the following comments:

• It was a good idea that for every licensing application, applicants were encouraged to sign up for the Ask Angela scheme which promoted women’s safety.
• The Council’s initiative of raising public awareness highlighted in 5.2 of the report was to be applauded. It was very similar to the Mayor of London’s campaign and was a very effective means of reminding people not to be inappropriate. The more places this could be highlighted the better.
• It was a good idea to start educating young people as early as possible raising their awareness by including this in the education system even at pre-school age.
• There was no statistical data in the report highlighting the number of incidents reported to the Police, comparisons with previous years incidents and how Camden compared to other boroughs in these types of incidents.
•  The Cabinet Adviser on Reducing Violence and Abuse for Women and Girls should be commended for her report, recommendations made and the self-defence initiative was a good way of empowering women.

In response to questions, Jamie Akinola (Director of Public Safety) Shaheda Rahman (Community Safety Programme Manager) and Caroline Thomas (Community Safety Partnerships Coordinator) made the following points:

• Included on the Committee’s Work Programme for later in the year was for the Police to provide this information as part of their report. The Committee was informed that officers would ensure that specific information relating to violence against women and girls would be provided by officers and the police.

ACTION BY: Director of Public Safety

• A number of initiatives were being developed by the Council with its partners, officers were looking to assess the overall impact and then provide specific data to the Committee.
• In terms of including Ask Angela as a standard condition on all new licensing and variation applications, the Licensing Act forbade licensing authorities setting standard conditions for all licence applications as each application was required to be considered on its own merits, however the Council could look into having model conditions on every application that came through.
• Officers did carry out spot checks on those premises signed up to Ask Angela to determine whether it was being implemented in practice.
• In terms of educating people at a young age that was one of the things discussed at the last Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategic Board meeting and was a discussion point which would be high on the agenda for the annual event taking place in the autumn. This would involve looking at how behaviour change in young people could be delivered at as early an age as possible.
• With regards to the self-defence classes initiative put forward in the Cabinet Adviser on Reducing Violence and Abuse for Women and Girls report, the Police had committed to establishing a Strategic Partnership Board made up of Council Officers and the Police to take forward this initiative.
• With regards to whether there had been any  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

Report of the Executive Directors of Adults and Health, Children and Learning, Supporting Communities and Corporate Services 

This report focusses on the year 2023-24 using a broad range of measures from each directorate and division across the organisation. In this report, Camden Directors have been asked to provide a narrative covering key areas of challenge, opportunity, and learning.

This report is divided into two main sections:

·       An overview of key themes: a summary which highlights key responses from directorates and highlights particular cross-cutting themes  

·       A more detailed account of individual service responses across each of our three Directorates. 

Appendix A contains the data dashboard with key measures and data for 2023-24 from services across the Council.

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Directors of Supporting People, Supporting Communities and Corporate Services.

Officers agreed in response to a member’s query to provide an explanation relating to the dramatic drop in residual household waste per household from 406 in 2021/22 to 358 in 2022/23.

ACTION: Director of Environment and Sustainability

RESOLVED –

THAT the report be noted.

Report of the Executive Director Supporting Communities.

This paper provides an update on the work programme for the Committee for the 2024/25 municipal year and tracks actions from previous meetings.

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Director Supporting Communities.

Members discussed the work programme and suggested that the following items be moved:

·       Royal Mail to discuss issues with missing post-delivery in the borough to be considered at the November 2024 meeting.

·       Update on Response to Circular Economy Panel – this should be brought back to January 2025 meeting.

·       Update on Social Media Companies response towards Violence against Women and Girls (bring back to the October 2024 meeting)

Resolved:

That the report be noted

There was none.