Agenda and minutes

To identify items where resolutions may be moved to exclude the press and public.

Members to declare any interests they have in the business to be considered at the meeting.

To receive any questions or petitions from the public, or communications submitted by the Lord Mayor or the Chief Executive and to pass such resolutions thereon as the Council Procedure Rules permit and as may be deemed expedient.

(NOTE: There is a time limit of one hour for the above item of business.  In accordance with the arrangements published on the Council’s website, questions/petitions are required to be submitted in writing, to committee@sheffield.gov.uk, by 9.00 a.m. on Monday, 30th October. Questions/petitions submitted after the deadline will be asked at the meeting subject to the discretion of the Chair.)

That this Council:-

(a)      notes:-

(i)       its unanimous vote in September 2019 to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state, the first Council to do so;

(ii)       that East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Gaza are illegally occupied by Israel; and that Gaza has been subject to 16 years of blockade;

(iii)      that the Israeli government has been withholding essential resources from Gaza and what UN Experts have described as “destroying or damaging homes, hospitals, markets and UN Reliefs and Works Agency (UNRWA)” and that Amnesty International has “documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes”;

(iv)      that under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as certain acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” and that, under Article I, the UK has confirmed that genocide is a crime under international law which it undertakes to prevent and to punish;

(v)      the UK, at the UN Security Council on 18 October 2023, refused to vote for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza; and

(vi)      Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’tselem and the South African government recognise that the state of Israel is enacting a system of apartheid;

(b)      believes:-

(i)       all atrocities committed against civilians must be condemned and investigated;

(ii)       all forms of racism, including anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia have no place in our city and condemns any attacks on Palestinian, Jewish or Muslim people;

(iii)      Sir Keir Starmer was wrong to say, in an interview with LBC radio, that Israel “does have that right” to withhold food, water and electricity from Gaza, and he should apologise and retract this statement supporting collective punishment;

(iv)     all political leaders have a responsibility to try to prevent genocide; and

(v)      the only one way to secure peace between Israelis and Palestinians is for a just political settlement based on the end of the occupation of Palestinian territories and an end to what one UN Special Rapporteur has described as “apartheid practices”, and another has described “settler-colonialism” and “ethnic cleansing”;

(c)      regrets flying the Israeli flag from the Town Hall; and

(d)      therefore resolves to:-

(i)       call upon the UK Government to:-

(i)       call for an immediate ceasefire and to vote for this at the UN;

(ii)      cease all arms sales to Israel and end military aid for Israel; and

(iii)      call on Israel to resume negotiations with the Palestinians;

(ii)      request that the Chief Executive submits this Motion to the UK Government; and

(iii)      request that the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee consider whether the Council should join the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid.

6.1      Questions relating to urgent business – Council Procedure Rule 16.6(ii).

6.2      Questions relating to the discharge of the functions of the South Yorkshire Joint Authorities (under the provisions of Section 41 of the Local Government Act 1985) and of the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority – Council Procedure Rule 16.6(i).

6.3      Supplementary questions on written questions submitted at this meeting – Council Procedure Rule 16.4.

To approve a new politically proportionate scheme of seat allocations on the Council’s Committees following a change to the composition of the Council, in accordance with details to be circulated at the meeting.

A report of the Director of Policy and Democratic Engagement on the review of the allocation of seats on the Council’s Committees is published with this agenda.

That this Council:-

(a)      notes the campaign to make care experience a protected characteristic and the drive to extend Corporate Parenting beyond Children’s Social Care;

(b)      notes the Council has:-

(i)       developed a Voice and Influence Team which employs a group of Care Experienced Young People to deliver a range of consultation, training, and scrutiny activities to ensure the voice of Children in Care and Care Experienced Young People are central to service development and decision making;

(ii)       a “Staying Close” project to enable Care Leavers to enjoy enhanced support to independence;

(iii)      continued to support friendships and tackle loneliness with a programme of free activities and events;

(iv)      implemented a new Pathway Plan snapshot document; this enables Care Leavers to clearly see their agreed plan as they transition to independence;

(v)      developed a range of work experience, training and apprenticeship offers for Care Experienced young people; and

(vi)      provided a full Tenancy Ready Programme to prepare Care Experienced young people for managing their own accommodation and award priority status to Care Leavers;

(c)      believes:-

(i)       that despite the resilience of Care Experienced people, society too often does not take their needs into account;

(ii)       Care Experienced people often face discrimination and stigma across housing, health, education, relationships, employment and in the criminal justice system;

(iii)      as corporate parent, the Council has a responsibility to provide the best possible care and safeguard children who are looked after by us as an Authority;

(iv)      Councillors should be champions of our looked after children and young people and challenge the negative attitudes and prejudice that exist; and

(v)      the Public Sector Equality Duty requires public bodies, such as councils, to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation of people with protected characteristics; and

(d)      therefore resolves to request that the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee, as part of the forthcoming Equalities Framework, consider:-

(i)       introducing a requirement that, when making any policy decisions, the Council recognises Care Experienced people are a vulnerable group who face discrimination;

(ii)       treating care experience as if it were a Protected Characteristic so that future services and policies consider care experience through Equality Impact Assessments;

(iii)      putting the needs of vulnerable people at the heart of decision-making through co-production and collaboration; and

(iv)      calling upon all other bodies to adopt corporate parenting for children in care and care experienced people until such time as it may be introduced by legislation.

