Agenda item

To question the Leader and/or Executive Members in respect of any matter within their portfolio responsibility, in accordance with Standing Order B11.

Members were invited to question the Leader or Executive Members. Questions were received from the floor from the following Members, and replied to as indicated:

Questions to Cllr Lomas, Executive Member for Finance, Performance, Major Projects and Equalities

From Cllr Widdowson: Can you outline how over 5000 primary school children will be given free school meals for the three years for £300,000, when that equates to 10p a meal?

Response: The funding in the forecast table represented £100,000 per year required to continue to deliver free school meals at Westfield Primary School. We will continue to fund those free school meals regardless of what else happens with our wider plans to deliver free school meals to all children at primary schools in York.I am always happy to answer questions on it.

Supplementary from Cllr Healey: Are you saying that if you don’t achieve enough funding to roll this out across the city it will only be kept for one free lunches in Westfield and one breakfast club in Clifton?

Response: We have committed to continuing to fund what we have begun to fund through council funding regardless of what happens with the other funding that we are seeking externally to roll this out across the city.  We’ve been really honest with people that free school meals for every child at primary school in York is not something that the council can pay for. That was the position we had taken since before our election, that we would mobilize the city to provide free school meals for all primary children, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Supplementary from Cllr Ayre: On your pledge, where on the leaflet are the words mobilise the city?

Response: It doesn’t change what is actually happening, which is us delivering on our pledges.

From Cllr Healey: On 24 October Cllr Pavlovic issued a statement to the Press stating that the Salvation Army could not legally be given a further extension. Can he give us an explanation for this divergence of fact.

Response from Cllr Pavlovic: That doesn’t fall within my portfolio it’s Cllr Lomas. I’ll direct the response to her.

Response from Cllr Lomas: The Salvation Army contract was extended by a way of waiver from the procurement regulations in February 2023, and a six-month extension was given at that point. Your administration made that decision. What should have happened at that point was there should have been a process of re-procurement of the contract. When we took over the council the contract was coming to an end and the advice we received was that another waiver would be inadvisable, so we decided to add a very short extension to allow a transition out of the contract. We have followed on from the work that the old liberal democrat administration did do in moving to a more comprehensive service for people who are homeless in the city, and we are very happy to talk to you on the plans we have to build on that, and to massively improve the service for people who face homelessness in our city. We believe that procurement rules are important and that we should be doing things in a fair, open and transparent way.

Supplementary from Cllr Smalley: I’ve got the email that was sent to the Press where I quote ‘the council’s legal position was that the contract couldn’t be extended again therefore it had to end’ so can you just answer the question, which is why release that inaccurate statement?  Rachel Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, was quoted by the BBC news saying that she urged the council to reconsider its decision. What representation has Rachel Maskell made to you and the Leader urging you to reconsider the decision?

Response: I have explained that the short additional extension was made to manage the transfer out of the contract.The York Central MP has never spoken to me about this contract. I am aware that statements have been made by all sorts of people publicly about this contract. If anyone wants to ask me about it, I am more than happy to discuss it.

Supplementary from Cllr Crawshaw: Point of clarity, isn’t the reality that the contract ended in February 2023 so the procurement process should have begun a good six months or more prior to the end of that lengthy contract, rather than needing a six-month extension from February 2023?

Response: You are quite right, lengthy contracts need planning towards the end of them. It would have needed to be a minimum of six months prior to the end of the contract that the procurement process started. We inherited a contract that had already gone over its length and had already been subject of a waiver.

Questions to Cllr Kilbane, Executive Member for Economy and Transport.

From Cllr Rose: How and when do people provide input into the Local Transport Strategy and Local Transport Plan?

Response: The Local Transport Plan consultation has been launched today. It’s up on the council’s website, it’s featured in York Press and it includes an interactive map that you can fill in and indicate on that map where the difficulties are for you traveling around the city. I would urge you all to make sure that your residents are aware of it and encourage them to contribute to it because eventually that plan will be formed by the information intelligence that we gather from residents. The consultation closes on 4 February 2024.

Supplementary from Cllr Merrett: The newly elected Mayor for York and North Yorkshire, once elected, will take on responsibilities for transport planning and certain other transport functions, can you clarify what responsibilities in the transport sphere they will be responsible for and how they sit alongside our own residual responsibilities as a council?

Response: The most important part is deciding what the key route network is and that is yet to be decided amongst the combined authority. The Mayor should behave sensibly and responsibly and that Mayor will need to respond to the wishes of the city as expressed through the council and also through our input to the combine authority. Negotiations are going on and as soon as we’ve got more information we’ll happily share with all members.