Agenda and minutes

You are invited to declare any registerable and/or non-registerable interests in matters appearing on the agenda, and the nature of that interest.

You are also invited to disclose any dispensation in relation to any registerable and/or non-registerable interests that have been granted to you in respect of any matters appearing on the agenda.

Please complete the Declarations of Interests card available at the meeting and return it to the Democratic Services Officer before leaving the meeting.

Councillor C Burdis declared a non-registerable personal interest in item 6 - Review of the North Tyneside Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy (CAB111/20), as her son was a private hire driver for North Tyneside.

To confirm the minutes of the meetings held on 20 January 2020 (Ordinary meeting), 3 February and 10 February 2020 (Extraordinary meetings).

Resolved that the Minutes of the previous meetings held on 20 January 2020 (Ordinary meeting), 3 February and 10 February 2020 (Extraordinary meetings) be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

To receive a verbal report on the latest activities of the Young Mayor and Young Cabinet.

The Young Mayor reported on the following activities in which she and Young Cabinet Members and/or Youth Councillors had been involved:

·        Youth councillors had visited Gateshead last week to see the Knife Angel and watched a drama performance at the Sage.

·        Young cabinet member for Ready for Life Abigail Akinyemi and youth councillors had delivered donations of food, toiletries and children’s clothes to the New to UK project in North Shields which helped asylum seekers and refugees who were living in North Tyneside and they hoped to continue to support them in the future.

·        Some Youth councillors had attended the Council budget meeting last week.

·        Environment Group Members had agreed with the Environment Agency that the flood video should be completed in collaboration with other young people from the region. Northumberland and Newcastle Youth Councillors had already agreed to attend the meeting tomorrow. It was hoped that South Tyneside and Sunderland would also join the project.

·        Group members had met with staff from Newcastle University’s Dove Laboratories to discuss World Ocean day and were keen to be involved on Sunday 7 June on Longsands Beach. The group were helping with a variety of activities in this community event and continued the work being done around the environment and climate change.

·        The Young Mayor had attended the Holocaust Memorial Day event and had spoken about the theme of Standing Together as part of the presentations.

·        Deputy Young Mayor Kody had visited the Police and Crime Commissioner to talk about his role as North Tyneside’s Knife Crime Ambassador.

·        This year’s Regional Children in Care Council conference had been held at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland with over 100 professionals in attendance, where youth councillors had delivered workshops on mental health and post 18 support for leaving care.

·        The top four candidates from the first round of online voting in the Young Mayor elections had been confirmed. The final stage of paper ballot voting would take place in March with the announcement on 13 March.

The Young Mayor reported that this was her last Cabinet meeting and thanked everyone for making her feel very welcome; She had enjoyed her role as Young Mayor and would be staying on the Youth Council.

The Elected Mayor thanked the Young Mayor for her update and congratulated her and all the young people for their tremendous work over the last year. The Elected Mayor and her Cabinet were proud of Amelie as Young Mayor and welcomed her staying on as a youth councillor.

To consider a report seeking approval for the proposed admission arrangements for all Community Schools in North Tyneside for the 2021/2022 academic year including the co-ordinated admissions schemes.

Cabinet considered a report detailing the proposed admission arrangements for all Community Schools in North Tyneside for the 2021/2022 academic year, coordinated admissions schemes and the proposed catchment area changes.

All Local Authorities were required to formulate and consult on a scheme for each academic year for co-ordinating admission arrangements for all maintained schools within their area.  This requirement included maintained boarding schools but, excluded maintained special schools and maintained nursery schools.  Co-ordinated schemes were intended to simplify the admission process for parents whilst reducing the likelihood of any child being left without a school place.  Co-ordination established a mechanism that ensured that, as far as was practicable, every child living in a Local Authority (LA) area who had applied in the normal admissions round received one, and only one, offer of a school place on the same day.  While it was for each LA to decide the scheme that best suited its residents and its schools, authorities must ensure that they:

a)  complied with law and regulations, including all the process requirements; and

b)  did not disadvantage applications to their schools from families resident in other

      local authorities.

The Scheme applied to applications received from September 2020 for entry into maintained schools in September 2021.  The School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012 required the LA to exchange specified information on applications with neighbouring Authorities.

The purpose of the Scheme was to co-ordinate admissions into all mainstream maintained first and primary, middle and high schools in North Tyneside.  The Regulations also placed a duty on all local authorities to make arrangements within their Scheme for cross-Authority border co-ordination of admissions.  The Co-ordinated Admissions Schemes were attached as Appendices 1 and 2 to the report. 

All schools had to have an admission number for each ‘relevant age group’. This was defined in law as ‘an age group in which pupils were or would normally be admitted’ to the school in question. Admission Authorities of maintained schools must set admission numbers with regard to the capacity assessment for the school under the Regulations.  The Planned Admission Numbers were detailed in Appendix 3 to the report.

Pupils would be able to go to their preferred school unless there were more applications to that school than there were places available. If there were more applications than places available at a school, oversubscription criteria would be used to allocate places after any children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education, Health and Care Plan had been provided for where the Statement or the Education, Health and Care Plan named a specific school.  Admissions Policies for admission to North Tyneside Community Schools and Nurseries for which the Local Authority was the Admissions Authority were set out in Appendices 4 and 5 to the report.

