The Leader of the Council,
Councillor Colin Smith, attended the meeting to respond to
questions from the Committee. Councillor
Smith gave a brief introduction highlighting the following
issues:
- The
Leader was proud of the performance of the Council over the past
four years.
- During the course of
the last Council, the Borough had gone through
unprecedented times.
- The
strength of the residents of the Borough as a
whole was remarkable with a number of residents stepping up
to fulfil voluntary roles.
- In
addition, departments across the Council had continued to deliver
strong performances with a number of
initiatives being nationally recognised.
The
Leader then responded to questions, making the following
comments:
- Moving
forward there would be increasing pressure on budgets and the role
of the voluntary sector would be crucial. As yet, the impact of commuters returning to central
London was unclear, but it was important to maintain the interest
in and ethos of supporting the community and it was believed that the steps and measures put in
place by the Council would be sufficient.
- The
last two years had delivered learning around agile and flexible
working and the view was that some form of split between
office-based and agile working was beneficial. Through the
offer of flexible/agile working the Council had been able to
attract candidates to positions that had previously been hard to
fill. In addition, it had been possible for the Council to
retain more permanent staff and this had
provided continuity for services. Any decisions around agile
working would come before Members early in the new 2022-2026
administration.
- There
would be a single point of contact for any Member queries regarding
support for Ukrainian Refugees coming to the Borough. Members
would be notified as soon as these arrangements had been
confirmed.
- With
respect to supporting refugees arriving from the Ukraine, the
Council remained in contact with the Government and as policy was
updated the information on the Council’s website would be
updated. The Council would be responsible for undertaking
checks on safeguarding arrangements and the accommodation offered
by sponsor families.
- The
funding being provided by the Government
will be used to ensure that the infrastructure was in place to
facilitate the necessary checks. Families coming in would be
required to register with the Government and provide notification
of their destination in the UK. The Government would
then instruct local authorities to carry out the checks.
Members noted that processes needed to be expedited and there was a
clear coordinating role for the Council. This was likely to
be labour intensive. Policies would evolve and improve
overtime and all Members would be kept informed of the changes via
a weekly email as well as updates to the website. The
Chairman suggested that it may be helpful for a briefing providing
answers to frequently asked questions to be circulated to all
Members.
- It was
agreed that it would be beneficial to enable incoming refugees to
make contact with existing Bromley
residents who spoke Russian and Ukrainian as this may help with
feelings of isolation. It was noted that there was a Facebook
group for Russian speakers in Bromley and details of this group
would be circulated to Members.
- A few
years ago, Bromley had been found to have one of the best waste
systems in London. Policy continued to be reviewed and evolve
and with an increasing number of people working from home more
waste was being produced and this is something that the Council
would look to address.
- By
proven measurements, Bromley had amongst the best air quality
levels in London.
- The
issue of electric vehicle charging points was being overseen by the
Environment and Community Services PDS Committee. There was a
need to roll out electric vehicle charging points where they were
needed and required with the situation evolving very quickly.
Developments around hybrid charging points afforded further
opportunities.
The
Committee thanked the Leader for his update.