To receive reports about and receive questions and answers on the business of any joint arrangements or external organisations.
Minutes:
i. Mr Baines –
Rutland Water Partnership – 12 January 2018
Nothing to report.
Rural Community Council – 17 January 2018
Building in Loughborough Road Leicester has been sold, will be temporary lease in leics, please to say first meeting will be at Ashwell Enterprise Park. Also winding up of Rutland Community Spirit event in Victoria Hall and Mr Baines wanted to record his thanks and appreciation for all the good work that had been done.
Environment Agency Northern Region – 19 January 2018
Precept was set at 1% increase. Newly appointed Flood Defence Officer for Leicestershire was pleased to offer any help that she could to Rutland.
Annual Meeting of the Leicester University Court
Recently appointed Chair – Professor Ian Gillespie, gave a presentation on working with Leicestershire Local Enterprise Partnership on entrepreneurialism, asked if could extend to Rutland and subsequently the Chief Executive has arranged a meeting. This year marks the centenary of the foundation of Leicester College and there will be a meeting on 11 April 2018 with the intention of setting up a fund for modest grants available for residents of Rutland, in order to mark the centenary.
ii. Miss Waller – East Midlands Councils
Miss Waller had attended the EMC Employment Board and the EMC Refugee Group and had provided a summary of both of those meetings to Councillors and was happy to answer any questions from members.
iii. Mr Foster – Armed Forces Champion
Text of Mr Foster’s Update printed below:
I am delighted as your Armed Forces Champion to update you on our progress during 2017.
Last year was a busy year for our Armed Forces community in Rutland and for us as a Council in supporting them.
The Poachers, 2nd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment, left Kendrew Barrack for Cyprus and were replaced by The Tigers, 1st Battalion, The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, in preparation for which the earlier part of 2017, a significant amount of officer time was deployed in an engagement visit to Cyprus to support this transition. This involved closely working with families to plan school placements and health requirements as well as a full spectrum of local area information.
The final squadron of 1 Military Working Dog also returned from Germany in 2017, uniting for the first time the whole regiment at St George's Barracks. The Council also supported this move.
We launched our Armed Forces Discount Scheme in 2017 and this has proved very popular with Armed Forces Personnel, and the businesses offering the discount. Over 40 business are supporting the scheme already, offering a wide range of discounts and I thank them most warmly for their support of our Service Family.
Last summer the Council co-sponsored a Symposium with Rutland Health Watch. The objective was to bring organisations together to review specifically how we support Veterans in the County. The event was well attended and, after a full debate updating all the various viewpoints across the county, led to the setting up of a working group to develop a bid for funding from the national Armed Forces' Covenant Fund, more of which later......!
Importantly, December 2017 saw us re-signing to emphasise our ongoing, wholehearted and fulsome commitment to the Armed Forces' Community Covenant. We have widened the signatories to reflect all of our regiments and the broad range of organisations that support our pledge to the entire Armed Forces Community.
On 3rd September 2017 I was proud for the first time to participate in the raising of the Red Ensign in Rutland marking the contribution made by the Merchant Navy in times of war and conflict.
Once again we supported: Armed Forces Flag Raising Day; the Armistice Two Minutes Silence and the Oakham Remembrance Service and Parade.
So what will 2018 bring?
We will extend the Armed Forces Discount Scheme to Rutland Veterans.
We will work to increase the number of businesses supporting the scheme.
We will support the various activities planned to commemorate the 1918 anniversaries.
Last month I represented RCC at the Annual Covenant in the Community Conference, attended and addressed by Minister of State Tobias Ellwood and AVM Gary Tunnicliffe, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff for Personnel Capability {who used to work for me in the 1990s!!!) and later this month I have been invited to speak at a Public Policy Exchange conference in London, "The Return to Civvy Street - fulfilling our duties to Armed Forces Veterans’’.
I am also delighted to advise that our bid for Covenant funding has been successful and we have been awarded £11Ok to support a range of activities, initially for Rutland, but then planned to expand across South Kesteven and Market Harborough including:
· The appointment of an Armed Forces Officer for a period of two years
· Identification of Veterans and families within our community and the creation of a Veterans' database
· Mapping services and information and a gap analysis
· Engagement with the Veterans' Gateway
· Extension of the AF discount scheme
· Training for front line staff
· Closely examine our terms of employment here at the Council to ensure that all those from the ex-service family employed by us receive due consideration for their time following the drum, as happens already for loyal service to the civil authority.
Finally, we will of course be pleased and proud to continue to support our Rutland serving units- 1Military Working Dogs, The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, 7 Logistic Regiment and 2 Medical Regiment (albeit 2018 will see them depart from Rutland as they are scheduled for disbandment).
So another busy year planned for 2018 and my thanks go to all of the RCC officers who energetically support this important work, not least the tireless Helen Briggs our Chief Executive, and all the organisations within Rutland who work in partnership with us to support our Armed Forces Community.