A report of the Mayor had been circulated with the agenda.

The Chairman invited Members to indicate whether they wished to ask a question of the Mayor.  Councillors Bashir, Turmaine, Martins, Mauthoor, Bell and Fahmy indicated that they wished to ask questions.  Councillor Mills had initially indicated she wished to ask a question but later withdrew the request.

a)      Councillor Bashir noted that on 2 September the Watford Observer contained a report about Jimmy’s World going into liquidation, having £639,000 in debts, of which £101,000 was owed to Watford Borough Council in unpaid business rates.  He presumed this had accrued over a number of years.  However, local families might miss one payment and then council officers vigorously pursued them and threatened them with legal action.  He asked if it was incompetence or reckless neglect by the department.  He asked the Mayor for assurances that this situation would not happen again.

         The Mayor questioned whether the councillor had spoken to the department about collection arrangements.  He had not found out the lengths staff went to in order to collect unpaid business rates.  She informed council that there were people and companies out there who would exploit any loopholes.  It happened across the country.  She had decided that she wanted to take this issue up at a national level.  In the future the council would be more dependent on its business rates income and it would be imperative the council collected as much as possible.

         The Mayor commented that the service was gentler with residents.  If residents missed one payment the service would send a reminder.  It could happen to anyone.  The reminder helped to ensure residents did not get behind.  Officers tried to resolve any outstanding payments with residents, up to and beyond bailiffs being employed.  Residents needed to speak to the office and make an arrangement, however little they could afford to pay.  Business rates and Council Tax were two separate systems, but it was more favourable for residents.  The council was as hard as it could be with businesses.  If a company was declared bankrupt, then the council would receive nothing towards the debt.  The council had to keep pursuing the debt.

         The Mayor suggested that the Labour group should speak to Revenues and Benefits.  Councillors would realise the council had a high collection rate and it was a good service. 

b)      Councillor Turmaine referred to Watford Junction and the Southern Rail service.  He asked whether she had tweeted her support for the RMT or Southern Rail or discussed the situation with Mick Cash, who was a Watford resident and Chair of the RMT, about the behaviour of Southern Rail against its workers, who were trying to protect passenger safety. 

         The Mayor responded that she read Mick Cash’s emails.  She had not seen him for some time.  She stated that she could appreciate the workforce’s view but she could also appreciate the other side’s views.  However, she did have issues with Southern Rail and felt that it was badly managed.  She advised that she did not tweet gratuitously, particularly when it would not have much impact.  Instead she would try to meet people to discuss and put pressure on appropriately.  She had contacted the MP to discuss the situation, particularly the franchise and long term changes.

c)      Councillor Martins informed council that he had attended a meeting of the national Mental Health champions.  He explained that mental health continued to be a big problem; one in four people was likely to be affected in their life time.  Suicide, by people affected by mental health, was the highest cause of death in the 20 to 49 years old age range.  Finally housing related problems could put significant stress on residents.  He asked the Mayor if she would host an urgent meeting with all the relevant agencies in the town, enabling them to look at the situation, to see what could be done and thereby convince everyone the council was doing everything it could within its powers.

         The Mayor thanked Councillor Martins for being the council’s mental health champion.  It was important that someone stepped up to that role.  Even though it was not the council’s responsibility it did not mean that the council did not care.  Mental health was one of the health ‘spikes’ in the town, which was due to the range of services provided in Watford. 

         The Mayor said that she was very proud that Norman Lamb MP was leading on this subject nationally. 

         The Mayor added that it was only necessary to spend a day in the mayor’s office to realise the number of calls the team received which had mental health issues behind them.  It was a pervasive illness and affected people in many different ways.  With regard to ‘supporting people’ she noted Councillor Martins had spoken about housing.  There was concern about some of the cuts that were coming affecting supporting people.  The county council was concerned about the specialist housing provision that it may be able to provide in the future. 

         The Mayor advised that she regularly met with the Mental Health Trust and had a good relationship with them.  If it was felt that a meeting needed to be arranged, she was of the opinion it should be informed by all the councillors.  She was aware that councillors all came across this issue in their casework.  She felt it needed some focus.  She asked councillors to send her information, whether it was about the hospital, the police or people with mental health.  This would provide a strong focus to the meeting.  However she assured councillors that she did this already.  In her view people who got into the service were well looked after, but it was getting harder to get into the service.

d)      Councillor Mauthoor agreed with the Mayor about raising awareness of mental health in the borough and would like to take part in the meeting.