Where a secondary school operated a sixth form and admitted pupils from other schools at age 16, for instance, an admission number would be required for Year 12 as well as for the  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB110/20

To consider a report seeking approval for the adoption of the revised North Tyneside Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy. 

A report was considered on the review of the North Tyneside Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy following an eight-week consultation on a draft policy.

The review of the Policy had taken into account the five principles of the North Tyneside Transport Strategy adopted by Cabinet on 8 May 2017, reflected the policies in the North Tyneside Local Plan and the recently adopted ‘An Ambition for North Tyneside – Regeneration Strategy’.

The consultation had included residents, local businesses, Elected Members and members of the trade.  89 responses to the consultation had been received and a summary of the responses were included in Appendix 2 to the report.  Taking into account the consultation responses the conclusions to all the questions asked were summarised at Appendix 3. 

The revised draft North Tyneside Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy was attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

The key points to note for the final proposed policy were:

·        The vehicle Standards had been updated to include the use of digital advertisements in vehicles and the permission of tinted windows where factory fitted as standard.

·        Driver Standards had been expanded to require drivers to sign up to the Disclosure and Barring Service Online Update Service.  This would give officers immediate access to a driver’s criminal record.  In addition, for some offences there had been an increase in time that a driver must be free from conviction before they could be licensed.

·        A new addition to the Policy was the introduction of a new licensing objective, which was to promote environmental sustainability.  This was particularly important following this Authority’s declaration of a Climate Emergency last year and the Authority’s aim to embed environmental sustainability in everything it did.  With this in mind the proposed Policy included for the first time, age standards for vehicles.

It was known from the responses received by the Authority to the consultation there were mixed views about the introduction of an age standard.  There were some concerns about the potential impact on the trade versus extremely strong support within the community for taking necessary action to tackle the climate emergency.  

The Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Engagement explained that following the formal consultation the Authority had received further views which were being taken into account. Recognising that there were tough decisions to be made the Authority’s proposed approach sought to balance these differing views. 

It was recommended that the age standard would be implemented as planned. However, it was now proposed that the commencement date for new licensed vehicles should be extended by a year from April 2021 to April 2022, and for existing licensed vehicles from April 2023 to April 2024.  This would ensure that the Authority would have a North Tyneside licensed fleet that it was proud of, and one that contributed to the actions the Authority was taking to tackle the climate emergency.         

Cabinet considered the following decision options: to accept the recommendations set out in paragraph 1.2 of the report, or alternatively,  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB111/20

To consider a report seeking approval for North Tyneside Council’s new Policy on CCTV.

Cabinet considered a report which sought approval for a new North Tyneside Council Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) Policy.

The Authority operated a number of closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems which were used in areas such as council buildings, public spaces, and on its refuse collection vehicles.  It also monitored systems deployed by other parties such as schools, Northumbria Police and Nexus under service level agreements or contract arrangements.

These CCTV system installations were operated in line with extensive statutory requirements and associated guidance to ensure that the need for public protection was balanced against the need to respect the right of privacy for individuals. Although not a statutory requirement, the Authority had developed a CCTV policy which was attached at Appendix 1 to the report. 

The proposal to introduce this policy, which would govern the use of the Authority’s CCTV systems was aimed at adding further rigour to the manner in which they were managed and to provide assurance of compliance with relevant legislation and the accompanying statutory codes of practice.  The policy only covered the use of CCTV systems that were deployed overtly.  The Authority did not routinely use CCTV systems covertly.  Such use was strictly controlled by surveillance legislation ‘the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000’, and was subject to a specific policy which had been approved by Cabinet and was regularly reviewed.  As well as preventing and detecting crime, having visible CCTV systems in public spaces also enhanced feelings of safety for residents and communities. Ensuring places were safe was a priority of the Elected Mayor.  This was also a priority of the Safer North Tyneside Community Safety Partnership where promoting feelings of safety amongst communities was one of the key aims of its Community Safety Strategy 2019-2024.

In 2018, the Residents’ Survey had indicated that 89% of people in North Tyneside felt safe in their local area during the day but fewer residents, 55%, reported feeling safe after dark. The Authority had since upgraded its static public space CCTV and had opened a new control room.  Also, a new mobile CCTV vehicle had been introduced along with more CCTV cameras which were capable of being redeployed to tackle identified hotspots for antisocial behaviour and environmental crime.  This improved CCTV capability was playing a vital role in assisting the additional officer capacity which included new community protection wardens and an environmental rapid response team.

CCTV systems were surveillance systems and their use was subject to a range of legislative controls which enabled organisations to use them lawfully. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 introduced the provision to appoint a Surveillance Camera Commissioner (SCC) with the power to develop and introduce a Code of Practice focussing on the use of surveillance camera systems.  The role of the SCC was to encourage compliance with the Code of Practice, review how the Code was working on the ground and provide advice to Ministers on whether or not future amendments to the Code were required.  At present the SCC had no enforcement  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB112/20

Monday, 30 March 2020 at 6.00pm.

6.00pm on Monday 30 March 2020.

Minutes published on Thursday 27 February 2020.