Agenda item

The Chair welcomed Mayor Oliver Coppard to the meeting.

In response to questions from the Committee, the Mayor discussed the Safe Space to Sleep Programme (SSTSP). The MCA had recently approved an investment of £2.2m to guarantee a cot, bed or moses basket to children under 5 years old in the region. The MCA was working with national charity, Baby Basics who could provide further support where needed.

It was anticipated that this work would lead to further insight and support the case for a longer-term intervention in this area.

ACTION: The Mayor to provide further information to the Committee on:

·   Whether a new type of bed will be provided once a child is ready to transition to the next type (i.e. moses basket to cot).

·   Whether beds will be returned and re-used.

·   Whether families can reuse a bed if they have another child. 

·   Confirm how many families were expected to benefit from the scheme.

He noted that Local Authorities also had complementary schemes such as the baby packs which had recently been launched in Rotherham. Members expressed the hope that the other Local Authorities could learn from Rotherham’s experience and launch similar projects.

Members discussed the possibility of including the temperature cards which had been developed in Barnsley and gave guidance on the correct sleeping temperature for babies as well as dangerous temperatures around the home.

ACTION: The Mayor to contact the Chief Fire Officer, Barnsley Hospital and Baby Basics to look into providing temperature cards as part of the SSTSP.

ACTION: The Mayor to provide the local authority contacts for the SSTSP to Committee Members.

Members welcomed the MCA Board’s recent decision to progress to an external audit of the Bus Franchising Assessment. The Mayor confirmed that there was support for Franchising from across South Yorkshire, and that he felt that the work done by the MCA had demonstrated the benefit for the region.

The Mayor considered that the Year of Active Travel focused more on encouraging behaviour change and promoting how members of the public can travel more actively. He was intending to run in every Park Run in South Yorkshire and had recently attended a school in Hunters Bar with the Active Travel Commissioner to help children check their bikes. He had also met with officers from across the local authorities when they attended an event at the MCA to share their experiences and learn from each other. The Mayor added that he was also wanting to support more Park Runs and was planning to attend junior Park Runs with the Active Travel Commissioner.

In terms of further devolution, the Mayor confirmed that he currently had no plans to take on the Fire Service given the scale of transition currently taking place at the MCA. Whereas the Homes England Strategic Place Partnership fit in well with the MCA’s existing powers around housing. It was anticipated that this partnership would enable the MCA to work with developers to tackle challenging development sites.

The Mayor informed the Committee that if re-elected, he would look to appoint a Deputy Mayor to focus and lead on the Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) functions full time. This person would ultimately be accountable to the Mayor. He added that the Committee would have a role to play in scrutinising the PCC functions.

(The Mayor and Cllr Bacon left the meeting.)