         Councillor Mauthoor said that with all the construction and developments happening in the High Street, which aimed to improve access to the town by public transport and bicycle, she asked if the council could give assurance that Watford taxi drivers would be given sufficient allocated spaces and ranks that are visible and accessible to members of the public.  She added that if this was not a borough issue, would the council ensure that Herts County Council would take all the necessary precautions to ensure that Watford taxi drivers were equally important and valued in the redevelopment projects in the High Street.

         The Mayor responded that every Chair of Licensing tried to make sure that there were as many ranks as possible for the trade.  There are occasions when spaces are allocated but not used.  More spaces have been brought back into use, for example the bay outside Barclays Bank can legally be used.  The council needed to balance all available spaces for all competing users.  For example blue badge holders could no longer park on the double yellow lines.  The Mayor added that the council regularly met the chair of the hackney trade.  She was not aware the trade had asked for ranks where the council had completely refused, unless there were valid reasons for the refusal.  However, she advised that if Councillor Mauthoor was aware of any specific issues she should let her know.

e)      Councillor Bell noted that a NHS report published the previous week confirmed that there was no new money for a new hospital.  He asked the Mayor whether she would agree that she had failed to get vital money for the hospital.  In addition he questioned why she was not demanding that the MP for Watford and the Conservative Government urgently prioritise funding for West Herts Health Trust.  Winter was nearly here and a crisis was looming.  The Labour Government had a plan in place and then the Coalition Government got rid of it.  The current Conservative Government was starving the service of much needed financial support at a critical time.

         The Mayor responded by asking the Labour group whether they had any proof that the former Labour Government had any plans for financial support for Watford.  She said that there was none.  The rules under the former Labour Government for hospitals to apply for funding were that they needed to have Foundation Trust status.  The local health trust was in such a mess it was nowhere near getting close to obtaining Foundation Trust status.  Every meeting she attended she was told that the Trust was getting closer.  The rules set out by the former Labour Government were sensible as it meant a hospital trust had to be in a reasonable financial and managerial state before they could apply for considerable borrowing.  The Mayor advised that each successive Chief Executive had confirmed to her that there were no plans.  She asked the councillors to stop repeating the same story as it was not true.

         The Mayor then referred to the question of whether she had failed in her role.  She commented that if it had been left to the Labour group there would not be a hospital in Watford.  The group had opposed all decisions relating to the site including the allotments and the road.  She stated that she knew the outcome as she read information and met people.  The Mayor said that her role was to make sure that when the plans had been finalised, the council had done nothing to jeopardise the acute hospital and acute services remaining in Watford.

f)       Councillor Fahmy said that he had attended his first Housing Policy Advisory Group in September.  He had been impressed by the work the housing team was doing and looking at innovative ways to resolve the housing problem in Watford.  He asked the Mayor to pass on his thanks for the service’s work.  He asked the Mayor if she would reaffirm her commitment to the council finding these new and innovative ways to deal with housing issues in this difficult time.

         The Mayor said that she was sure that all councillors in the chamber had some concerns about this matter.  The situation in housing was changing remarkably fast.  The staff had to not only keep their skills up to date but also have regard to changing legislation.  The Mayor referred to the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which was a private members’ bill currently progressing through Parliament.  If the private members’ bill was not passed, some of the details would be included in other legislation.  On the surface it would seem difficult not to agree with the bill.  The Government wanted local authorities to stop assessing people for priority and non-priority need.  The council would be required to take a longer period of time to work with people.  No one would disagree with it until the real impact was considered.  There would be additional people to those already eligible for support.  She knew that there was no available accommodation for them.  She reminded councillors that the council was looking to build further temporary accommodation.  All local authorities were struggling with this issue.  The impact of the legislation would mean that there would be more people after the same amount of accommodation available at present.  Alongside this was the decrease in social housing, which was a real problem.  The Mayor suggested that there should be a Members’ workshop to ensure that all councillors understood there was no grant for social housing.  Developers were saying they could not afford to include affordable housing within their schemes.  The Government had made it increasingly easy for developers not to provide social or affordable housing. 

         The Mayor said that it was important that there was a clear narrative about housing.   The administration was clear about it, but the ability to do something about social housing was limited.  She suggested that all councillors should work with their political parties to divert the worst of the impacts.  However the answer was that the council needed to provide more social housing, but the current government did not believe in social housing.