Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Gurjit Bains and Cllr Gurdip Bungar; Cllr Frank Wardle and Cllr John Caller appeared as their respective substitutes.

The minutes of the meeting of Overview Scrutiny Committee held on Thursday, 9 June 2022 were signed by the Chair.

Cllr Jordan Meade declared an ‘other interest’ in item 5 as he was the Chair of Gravesham’s Street Pastors Group.

The Committee were presented with the topic review report for the Street Cleanliness, Littering, and Fly-tipping throughout the Borough. It was recommended that Members approved the topic review report at appendix one and agree to its submission to Cabinet for further consideration.

The Chair of the Scrutiny Topic Review, Cllr Baljit Hayre, outlined the key points from the report and explained the following:

• In September 2019, the Overview Scrutiny Committee selected the subject of Street Cleanliness, Littering, and Fly-tipping for a topic review.
• The start of the topic review was delayed due to Covid -19, which meant the Street Cleansing and Enforcement Team had developed significantly since the beginning of the topic review.

The review commenced at the start of 2022, where three recommendations have been proposed as a result. Cllr Hayre guided Members through each of the groups three recommendations which were listed below:

1. Introduction of a business scheme similar to Street Champions

2. Roll out the digital version of Duty of Care Training

3. Funding for Days of Action Programme

The Committee gave their thanks to the Officers who had dedicated their time and effort to the topic review.

The Chair also asked that the Committee’s thanks be passed to the Street Cleansing Team for their hard work.

The Assistant Director (Operations) fielded questions from members and explained the following:

• Regarding The Days of Action Programme, there was a funding gap of about £5,000 per each Borough Council in Kent Council. This can be covered through existing budgets.
• Regarding the high attendance rate for the digital Duty of Care Training in 2020, the Waste Team reached out and engaged with many local businesses to increase the take up which neighbouring local authorities didn’t. There were no statistics for uptake of the training since the original training session as it hadn’t been rolled out to businesses yet. Statistics on attendance to future training sessions will be made available to Members
• After a question about the Business litter picking scheme, the Assistant Director (Operations) states that a trial scheme could be created, and businesses engaged to see if they would be willing to join the scheme and pick up rubbish outside their shops which if successful, could be progressed further. There were a number of responsible business owners in the Borough, and it was likely that a large number already picked up rubbish outside their businesses of their own accord
• A proposal was being drafted for lockers to be given to the Street Cleansing and Waste Teams; a location for those lockers had been identified. The previously broken shower had been repaired and was now suitable for staff use.
• With regard to Youth Council involvement in the local environment, they were invited to a meeting of the Climate Change Advisory Board last year and made some excellent contributions to the meeting. The Waste Projects Officer and the Communications Manager had been in contact with local schools and delivered presentations on the environment/litter etc. Further contact and meetings have been had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

No call ins.

The Chair advised that there weren’t any calls in as the majority of reports that went to the previous meeting of Cabinet were largely for information only. The Chair was keen to call in the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and had received assurances that in the near future another report on the UKSPF would be submitted to Cabinet with recommendations.