No questions had been received at the time of publication of the agenda.

Two public questions had been received subsequent to the agenda being published,  as follows:  Both were put by Dr Barrett:

Question 1:  

 As a South Weald resident, I have only one representative on this Council. Residents of other wards have two or three. In the Borough of Brentwood the number of electors per councillor is also far from consistent with variations of over 370 electors per councillor across the wards. Could the Leaders of the Groups on the Council please offer their preferred proposals to address this imbalance in representation?

Cllr Mrs McKinlay responded as follows:

The decision in terms of how the wards are made up within the borough is actually a decision that is taken by the Boundary Commission. 

You are right that it is based on the number of heads and voters within that area however, I have been informed and indeed have jointly had conversations with them that in order to review it, there needs to be a minimum of 30% of the wards who are experiencing a discrepancy in between what the figure should be versus what it is and under the current arrangements, it does not  meet the criteria to review those numbers.

I should also stress and take the opportunity to say that certainly on this side of the Chamber, we have for some time now been talking about reducing the number of councillors and this would be one way in which we could deal with this but again, conversations with the Electoral Boundary Commission have proven very difficult and until we can overcome them we are as it is with the status quo currently as it is.

Cllr Aspinell responded as follows:

No surprise, I hold an alternative view and so does the group this side of the Chamber.  We believe that there should not be a reduction in councillors because we know how hard working most of them are and to do our best is best served with the amount of councillors that we’ve currently got in Pilgrims Hatch, which is the sort of level that you need under the requirements. 

There is quite a strong case that Brentwood North and Brentwood West are over subscribed so to speak.

I look forward to the future to increase those numbers to the District Plan and things like that and you could actually increase the numbers of councillors in the South Weald area by making some boundary changes or re-jigging of that.  We have undertaken that process here in the past and I objected to it at that time and I am not going to go back on that, so I look forward to when we can have decent representatives  in this town and that can only be done if you have got enough councillors to do that.

Putting too much burden on one or two people will get a bad service and you will not get the dedication that is currently given.

Cllr Barrett responded as follows:

The Labour Group believe that a more equitable system is possible, based on wards of equal representation in terms of number of Councillors. Brentwood's odd hybrid system with some residents voting three years out of four, some two years out of four and some one year out of four instinctively feels unreflective of fair democratic accountability.

Whilst we would await proposals on the appropriateness of any option from the Boundary Commission before firmly committing to a new structure we believe either single member or dual member wards to be the most effective level of representation and accountability.

We understand the current discrepancies are not large enough to trigger an automatic review of boundaries, but would encourage a request to be made at the earliest opportunity with an consensus agreement on the appropriate number of Councillors in total.' 

Question 2:

South Essex Parking Partnership has recently changed the method of paying for residents and visitor permits across Brentwood. This move to a virtual system is almost impossible for those with limited internet capabilities to use, with many residents not even being informed of this change. Can the Leader of the Council please confirm Brentwood Borough Council’s position on this and their involvement in this decision?

Cllr Mrs McKinlay responded as follows:

 I welcome the question, not least because there has been quite a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation on this item.  I do actually have Councillor Cloke here tonight who has done a lot of work in terms of raw facts and the background to this.

Cllr Cloke responded as follows:

I have got some additional information here and to be honest, I thought it would be good for the general public to know, because up until 2 weeks ago, I was not aware  of what was happening.

To start off with and just to give you some background, contrary to the letter section in the Gazette today, South Essex Parking Partnership has nothing to do with Essex County Council and if residents have experienced problems in them taking accountability, this is the reason why.

The Mi-permit system introduction to Brentwood was agreed and approved long before I took over as a BBC representative to SEPP.

I was totally unaware of the impending introduction of the system, as it was never mentioned to me.

Having done some urgent research further to a telephone call from a resident of Brentwood North last week, I can state that the Mi-permit system was originally trialled in Chelmsford  from May 2014 and was well received.  A decision to launch the system at the SEPP meeting was made on 15 July 2014.  The representative from Brentwood was Councillor David Kendell substituting for Councillor John Newberry.

The decision was agreed and approved as shown in item 8 of the minutes, they also state  that it would be the responsibility of the Joint Committee member to keep Members fully informed and obviously, this did not happen.

Whilst the system is biased towards digital methods, SEPP is still approachable in the normal way and scaremongering that it is only accessible  by digital  methods is not acceptable.

Letters about the Mi-permit system were only sent to those holding annual permits as only their details were listed but I have  copies of both the letter and the guidance which I will make available to Members as soon as possible.

The BBC website on this should be improved so that PDF downloads can be made available and to clarify applications can still be made by telephone.

I personally think it would be better for relevant documents to be made available through local papers.