Minutes:
The Chairman informed Council that he would be using his discretion under rule 13.4 of the Council’s Rules of Procedure to allow Group Leaders more than the allotted 5 minutes when discussing the budget.
The Chairman also proposed that the Council waived standing order 4.2(a) of the Council Procedure Rules to extend the time allowed for the length of the meeting, in the event that proceedings took longer than two and a half hours.
Resolved:
That the proposal be approved.
The Chairman informed the Council he had two further announcements to make.
Firstly the Chairman was delighted to confirm that the Council had been successful in achieving two national awards from the Keep Britain Tidy Group.
The first award was for Environmental Campaign of the Year for “Operation Stop It” to combat fly-tipping. Working with partners, the Council had achieved a 22% fall in fly tipping, which was more than 3,000 fewer incidents, at a time when many other parts of the country had been increasing. Not only had this been done through tough enforcement, often using cameras to catch the culprits, but the Council’s teams had also been promoting educational messages about duty of care for disposing of waste properly.
The second award was the prestigious Local Authority of the Year. This award recognised not only the hard work of staff in keeping towns and villages as clean as possible, which were over twice better than national averages, but also the wide range of community based initiatives from Big Spring Clean, which started the following week, to the Green Move Out for students to Northumbria in Bloom.
Teamwork had been the key to success with both awards and representatives from Clean and Green, Communications and Marketing, Recycling Officers, Ecology, Neighbourhood Wardens and Civic Pride were present. The Chairman presented each representative with certificates to mark these awards so they could be proudly displayed at each of the Council’s depots and main offices.
Secondly, the Chairman informed Council that the Council currently employed around 30 Business Administration apprentices, who ultimately went on to find jobs either within the Council or elsewhere in the local community. The aim was to equip them with a full range of well-developed employability skills and experiences to best prepare them for the world of work.
The Council had been fortunate enough to successfully bid for funding to support this ambition; allowing groups of apprentices to look at and experience Local Government service provision in another European country.
Because of local contacts through the Council’s International Relations team and the prevalence of English language skills among many colleagues over there, the Council chose to work with the Gothenburg area of Sweden. The grant money allowed two groups of five apprentices to each undertake a two-week work placement in the Swedish Local Authority in September 2015 and October 2016.
The ten young people were able to experience first-hand a new country and culture. In all cases, their experiences provided essential evidence for the vocational NVQ qualification which the young people were studying towards as part of their apprenticeship.
The project was deemed successful and met all of its target objectives. The Chairman was pleased to report that a further funding bid had been submitted to extend this work for another two years. This time, the apprentices would be going to Tübingen, one of the Council’s German partner areas.
The Chairman hoped that Members, Chief Officers and guests had a chance to speak with some of the apprentices who proved to be such fantastic ambassadors for the County Council and also County Durham as they arrived for the meeting this morning.