Meeting documents

Statement by Councillor Gitte Dawson to Council Executive 10-Jan-2007

"I had booked this slot to speak as I was sure I would want to comment on the answers you all gave to my question to you all - which I have of course only seen this morning. And good idea, too, because, although I asked all exec members separately, you have only allowed me one rather than nine supplementary questions!

Thank you for all your responses. You've all thought hard about what decisions specifically of a sustainability nature have been made in your respective areas, and it is great to see how many there are. That was not quite the point of the question, however. The point was whether for ROUTINE decisions made both by executive members and heads of service - decisions which are not themselves of a sustainable nature - you actually stop and ask yourselves: are there any sustainability aspects to this decision that I should be considering? I very much doubt it, and regret that I haven't had time to research your recent decisions.

As to supplementary questions, were I allowed to, I would ask the following.

Of Cllr Crossley: you say in your answer that the decision making template does ask decision-makers to consider sustainability. It actually doesn't. Yes, the word sustainability is mentioned - amongst some eight other subjects that you might have considered. But there is not the explicit reminder that the unanimous Council motion asked for. My question: will he reconsider this issue?

And will he also consider whether he really feels there has been a full Council-wide "sustainability awareness campaign"? Yet another core brief to staff has gone out without a mention ...

Cllr Haerberling mentioned that our Elderly People's homes we are building are all to BREAAM excellent standard. I would ask her to check on this - because I recall great frustration at planning committee precisely because they were NOT. The committee cannot insist on such high standards - only those responsible for Council projects can, and we look to them to do so.

And finally I would like to ask Cllr Sir Elgar Jenkins whether, in any Service Level Agreements he reaches with contractors, he insists that our Council's high sustainability requirements are also imbedded in those contracts?

I look forward to receiving Cllr Hanney's reply to my question about in-house catering: Has he considered whether this messy, waste-generating sachet arrangement we use for serving coffee and tea to both in-house meetings and visitors is really the most sustainable option?