DERBY CITY COUNCIL

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Derby City Council signed a petition calling on the authority to cut its carbon emissions by a quarter within five years. The Derby Campaign against Climate Change started the petition to coincide with the premiere screening of an environmental film. Councillor Chris Williamson attended the show and said he was so shocked that he felt he had no option but to sign up. He has instructed council officers to look at how cuts could be achieved.

He said he hoped the council could significantly reduce its carbon emissions by taking simple steps like using energy-efficient light bulbs and switching lights off where not needed, and swap council vehicles for more energy-efficient alternatives. It will be interesting to see if anybody attending a council or committee meeting at the Council House will be travelling there by car or by bus. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Nov/06)

Derby City Council plans to increase car park charges and close public toilets and tennis courts in a bid to control its council tax. The costs of tickets and hiring at the city's Assembly Rooms is also being increased in a bid to limit the tax rise to below the rate of inflation. Council leader Chris Williamson said the proposals are reasonable and part of good housekeeping by the city and added, "We have tried to identify those areas of the council's activities that people are not utilising. It would seem silly to keep those facilities open." Funding for the annual summer concerts in Derby's Market Place is also set to be cut from £11,500 to £3,500, as part of the city council's draft proposals for its 2006-7 budget. (Source: BBC News, Jan/06)

People with overgrown hedges face bills of up to £2,000 for trimming them down to size. Under "nuisance neighbour" laws, local councils must reduce the size of the hedges, but they can only trim a third at a time in case the plant dies. The result, said Baroness Gardner of Parkes, is three separate bills of up to £650 each instead of a one-off fee. Lord Bassam, for the government, said the law was "working".

The rules on hedges, part of the 2003 Anti-Social Behaviour Act, which came into effect in 2005, allow councils to intervene in disputes over high hedges which block out light. But they cannot "remove", or kill, the hedge, or cut it to below two metres in height. Baroness Gardner said there was no part of the act which allowed councils to charge an overall amount before reducing it "in stages", rather than charging separately each time it was trimmed.

She added, "Councils are naturally frightened that they will be liable if a hedge dies, because they have been told that if it dies that is the same as removing it." Lord Bassam said it was best to reduce the height "in phases, according to the growing season". It was also "up to the local authority" to set its own fees. He added that the government had an "armed snatch squad of inspectors touring up and down the country" looking for Leylandii Cypress, some of the fastest-growing hedges. (Source: BBC News)

Derby City Council was left red-faced after personal information about 34 pupils with attendance and behavioural problems appeared on it's website. A document for a meeting of the School Admissions Forum was also circulated by post and contained a full list of all the pupils who have taken part in the city council's managed moves scheme in the last 12 months. The scheme involves the transfer of pupils in danger of exclusion from their existing school to another which might help to sort out their problems.

The council may now be forced to answer for its actions at an official level after parents said they would be taking the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, which oversees the implementation of the Data Protection Act. The list gave the full name of the pupil, both schools involved, parental response to the transfer and the number of fixed exclusion days and the attendance rate for each child following their transfers.

There was also a column detailing whether or not parents had been fined if their child had skipped school. One parents with children on the list said she intended to ask how such a mistake could have happened and said, "I know my son is no angel, but I don't like the idea of his details being available for everyone to see." Another said she was horrified that people could read that a fixed penalty notice had been issued to her family.

A council spokesman said, "We withdrew the item from the website immediately we became aware of the situation and are endeavouring to recall the documents which have been sent out. The list was mistakenly included and shouldn't have been made public. We deeply regret this." A spokeswoman for the ICO said that if anyone made an official complaint about the situation it would be investigated to see if there had been a breach of the Data Protection Act. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

The City Council is to use a debt collection agency in order to recover overdue library books. The agency will target people ignoring reminder letters asking them to return reading material and other items. The new policy is being introduced to try and recover more than £30,000 worth of books, CDs and DVDs which go missing each year. The council also wants to recover unpaid library fines and will negotiate a payment plan with people with financial difficulties.

Councillor Hardyal Dhindsa said it may be tough but it is a necessary course of action to stop people keeping books. He said, "Even with the system in place we will notify offenders with two letters requesting them to return the books and work out some financial arrangements for repaying the debt. If that fails I think it is a duty on us as managing tax-payers funds that we retrieve money which is owed."

Borrowers who have ignored reminder letters about overdue books, and other items, could end up with bailiffs knocking at the door, and even find themselves in court. The council, which is responsible for 12 libraries, estimates that it loses £50,000 every year due to people not returning items or not paying their fines.

A spokesman for the council said, "We want to get all these things back so that other people can borrow them and we want the people who have overdue items to be able to use the library again. We expect to get back thousands of pounds a year in fines and materials that would otherwise be lost to our libraries." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

The city council is to review a social services contract which in October 2003, council leader Chris Williamson described as an "astonishing" waste of council tax payers' money. The two-year contract, with care firm Vitalise, provides holidays for severely disabled people in the city. The deal, which was signed by the previous Lib Dem/Tory council, will cost £781,000 in the first year.

Labour claimed the new contract was five times more expensive for day care and twice as expensive for short breaks than the old contract. Mr Williamson said, "I've asked my cabinet members to review all areas of expenditure. Clearly this is one of those which will be looked at very closely." He added that contractural obligations had to be considered, which probably means we're stuck with it.