Page 32 - Phonebox Magazine June 2010

Mercury Report - Newport Pagnell
Town Council Meeting of Monday 10 May 2010
Public participation
Although no member of the public spoke at this point, a letter was read out. Iris Leary’s work in Brooklands and the town in general had been recognised at the recent Town Meeting by her being presented with the Annual Town Award. This letter conveyed her thanks.
Election of Chair and Vice Chair
It being election time, a new Council Chair and Vice Chair were to be selected. In Newport Pagnell, the Chair is also the Town Mayor.
The current Chair, Roger Hornblow, asked for nominations for the role. Alan Richards and Ian Carman were both proposed and seconded. Councillors wished to take a closed vote, so pieces of paper were handed round, initialled by each Councillor with their preferred candidate, folded, passed back and counted. All that done, Ian Carman was elected as Chair, donned the Mayoral chains and swapped places with Roger.
Ian said that he’d do his utmost to uphold the good name of Newport Pagnell Town Council (NPTC), and expressed his formal thanks to Roger for his work over the last two years. Roger reciprocated, thanking Councillors for the great support they had given him.
Ian then asked for nominations for Vice Chair. Wendy Egan and John Smith were put forward and, in another closed vote, Wendy was elected Vice Chair.
Other appointments
The Council considered who should be appointed as its representatives on Outside Bodies, that being a Council term for non- Council organisations such as the Youth Club and Christmas Lights Group. These appointments stayed much as last year with the exception that, by convention, the new Chair and Vice Chair were appointed to the Milton Keynes (MK) Association of Urban Parishes and MK Association of Local Councils. The Council then considered appointments to its own committees, these staying roughly the same as last year.
Until the recent changes, there’d been a Policy and Finance Committee. In the new framework adopted last month, there are separate Governance and Finance Committees both reporting to full Council. The Governance Committee’s remit includes policy management, compliance and handling audits, while that of the Finance Committee includes personnel, risk management and evaluation of performance against value-for-money criteria.
Roger Hornblow proposed that this structure be changed, with the Governance Committee becoming a sub-committee of the Finance Committee. He felt there might often be conflict between policy and financial matters and that, in order to stop the results of this being presented to full Council to deal with, it would be better to place one Committee under the other, thus allowing such problems to be solved at Committee level.
Euan Henderson preferred that the new framework be allowed to bed in before making changes. In particular, he noted that Councillors had opted for Committee membership based on a certain committee structure and that, as such, the choice would need to be reopened. He also felt that the proposal would change the Finance- Governance balance. Ian Carman agreed, noting that the new framework already has a review process built in.
After further discussion on this issue and, more generally, on how Councillors’ views on the new framework could be collected and pooled, Councillors decided that Roger’s proposal would not be adopted, but that a folder be created into which Councillors could pool their views.
Youth Services
Rob Ward, Youth Services officer for MK, had been invited in order to explain the movement of resources from the rural areas to MK town centre. Noting that he understood the Council’s concerns, he explained that there’d be one senior worker overseeing Olney and Newport Pagnell Youth Clubs and that, particularly as he had a long standing association with Newport Pagnell, he wanted to ensure that services at the two Youth Clubs were not reduced.
Rob explained that the changes are in part the product of a major restructuring in MK Council’s Children and Young People’s Services and the resulting targeting of resources. Most of Newport Pagnell’s youth provision is universal, aimed at young people whose life is reasonably good and who wish to make best use of their leisure time. Until now the local workers have provided two nights a week at Newport Pagnell Youth Club, one open and one closed, some work with Ousedale School and a new Downs Barn Youth Club. Under the new staffing arrangement, the two sessions and the work with the School will still be provided, but the Downs Barn Club will not be handled by the senior worker overseeing Olney and Newport Pagnell, thus reducing workload. Rob assured the Council that sufficient staff
would be available to work across the area and that the services within Olney and Newport Pagnell would still be staffed adequately – e.g. five workers for an open night at Newport Pagnell Youth Club, which can attract around 70 people. He concluded his main talk by stating that he was still committed to both Youth Clubs and to maintaining the same level of service for them.
This provoked questions from Councillors, a summary of which is reported here. Simon Baines felt that resourcing was being reduced in the town, that this was not a good idea and that a consequence of this resource move away from rural areas might be that, if the Council wanted more resources, it would have to pay for them. Ian Carman stated that the Council provided funding to the Youth Club and that he was ‘appalled’ at the lack of consultation, it being ‘not a good thing’. Rob apologised for this, also noting that even as MK is growing, Youth Services has received no additional funding. He stated that Newport Pagnell infact receives a disproportionate share of the available resources, there being around 1500 teens in the town compared with around 4500 in MK’s Western Flank which was struggling for Youth Services facilities. The new youth provision at the Point was attracting more than twice as many as that in any other area, drawing a range of young people from the Western Flank, the Eastern Flank (also struggling for facilities) and even Newport Pagnell itself.
The discussion concluded with Councillors offering to help Rob with fighting for resource, he having noted that, bearing in mind the current climate, ‘future budget settlements will be interesting, and we’ll not be left out of that’.
Middleton Pool
Roger Hornblow reported that the works at the pool were ‘just about there’, the foreman due to depart in a couple of days. Ian Carman noted that the job looked very well done.
Council meetings are held bi-monthly, the next meeting being at 8.00pm on Monday 12th July in the Council Chamber, 80 High Street, Newport Pagnell. Members of the public are always welcome to attend and, if they wish, speak at the start of the meeting.
Mercury thanks the Town Clerk and Councillors for providing additional background on some of the items above. Further information, including minutes of meetings, can be found at http://www.newport-pagnell.org.uk.
32 Phonebox Magazine