A period of up to 15 minutes is allocated for the asking and answering of questions. This may be extended at the discretion of the Chairman with the agreement of the majority of those present.
To deal with any questions on notice from Members of the Council, in the order in which they have been received.
Minutes:
Question Submitted by Councillor P. M. McDonald
“Now that it would seem the Government is seeking a softer Brexit does the Leader feel that would be in the interest of Bromsgrove residents?”
The Leader responded that there was still a great deal of work to be done on the Brexit negotiations before anyone would be clear as to the impact. However, as Leader he assured Members that he would be watching the negotiations with interest to ensure that any impact on Bromsgrove could be managed and mitigated wherever possible.
Question submitted by Councillor M. Thompson
“During the General Election campaign I spoke to many postal voters who did not receive their voting slip in time to vote. In addition, it was well publicised that many Bromsgrove based voters were given polling cards with addresses ending in Redditch putting many people off voting.
Does the Leader agree with me that shared services have gone too far when mistakes are made that rob the people of Bromsgrove of their democratic right to vote? Wil he confirm how many people could not note because of errors caused by his party’s cost-cutting and what he intends to do to ensure this never happens again?”
The Leader responded that in terms of the error in the supplementary poll cards, it was important that Members appreciated that all of the addresses of electors and their polling stations were correct; the error was that the constituency was printed incorrectly. As soon as this error was discovered the Elections manager issued a press release and contacted all election agents to advise them and the Elections Manager had apologised. Officers were in discussion with the software provider into how this error had happened and would be implementing further checks to ensure it did not happen again. However, it should have been picked up by officers in the proof read; it was not and the Election Manager apologised for this.
In respect of postal voting the Leader advised that in Bromsgrove Constituency nearly 13,000 postal votes were sent out to electors, this was via Royal mail Business Advance in conjunction with Royal Mail Postal Voting Team. This was done in two tranches with our officers travelling to Slough (which was where the postal votes were printed) to quality check the issues and wait to see the votes being loaded on the Royal Mail vans. Out of the Postal Votes issued 87% were returned by close of poll on Election Day. Over 300 were also received which had been delivered to the Polling Stations.
The Leader provided details of the process when a Postal Vote was either lost or had not been received, explaining that under legislation, a replacement could only be issued from four working days before Polling Day up until 5.00 pm on Polling day. It was confirmed that 46 packs were re-issued with not more than 3 re-issues in any one polling district; this is monitored by officers to ensure that there ae no area based issues that need to be investigated. It was unfortunately inevitable given the stringent rules surrounding the Postal Vote system that some people fall foul of the deadlines, which unfortunately officers can do nothing about as they are bound by the strict legislative timetable.
The Elections Manager was not aware of any person who had been denied an opportunity to vote for reasons that cannot be fully justified and the Elections Team worked hard to ensure that every person who is entitled to vote could do so. Any identified administrative errors with the Registers could be rectified by the Elections Team on the day of the election and he was not aware of any instances where there was an outstanding issue that had not been explained and fully justified.
The Leader confirmed that there were no instances where the shared service had resulted in people being disenfranchised and the problems occurred because of circumstances quite outside of the control of the officers who administered the system. The Elections Team worked extremely hard to ensure that the Register was as clean as it could be and that every single person who was entitled to vote could. Work was carried out throughout the year with residential care homes, schools and public events for example to promote the registration process and if any Member has any concerns about any elector and their voting status the Elections Team were always happy to help resolve things.
Question submitted by Councillor C. J. Bloore
“In light of further closures of the M5 bringing misery to local residents and sleepless nights. Would the Leader agree with me it’s time the County Council held Highways England to accountable for a project that has overrun significantly and join me in calling for an investigation into the project to ensure public money isn’t being wasted and to regain public trust?”
The Leader responded that he understood the concerns raised in relation to the impact on local residents over a significant period due to the works carried out along the M5 by Highways England and confirmed that the relevant officers were in regular contact with Highways England and adjacent authorities in connection with this matter. Specifically, he was advised that the West Midland and Shires Traffic Manager's Group have met with Highways England and expressed their discontent with the number and extent of road closures on their network. This group was currently scrutinising HE network closure approval process. Whilst we cannot prevent these road closures, Highway England do have a duty to liaise and consult with us and we have tried to mitigate the impact and reduced their requests in this way. We will continue to scrutinise their processes to ensure minimum disruption for residents in Bromsgrove. The works on the M5 are now almost complete with no further closures for this project expected after mid - June. However, I will ask the new Cabinet Member for Highways at County Council to look at whether there is any more we can do to try to influence Highways England future plans.
Questions submitted by Councillor C. Hotham
“Questions on notice are an excellent democratic tool enabling Members to question the Executive on issues of importance. However, at Bromsgrove District Council no follow up question is permitted whilst at Worcestershire County Council a follow up is allowed. The follow up question is often essential in order to clarify an obscure answer. Please could the Leader explain the reasoning behind this democratic deficit?”
The Leader responded by reminding Members that at Council in June 2012 they considered a report that detailed a number of proposed amendments to the Constitution. A proposed recommendation was put forward that would remove the practice of allowing supplementary questions from Section 9.8 of the Council Procedure Rules that would bring the Council’s practice in line with that of Parliament.