Minutes:
The Mayor made the following announcements:
The following achievements were highlighted:
(a) Quality Checkers – Adult Social Care
The Mayor congratulated all Quality Checkers within the Adult Social Care service, whom she informed the Council had been nominated for a 2013 Municipal Journal Award under the Innovation in Social Care Category. The Quality Checkers were volunteer service users and carers who, since August 2012, had visited 57 different adult care services in order to provide feedback on service provision. The visits were unannounced and had included in house day and residential services, private care homes as well as accredited equipment retailers. Feedback had been provided across four areas of care: Compassion; Choice & Control and where appropriate Food & Activities. Those involved were thanked for their dedication and enthusiasm which had helped build the programme that had been nominated for the Award.
(b) National Gold Award PE and School Sport
The Mayor congratulated the following schools who she was delighted to announce had attained the National Gold Award for PE and School Sport –; West Lea; Enfield Grammar; Brettenham, St James, Forty Hall, Hazelwood, St Monica’s and Eversley. She invited the representatives who had been able to attend the meeting from Enfield Grammar, Brettenham, St Monica’s and Eversley Schools to come forward and receive their awards. The schools were warmly congratulated by the Council for their achievement.
The award was open to all schools, with it possible to achieve the category of bronze, silver and gold. The borough also had a number of schools which had attained silver and bronze status and were working towards gold.
The Mayor also took the opportunity to highlight the increasing number of schools now entering a myriad of sporting events including borough competitions in rugby, football, netball, hockey, basketball, gymnastics and tennis. In addition the borough had been represented by 6 primary schools at the London School Games finals by schools who had won the borough sporting competitions and had been selected to play against the top teams from other London Boroughs.
The 2013 schools dance festival, held at Millfield Theatre, had also seen representatives from 65 schools participating. This highlighted the PE Teams aim to try and find a sport for everyone, reflecting the diverse range of sport and other physical activities promoted. The Torch Relay Park events last summer, had also included sports like fencing, dodgeball, cheerleading and golf for young people to try. The Mayor was pleased to announce that the 9 Park events would be taking place again this year and would be called “Inspire Enfield”.
With the permission of the Mayor, Councillor Orhan took the opportunity to thank and congratulate all the schools for their efforts in achieving the gold kitemark award. The borough was very proud of this achievement as the only one in north London to have schools that had attained the gold standard.
(c) Equality Framework for Local Government Excellence Award
The Mayor was delighted to announce that Enfield had been successfully accredited at the Excellent level of the Equality Framework for Local Government. This represented the culmination of ten years of hard work by members from both groups and officers across the Council. Enfield was now one of only 12 local authorities in the country to have reached the Excellent level. Significant progress had been made in recent years and the award was testament to the Council’s commitment to provide its residents and customers with services that were fair and accessible to all.
The Mayor then presented the award to Councillor Hamilton (as member champion for equalities), James Rolfe (officer champion for equalities), Ilhan Basharan (Communities Manager) and Martin Garnar (Equalities Officer). All those involved were congratulated by the Council for their success in achieving the award.
With the permission of the Mayor, Councillor Hamilton also took the opportunity to thank everyone involved for their efforts in attaining the level of Excellence. The work undertaken was felt to have demonstrated the Council’s commitment to its core corporate values and the aim to ensure the provision of services that were fair and accessible for all.
As this was her final ordinary Council business meeting, the Mayor provided a review of her year in office, highlighting the following for particular attention:
· Her year as Mayor had been extremely busy, including many events linked to the Olympics, Paralympics and Jubilee celebrations. To date she had attended 465 engagements with the final total expected to be closer to approx 500.
· This had provided a fantastic opportunity to attend many varied events and meet representatives from a number of different communities across the borough. Particular highlights had included:
(i) attending all of the 9 Olympic torch relay events with primary schools and getting to meet the hundreds of school children who had taken part. Special thanks were given to Simon Gardner, Jan Hickman and their team for arranging the events.
(ii) attending the Olympic, Paralympic and London Youth Games and hosting a reception at Forty Hall for all the volunteer games keepers from Enfield, in order to acknowledge the wonderful contribution they had made towards the success of the games.
(iii) attending various events to celebrate the Queens Diamond Jubilee and seeing the way in which this had bought communities together across the borough.
(iv) visits to the boroughs Youth Centres, which had provided an opportunity to experience the excellent services available and meet so many of the borough’s young people, some of whom she had actually remembered delivering as a midwife!
(v) inviting representatives from the Youth Parliament to attend the last Council meeting in order to outline the work they were undertaking and some of their key achievements.
(vi) having the opportunity to attend and represent the borough at conferences hosted by Essex University and the City of London focussed around issues affecting young people.
(vii) undertaking a visit to one of the E18HTeen project care homes, as part of her focus throughout the year on young people.
· In terms of fundraising activity she had been pleased to host 3 extremely successful fundraising events – Civic Service, Sickle Cell event and Spring Charity Ball. The Mayor took the opportunity to thank everyone for their support and marvellous response to her appeal fund, which currently stood at £37,000. It was hoped that some of the funds raised could be used to assist with the setting up of a Sickle Cell Centre at North Middlesex Hospital, along with the provision of support to the Enfield Sickle Cell Support Group, Our Voice and other local causes.
· Special thanks were offered by the Mayor to the Nigerian community within the borough for their specific support to her over the year.
The Mayor thanked officers for their support over the year, with special thanks to her team of Rhoda, Mel, Norman & Andy and to John Austin, Asmat Hussain and James Kinsella (for their support and guidance on Council).
Finally the Mayor took the opportunity to thank members from both sides for their support over her year in office.
Councillor Taylor, Leader of the Council, took the opportunity to respond by placing on record his thanks to Councillor Anolue for the tremendous work undertaken as Mayor, and way she had conducted herself in the role over the year. Alongside the activities related to the Olympics and Paralympics, he felt a particular highlight had been the re opening of Forty Hall and paid tribute to the Mayors energy and enthusiasm in attending a record number of engagements. Referring back to the words of her inaugural speech he quoted the following sentence “As the First Citizen of Enfield, I will represent the Borough with dignity and I hope to work to your expectation “. He felt these aims had been more than exceeded during the year.
Councillor Lavender, Leader of the Opposition, also took the opportunity to recognise and thank the Mayor for the way in which she had represented the borough over the year and the dignity with which she had undertaken the role, which had been appreciated by all members.
Given the nature of business on the agenda for the meeting the Mayor took the opportunity, before moving on to seek members support in ensuring that the debates on items to be considered remained as full and constructive as possible. Whilst understanding that some of the issues to be debated would generate differences of opinion, and this was to be encouraged in a healthy democracy, she hoped this exchange of views would happen in a climate of mutual respect and with due regard to the Constitution and Members Code of Conduct.