Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Civic Offices, Shute End, Wokingham RG40 1BN. View directions

Contact: Luciane Bowker  Democratic & Electoral Services Specialist

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies

To receive any apologies for absence.

Minutes:

There were no apologies for absence.

2.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 220 KB

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 9 March 2021.

 

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 9 March 2021 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

3.

Declaration of Interest

To receive any declarations of interest

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

4.

Public Question Time

To answer any public questions

 

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

 

The Council welcomes questions from members of the public about the work of this committee.

 

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Committee or an item which is on the Agenda for this meeting.  For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact the Democratic Services Section on the numbers given below or go to www.wokingham.gov.uk/publicquestions

Minutes:

There were no public questions.

5.

Member Question Time

To answer any member questions

Minutes:

There were no Member questions.

6.

Draft Statement of Gambling Principles pdf icon PDF 504 KB

To receive and consider a report containing the details of the draft Statement of Gambling Principles.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Draft Statement of Gambling Principles report was presented by David Lucas, Legal Consultant.

 

David Lucas made the following points:

 

·           Appendix A which contained the list of consultees was missing from the report, this would be rectified and inserted in the report;

·           Section 1.6 – Interested Parties, was updated, in particular in relation to business interests;

·           In relation to 1.9 Local risk assessments, it was recommended that local area profiles are not included as it was not a statutory requirement and it was onerous to keep it up to date;

·           Additional information was added to 2.5 Licensing conditions, in particular in relation to door supervisors at gambling premises;

·           A description of gambling facilities available for each type of premises was included in the policy;

·           It was suggested that the reference of no casino resolution be taken out.  There was no possibility of having a casino in the area because the Gambling Act did not allow it.  There were only a total of 16 casinos areas allowed in the whole of the UK, and those casinos areas had already been determined and it did not include Wokingham;

·           A section on small society lotteries was included as a new one;

·           The scheme of delegation was extended and updated.

 

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

 

·           Councillor Kerr asked how the consultation was going to be promoted.  She also asked for confirmation of who would be consulted, she was concerned that there was no mention of members of the public and elected Members in the consultee’s list;

·           Councillor Kerr stated that the policy was difficult to find on the website, and asked that this be made more easily accessible for the public;

·           Councillor Kerr was of the opinion that the Scheme of Delegations was not very clear and that the previous version was better laid out;

·           Councillor Kerr expressed concern in relation to the change in Section 1.6 Interested parties.  She stated that elected Members sometimes acted as representatives to interested parties and it was unhelpful that the draft stated that evidence of identity was going to be requested (differing from the current policy which explicitly allowed democratically elected councillors to make representations without evidence of being asked);

·           Councillor Kerr expressed concern in relation to 1.7 Information exchange in that it omitted information about people’s details being made public;

·           David Lucas stated that the Act provided a list of statutory consultees, as listed in the report.  However, this could be extended by the local authority;

·           Moira Fraser, Policy and Governance Officer stated that she would investigate a way to make the policy more accessible on the website.  In relation to the consultation, she stated that this was going to be advertised on the newspaper and the listed consultees would be contacted in writing.  There would be a link to the consultation on the PPP and Wokingham’s website. She agreed to extend the consultation as directed by the Committee;

·           David Lucas agreed to amend appendix C to make it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licence Fees Consultation Responses Report pdf icon PDF 267 KB

To receive and consider a report giving details in relation to Hackney Carriage and Private Hire License Fees.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Moira Fraser, Policy and Governance Officer presented the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licence Fees Consultation Responses report.

 

Moira Fraser stated that the report was in response to a request at the last meeting to find out what support had already been given to the taxi trade in relation to the pandemic.  The Committee had requested this information in order to make an informed decision in respect to any further subsidies.

 

Councillor Burgess stated that it was now known that 98 taxi drivers had received a Covid related grant.  This represented less than a third of total number of taxi drivers.  She continued to support the view that there should be no increase in fees this year due to the difficulties that had been faced during the period.  She pointed out that this subsidy would not be material to the Council’s budget but it would certainly be material to taxi drivers.

 

Councillor Burgess proposed that fees for private hire vehicles and hackney carriage vehicles be held at 2021 levels.  She was seconded by Councillor Kerr.

 

Councillor Kerr expressed concern that the report lacked the detail requested by the Committee.

 

Councillor Ferris stated that taxi drivers had seen a significant reduction in their income, and not all taxi drivers had received a grant.  He felt it was inappropriate to increase the fees at this time.

 

Councillor Kerr proposed to refund the fees to those that had already paid them.

 

Councillor Bowring was interested to know the cost of this proposal.  Julia O’Brien, Principal Officer Compliance and Enforcement state that the figure would be around £9k.

 

Upon being put the vote Members voted in favour of Councillor Burgess’ proposal.

 

RESOLVED That: The fees for private hire vehicles and hackney carriage vehicles will be held at 2021 levels and any fees already paid will be refunded.

8.

Forward Plan pdf icon PDF 299 KB

To consider the Committee’s Forward Plan report.

Minutes:

The Forward Plan for the Committee was considered and Members were invited to comment.

 

Members asked to be kept informed on the plans for the exit process from the PPP.

 

Councillor Bowring stated that the Committee was autonomous from the PPP and that it agreed its own policies independently from the other local authorities.