The Committee considered a report of the Strategic Director (Development) and Deputy Chief Executive, which set out the responses to a conversation and engagement exercise to support the development of a refreshed City Centre Transport Strategy. The report also described the proposed next steps in developing an updated transport strategy for the City Centre taking account of the plans for growth.

The Head of City Policy referred to the main points and themes within the report, which included:-

·                The rationale as to why it was necessary to review the City Centre Transport Strategy;

·                Highlights from the responses to the engagement exercise which included, but was not limited to:-

·                     A total of 3700 responses had been received;

·                     90% of respondents identified air quality as an important issue;

·                     80% agreed that improving cycling, walking and public transport infrastructure would be the best way to improve air quality;

·                     Congestion and traffic was identified as one of the biggest problems when travelling into and around the city centre;

·                     Expanding the public transport network, cheaper and discounted travel and more frequent and reliable services were highlighted as being needed to encourage more people to use public transport to access the city centre;

·                     Deansgate was highlighted as the main street in the city centre that had too little space for pedestrians; and

·                Next steps, which involved the production of a draft strategy document for consultation that drew on the responses and identified specific schemes that would be needed to support future growth.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committees discussions were:-

·                How representative were the findings of the engagement exercise in terms of the demographics of the city;

·                A Member felt that the issue with the space available on Deansgate was more to do with the volume of pedestrians rather than the physical width of the pavements;

·                There was concern about proposals to take traffic out of the city centre and the impact this could have on Wards on the periphery of the city centre;

·                There was concern that the pedestrianisation of roads could lead to increase in ground rents on local businesses;

·                There was concern that proposed alterations to networks were not being built with cyclists being taken into account;

·                How robust was the data collected from the survey of daily trips into the city centre in morning peak periods and did this data take into account journeys of those people who already lived in the city centre

·                A Ward by Ward breakdown of the consultation was requested for Committee Members; and

·                How was this strategy going to align with other emerging strategies;

The Leader acknowledged the need to consider the impact in areas surrounding the city centre and referenced that the report had identified that it would be important to consider the complementary measures required in areas surrounding the centre to ensure that any transport impacts that arose from the continuing growth of the city centre were effectively managed.  The Executive Member for Highways, Planning and Transport added that the Council was reviewing parking within the city centre and the impact of parking on the periphery of the city centre and agreed to share the findings of this with Members.

The Committee was advised that the main differences of the sample used in the engagement exercise compared to the representative of the city was a slight gender in-balance of responses from men compared to women and respondents aged 25-54 were overrepresented whereas respondents over 65 were underrepresented.  Aside from this, the representation of the responses to the engagement exercise was expected.

The Leader commented that rent levels tended to sit alongside the economic success of the city and there was evidence that if undertaken in the right way, pedestrianisation often improved access to businesses.  He also added that over the next planning period the dominant form of transport in the city centre should be walking.

The Head of City Policy advised that the survey of daily trips into the city centre in morning peak periods had been undertaken for a number of years now and was a consistent data set, which looked at all the crossing points of the inner ring road.  He added that this strategy was seen as a sub strategy of the 2040 Transport Strategy, which the Council was working alongside TFGM and Salford City Council on its development. The next stage would be to develop specific schemes and proposals.

Decision

The Committee:-

(1)       Notes the report and in particular the responses received to the City Centre Transport Strategy conversation and the proposed next steps in the development of a draft strategy document;

(2)       Welcomes the offer from the Executive Member for Highways, Planning and Transport to share the findings of the review of parking within the city centre and the impact of parking on the periphery of the city centre with Committee Members;

(3)       Requests that Officers provide a ward breakdown of the consultation responses with the relevant Ward Members; and

(4)       Agrees to receive a further report prior to the draft document for consultation being considered by the Executive.

The Group considered a report of the City Treasurer which provided information on the key performance indicators for the delivery of social value, which included who decided what the KPIs should be for social value in any given contract, how was the Council ensuring consistency across the organisation and whether there was there central resource that co-ordinated this.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:-

·                Central to the Council’s approach was ensuring that social value and its monitoring was explicitly covered at all stages of procurement, including the commissioning and pre-tender stages, tender, contract implementation, and contract monitoring;

·                The Integrated Commissioning team had taken stock of the use of Social Value KPIs in new and existing (including old) contracts, with particular focus on identifying good practice;

·                It was commissioners / contract managers who proposed what the KPIs should be for social value in any given contract, and the relevant Strategic Director (or delegated authority) who approved it;

·                The Council promoted consistency through governance and guidance in the shape of toolkits, templates and sharing best practice;

·                Individual departments were responsible for ensuring that there were robust KPIs in contracts;

·                Where contracts predated the introduction of social value there was mixed picture of suitable KPIs being in place; and

·                Currently there was no benchmarking across the Council as there was no common position on what appropriate level of social value should be based on contract value as each contract was done on a case by case basis, tailored to circumstance.

Some of the key points that arose from the Group’s discussion were:-

·                Had there been any work to develop informal best practice sharing across directorates;

·                How did the Council monitor contractors to ensure that they were adhering to the social value requirements of the contract;

·                Did the Council monitor how many of “Our Children” achieved employment opportunities across all Council contracts;

·                How was the Council monitoring the underlying structural change that the Council was looking to achieve from the delivery of social value;

·                Had any consideration been given to linking social value in kind received from small value contracts into the Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund or Community and Voluntary Sector; and

·                Why were there no KPI’s for the Housing and Residential Growth contract relating to Grove Village.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning advised that work was being undertaken around developing the understanding and experience of deriving social value amongst teams and services. There were also proposals to set up a practitioner network to allow individuals to share information and collaborate on ideas.  The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources added that best practice that was being shared across departments was also challenged by senior officers that sat on the SMT Social Value Group, as this provided a better understanding of what worked and also provided for learning opportunities for where improvements could be made.  It was also reported that Officers were looking at how suppliers who were looking for a social value partners could be joined up with the voluntary and community sector in order to deliver social value.

The Group was advised that in terms of monitoring contractors, this was built into each contract management arrangement, the methods of which would vary amongst contracts as to exactly how this was monitored, but would usually take place on a monthly basis.  An example was given as to how the Capital Programmes team monitored and tracked apprentices being employed on Manchester City Council contracts through the North West Construction Hub.  In terms of monitoring the opportunities for ‘Our Children’, the Head of Integrated Commissioning commented that ‘Our Children’ were a priority category in terms employment opportunities and although she didn’t have figures available, she advised that it would be possible to undertake an exercise to analyse this across contracts.

In terms of monitoring the underlying structural change that social value was to bring about, it was explained that this would happen over time.  The Head of Corporate Procurement sited an example of how this was happening with Barclays bank, who were providing financial guidance to Manchester care leavers and also providing opportunities for 15 Manchester young people from hard-to-reach groups to gain meaningful employment with one of their partners.  It was also explained that suppliers needed to be informed of what was expected of them in terms of delivering social value prior to the submission of tenders.  Reassurance was given that the majority of new contracts being awarded now covered these requirements and Strategic Directors were taking a more active role in monitoring the social value element of contracts within their Directorates.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources noted the suggestion of linking social value in kind from small value contracts into the Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund or Community and Voluntary Sector and agreed that this could be considered as there was a need to think imaginatively as to how social value could be delivered from small contracts.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning advised that there was a challenge in changing existing large contracts to deliver social value, with Grove Village being an example of this.  Officers with responsibility for monitoring this contract were aware of the need to improve the delivery of social value from this contract and would be looking at achieving this at each break point within the length of the contract.

Decision

The Group notes the report