September Leader's Report was up at the Full Council Meeting last Thursday - you can access it on CPOL here and/or even watch it all here...
... and here's the text below:
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Sept 2012
New initiatives picking up a pace
Summer may be coming to an end but Council staff are picking up the
pace on a number of new initiatives. We are putting in place ways to widen
access to Council meetings, change the way the Council does business and, this
week, the Council launched a new economic strategy for the
city.
On Friday 7 September we took the first steps in
changing the way the Council does business. At the Co-operative Edinburgh
Seminar, over 100 staff from the Council and third sector partners heard
Councillor Steve Reed, Leader of Lambeth Council give real life examples of the
pioneering work being done by his council. The seminar concluded with people
working together to identify how we can make this work in Edinburgh
By now, you’ll probably be aware of this week’s
significant legal developments in relation to the plans to build a new
Portobello
High School
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Webcasting
From 20 September you’ll be able to watch your
councillor debate at full Council meetings the issues that affect you and your
community live online. You’ll also be able to see archived full Council meetings
which will be available from two days after the end of the meeting until a month
after the original live webcast.
This is an important new communications tool that will
help us engage with all of you, both as residents and as Council staff. I want
to take a moment to thank the team who have worked hard to deliver the webcast
project on time.
You can find out more about our webcasts on the Council’s
website.
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Celebrating sporting achievements
On Sunday 16 September Sir Chris Hoy, the six-time gold
medalist, will be joined by fellow Olympic and Paralympic stars on an open-top
bus tour in the city centre, ending at the Assembly Rooms on George Street where
Sir Chris will receive the Freedom of the City
honorary award in a private ceremony.
This will be immediately followed by a civic reception,
hosted by the Lord Provost in honour of the athletes together with their coaches
and support staff, officials, plus some of the many volunteers who gave up their
time to make London 2012 such a success.
If you would like to celebrate our Olympic and
Paralympic stars, you can find more details of the route and timings on our website.
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Property Repairs
You still have six weeks left to make your views known
on options for a brand new service supporting homeowners to manage private
property repairs. We have already received more than 450 responses to our on-line
survey. It’s important that anyone with an interest in this issue, including
staff, takes part before the consultation closes on 31 October. To make sure the
consultation is as wide-ranging as possible, the Council is also carrying out
extensive meetings, focus groups and face to face briefings with a range of
individuals as well as local groups such as community councils and heritage
bodies.
These views will help to shape the new service, which
has at its heart the principle of owners taking primary responsibility for
managing their property repairs. I’m aware that this change in emphasis will not
be universally popular but it will mean home owners will be more in control of
their own home maintenance and the Council, as is the case in cities elsewhere
in the country, will only be used when attempts at self-management have failed.
It’s really important to stress that the emergency service, which responds where
there is a risk to public health or safety, is likely to be retained.
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Revised Governance
September’s full Council will consider a report
proposing changes to the way the Council does business.
These proposals would see a new Public Petitions Committee, a new Budget
Sub-Committee and a greatly strengthened Audit and Risk Committee. The way in
which committees work will also change to ensure that there is more time to talk
about the development of policy and strategy with public
input.
We are making these changes because we believe that
local groups and members of the public should be able to be far more involved in
Council decisions. More information will be on the Orb and Council website
shortly about the changes being made.
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Edinburgh Economic Strategy
The Council is calling on its public sector partners and
Edinburgh Edinburgh
The strategy’s three key targets for 2012–17 are to
support the creation and safeguarding of 20,000 jobs, to support £1.3 billion of
infrastructure investment in the city and to help 10,000 people into work or
learning.
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