That this Council:-

(a)      notes with alarm the significant projected overspend of £8.4m due to a shortfall in DWP subsidy for our Housing Benefit bill, which has increased rapidly, and specifically:-

(i)       notes that £4.9m of this overspend is due to increased Council homeless placements in B&B’s and hotels, and reaffirms its support for increasing social housing stock, work on void performance, and working with partner organisations to expand available housing to relieve homelessness; and

(ii)       notes that £3.5m of this overspend is due to increased numbers of people using exempt Supported Accommodation (SA), which is not commissioned by the Council or regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), and notes that £2.6m of the overspend within supported accommodation is due to placements by a single provider, which has reportedly provided just one hour of support to residents per fortnight;

(b)      notes that:-

(i)       serious concerns have been raised around the quality of support provided in the unregulated Exempt SA sector, with a Select Committee report stating that “in the worst instances the system involves the exploitation of vulnerable people who should be receiving support, while unscrupulous providers make excessive profits by capitalising on loopholes […] all paid for by taxpayers through housing benefit”; and

(ii)       despite limited information due to a nationwide lack of regulation, similar concerns have been raised within Sheffield, with one former provider perpetrating “institutional financial abuse of residents”, and one large currently operating provider prosecuted for providing “unsafe and unsatisfactory accommodation”;

(c)      believes that quality SA is necessary to support residents and relieve the crisis in homeless provision, however, believes that low quality supported accommodation is seriously harmful to vulnerable people and detrimental to the Council’s finances;

(d)      notes incoming new Local Authority powers from the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act (subject to consultation), including:-

(i)       an obligation to develop a SA strategy; and

(ii)       a potential discretionary power to introduce a licensing scheme for exempt SA; and

(e)      therefore, resolves to ask the Housing Policy Committee to:-

(i)       engage with Government consultation and consider supporting the introduction of a SA licensing scheme in Sheffield;

(ii)       consider investigating whether the largest exempt accommodation providers are providing quality support for vulnerable people, and value for money for Sheffield taxpayers;

(iii)      consider whether to introduce a policy to require future tendered services to avoid referring into non-registered exempt supported accommodation where possible; and

(iv)      consider writing to the Government requesting reform to Housing Benefit subsidy regulations to remove this financial burden.

That this Council:-

(a)      notes that:-

(i)       under this Government, water companies have polluted waters and coastal waters across the country with filthy raw sewage;

(ii)       people are appalled by disgusting sewage discharges into our rivers and coastal waters;

(iii)      this Government has slashed the monitoring of water pollution, enforcement actions and prosecutions;

(iv)      in Parliament, Conservative MPs have consistently failed to support tougher measures to stop the sewage scandal;

(v)      in 2022, there were 1335 spills counted in Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency lasting for 7,161 hours; and the local Conservative MP, Miriam Cates, has voted against ending the sewage scandal; and

(vi)      sewage and pollution in our rivers and coastal waters harm wildlife, hurt the visitor economy and can cause illness;

(b)      believes that:-

(i)             the people of Sheffield are proud of our rivers and deserve high quality water standards;

(ii)      people using and enjoying our rivers and waterways – wild swimmers, anglers, walkers, kayakers – should not have to put up with sewage and pollution in our waters;

(iii)      volunteer ‘river ranger’ groups in Sheffield that monitor the health of our rivers do amazing work and deserve our praise and thanks;

(iv)      it is a sad state of affairs that citizens have felt compelled to take action themselves to monitor sewage and pollution in our water due to government inaction;

(v)      high profile campaigners like Feargal Sharkey and Paul Whitehouse have done excellent work to raise awareness about sewage in our rivers;

(vi)      we need mandatory monitoring of sewage outlets; automatic fines for sewage discharges, with tough penalties for water companies whose outlets do not have monitoring in place, and ambitious targets to cut illegal discharges through sewage outflows and clean up our rivers, streams, and seas once and for all; and

(vii)     Ofwat, the regulator, should be given the powers to ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses who are found to pump significant levels of raw sewage into our precious rivers, lakes and seas; and

(c)      resolves to ask the Government to:-

(i)       clean up our rivers and end the sewage scandal;

(ii)       make polluters pay and to work with the Environment Agency and our other partners to identify, monitor and report pollution; and

(iii)      hold Yorkshire Water to account to ensure they are investing in our water infrastructure and improving water quality.

To approve, with or without amendment, the recommendations in the report of the Chief Operating Officer, published with this agenda, seeking approval to the salary package for the new post of Director of People and Culture.

To consider any changes to the memberships and arrangements for meetings of Committees etc., delegated authority, and the appointment of representatives to serve on other bodies, which may be proposed at the meeting.