Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Theresa Debono and Marian Spall.

Councillor David Poyser substituted for Councillor Marian Spall.

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)     Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b) Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

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 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the Environment and Regeneration Scrutiny Committee meeting on 11 January 2016 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them subject to the following amendments:

·         In relation to Minute 11 - Solar Panel Report, Councillor Heather had asked if the council would be willing to offer advice to groups interested in putting solar panels on private roofs and the Director, Public Realm, had responded that the council would be willing to provide advice.

·         In relation to Minute 10 – Recycling, Councillor Poyser had reported a bin that had been overflowing in Hillrise ward (just outside the pilot area).

There were no public questions.

There was no chair’s report.

RESOLVED:

This item was deferred as the officer was unable to attend the meeting.

Sally Millett, Head of ICT Strategy and Transformation gave witness evidence. In the presentation and discussion the following points were made:

·         Smart Cities meant many things to many people. Smart cities was about having Smart and Connected Communities.

·         The growth in local populations, the increase in visitor numbers and commuters meant that all urban areas faced a broad range of problems ranging from traffic management to pollution to rising energy costs.

·         Pressure on council resources and increasing demand for public services meant that there was a need to redesign services and technology was a significant enabler in service transformation and improvement.

·         Homes, buildings and spaces would become significantly more intelligent. 1.6 billion connected things would be used by Smart Cities in 2016. This was a 39% increase on 2015.

·         Conceptually the possibilities associated with “Smart Cities” were endless and it provided one of the answers to enable the council to do more with less especially as urban data and technology could be used to make places healthier, safer and more efficient for citizens, businesses and visitors.

·         To be successful a Smart City required a focus on the citizens living in it and the challenges they faced.

·         Connecting interlocking smart technologies was complex and exploiting the opportunities associated with making open non-personal, non-commercial data sets available for innovative purposes required careful and realistic consideration of issues such as information management, protection and security.

·         Islington’s digital strategy included four strands: 1) Digital Collaboration which involved data sharing; 2) Digital Place which was how citizens were involved in a digital way; 3) Digital Customers and 4) Digital Workforce.

·         There were many technological advances that would happen in the short, medium and long term future. These technological advances would drive Smart Cities.

·         Considering a global perspective, India and China had infrastructure based plans, Singapore had the ‘World’s First Smart Nation Programme and Beijing’s new 2025-2050 master plan based crowd funding community projects focussed on the everyday needs and challenges residents faced.

·         Considering a national perspective, Milton Keynes was using smart technology in infrastructure and parking/traffic management, Glasgow was building a new university and had a Smart Campus,  Bristol and Birmingham were working on infrastructure and open data, Manchester had done Smart Cities work in sustainability, EU partnering and funding and Leeds had a Data City Partnership.

·         In London, the Greater London Authority had the Smart London Plan and was looking to share data with communities.

·         London had a £100m annual fund for Smart Cities.

·         Future Cities Catapult was a not for profit organisation working with digital communities across the UK to drive innovation and accelerate growth for the UK’s digital economy. This represented £1bn funding over next 5 years.

·         There were opportunities to collaborate with the private sector.

·         IT Vendors such as Cisco, BT and Arquiva were involved in Smart Cities work.

·         The latest thinking on Smart Cites was that it addressed urban challenges by using digital technologies to engage and enable citizens, however it could be too concerned with hardware and technology and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

A member suggested that there could be a recommendation about a co-operative being set up. The chair advised that the council would be unable to set this up and it would have to be led by a community group. Officers confirmed that to date no groups had approached the council but if they did, the council was willing to provide advice. It was considered that Recommendation 7 covered this.

RESOLVED:

That the final report be agreed and submitted to the Executive.

RESOLVED:

1)That a visit to the CCTV control room at 222 Upper Street be arranged.

2) That an additional session on Smart Cities witness evidence be held.

3) That tenants and Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs) be invited to the next meeting to contribute to the CCTV scrutiny.

4) That the work programme be noted subject to the above amendments.