April cabinet meeting
Posted on Monday 13th April 2015
Newport City Council’s cabinet met earlier today (Monday) and topics for discussion included; a response to the Welsh Government’s White Paper on the future of local government, the council’s improvement plan for 2015/16, an update on general and operational risks to the council and potential future collaborative arrangements for Trading Standards.
Cabinet agreed an outline response to the White Paper titled Power to Local People. This sets out Welsh Government’s vision for the future of local government in Wales. The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) has set out a suggested response to these proposals and cabinet endorsed WLGA’s response. Full council will now review the council’s response when it meets later this month.
Cabinet also stressed that the public needs to be fully engaged during the process of local government reorganisation and will be asking Welsh Government for the results of its questionnaire on the topic.
Every year the council produces an Improvement Plan which enables the authority to evidence that it has discharged its duty to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement (Local Government Measure 2009).
Cabinet endorsed and approved the Improvement Plan for 2015/16.
The Improvement Plan identifies eight improvement objectives which the council will seek to demonstrate measurable improvement. These are:
- Supporting older people leaving hospital
- Ensuring people have the right social services to meet their needs
- City regeneration and development
- Supporting young people into education, employment or training
- Education attainment
- Helping children have the best start in life
- Increasing recycling and diverting waste from landfill
- Improving outcomes for youth justice
Quarterly reviews on progress towards these improvement objectives will be made to cabinet.
Newport Norse will carry out a review of the council’s commercial estate and cabinet requested that this review be carried out within six months to ensure the council is getting value for money.
Following the withdrawal of Caerphilly council to a Gwent-wide Trading Standards project, Newport City Council’s cabinet felt that this, along with a joint service having little benefit to Newport and its residents, meant that the council should not proceed with a Gwent Trading Standards project.
However, Newport City Council will continue to work with its neighbouring Gwent local authorities, collaborating around common processes, joint projects, IT solutions, cross-authorisation and service planning etc. and the council will continue to explore these, along with other opportunities for sharing certain resources, where appropriate.