Agenda and minutes

There were no disclosable pecuniary interests.

a)  To agree the Minutes of the previous meeting held on the 17^th of July 2025.

b)  Matters arising.

The minutes of the meeting held on 17^th July 2025 were agreed and signed as a true record.

There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Law and Governance and the Director of City Services.

The Board considered a briefing note and presentation from the Director of Law and Governance and the Director of City Services that updated the Board on the Councils fly-tipping performance in 2024-25

Officers explained that following an item at their meeting on 24th of October 2024, the Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board (4) requested a further progress item on fly-tipping performance.

The presentation given by officers covers the following information:

·  Workload

·  Performance 2024/25

·  Additional Resources

·  Partnership Working

·  Projects

·  Impact of increased fines

·  Future plans for Street Enforcement

·  Ball Hill Pilot

·  Suburban Shopping Sites

Officer particularly noted that due to increased funding from the government they had been able to expand the number of teams they had running and ensure rapid response to any fly-tipping reports. They further emphasised that despite this increased effectiveness they relied on the public reporting incidents, particularly to catch perpetrators. There is an ongoing focus on spreading awareness and ensuring public participation.

In considering the briefing note, the Board questioned officers, received responses, and discussed matters as summarised below:

·  That mandatory courses to explain the legality and impact of fly-tipping would not be a replacement for fines and other enforcement action but instead are to introduce a greater level of proportionality for low level offences as there had been an increase in the amount fined.

·  That if mandatory courses for low level fly-tipping offences are introduced, they will be conducted by existing council officers not contracted out.

·  That selective licensing amount businesses were fined were legislated nationally and by the Cabinet Member and therefore could not be changed by officers.

·  That dummy cameras are not currently being considered by the council as it reduced the overall integrity of the system and could lead to public outcry if crimes were committed in front of dummy cameras.

·  Offenders were not financially able to pay their fines, takin them to court was not usually an efficient way of recouping the costs as it cost the council to prosecute and usually resulted in a conditional discharge.

·  Social housing providers were given 21 days to remove fly tipping following reports and as this was a covered by national legislation.

·  Installing more camera compatible lamp posts was being considered but was costly and time consuming.

·  Although cameras are effective at catching fly tippers and as a deterrent, the limited number and relatively small covered afforded by individual cameras meant waste could be dumped out of view of cameras.

·  That the regulator for social housing is for tenants and not for private landlords, these were instead dealt with and prosecuted by fly-tipping officers.

·  That the installation of LED street lighting could not be used to upgrade lamp posts to be used to install CCTV cameras as this would be prohibitively expensive and the upgrades are primarily on the heads of the lamp posts so would improve CCTV access.

·  Efforts are being made to ensure private land owners are cleaning up and paying for the clean-up of their own waste, but this relies heavily  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44.

Briefing Note of the Director of City Services.

The Board considered a briefing note and presentation from the Director of City Services that provided an update on the LED upgrading of PFI Streetlights – citywide.

Officers explained how inn January 2025 Council approved the upgrading of up to 29,500 streetlights to LED at a cost of £10.2m. The timeline presented in the report was:

The following delivery programme was agreed by ward:

The programme saw the inner urban wards upgraded first and because they had lower number of streetlights it allowed the upgrade of approximately 5 wards by the end of May 2026.

The rollout was based on reversing the order the part-night switch off was implemented but also taking into consideration maintenance schedules, mixture of traffic & residential routes and impact of weather. For example, Kenilworth Road that can only be done in the summer as the ground needs to be hard due to the wide grass verge, therefore this was brought forward to Summer 2026.

There were also several streets that were removed from the ward sequence due to planned scheme works. These streets were moved to the end of the programme to allow for changes in the highway to be accommodated.

The final number of streetlights being upgraded as part of the LED upgrade was 28,847. The remaining 653 (of the original 29,500) would be picked up as part of on-going scheme works.

* In St Michaels ward, the streetlights outside the ring road were be started in November. The streetlights inside the ring road were to stay on, a high proportion were already LED and the complexity of working inside the ring road means these were to be done through the first year of the upgrade.

Once the streetlights are upgraded to LED the proposal was that they were to operate on the following profiles:

·  Residential: On at 60% and dim to 30% at 10pm until switch-off

·  Traffic: On at 70%, dim to 50% at 10pm and dim further to 30% at 12am until switch-off

The dimming of the streetlights was to allow the Council to regain the £700k savings lost from reversing the part night switch off but still keeping the lights on overnight.

The reversal of the part night streetlight was to be achieved due to a decrease in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45.

Report of the Director of Adults and Housing.

The Board considered a briefing note and presentation from the Director of Law and Governance and the Director of City Services that introduced the proposed changes to the Councils Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) process.

Local authorities were required to implement SWEP in line with national guidance at times of severe weather.

In Coventry SWEP was triggered when

1)  Temperatures are at a ‘feels like’ 0c’ or

2)  A yellow weather warning

SWEP was used by lots of people unknown to the rough sleeping service, people who haven’t been found rough sleeping either before or after SWEP. Therefore, there were to be changes as to how SWEP was to operate in 2025/26.

Officers in particular noted that 30% of those referred to SWEP did not turn up to their arranged accommodation, furthermore, most rough sleepers took up the offer of shelter but not the support. Coventry was an outlier compared to local and national averages, so efforts had been made to amend this.

The council is therefore to move to a tiered approach. Tier one applied when weather was below zero, support would be offered to pre identified lists of clients who were particularly vulnerable the cold. Tier two would apply when the weather was zero or below for three consecutive nights or when the met office issued an amber alert. In this case the eligibility is widened, and referrals are invited in for a SWEP assessment, outside of this, clients can call EDT and are offered a place to sleep providing they present to services the next day.

In considering the briefing note, the Board questioned officers, received responses, and discussed matters as summarised below:

·  That the change to two tiers does not mean people would not be able to access rough sleeping accommodation if they asked for/needed it.

·  That the Councils Outreach Team performed daily and extensive trips to assess and log rough sleeping, this combined with data going back six years gave the council an extensive and comprehensive breakdown of rough sleepers in Coventry.

·  That the council used its extensive knowledge of rough sleepers in Coventry to invite those at-risk using SWEP.

·  That the 30% of rough sleepers not attending their booked accommodation cost the Council a significant amount and the tier system was designed to rectify that.

·  That it would not be harder for rough sleepers to find accommodation with the council but there were now some requirements for engagement and recording of these rough sleepers.

·  As many participants failed to give any additional information officers suspected previously some users of SWEP had alternate accommodation options but preferred to use SWEP.

·  That the changes to SWEP were not aimed at cost cutting and instead about prioritising service onto those that will use it and need it most.

·  That hotels and Bed and breakfasts were rarely used as accommodation but when they were, if the rough sleeper did not attend after booking the Council would still have to foot the bill.

·  That there were a suspected 72  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46.

Report of the Director of Law and Governance.

RESOLVED that the Scrutiny Board’s Work Programme for 2025/26 be noted.

The Board also requested that future meetings have no more than 3 items on the agenda due to time limitation and requested the following items be added to the work programme:

·  A further annual report on fly-tipping listing the annual report performance numbers.

·  A follow up report updating the Board on the annual statistics of SWEP before May.

·  Noted that the Renters Reform Bill be scheduled as the only item for December, however arising from discussion at the meeting members agree that a further item on selective licensing be considered at that meeting.

There were no items of public business.