Transcript

So first of all, welcome to everybody and just moving to the agenda. The first agenda item is obviously declaration of the intent to record the meeting. So obviously if you stay in the meeting, you are giving your agreement that you're okay with that. If you're not, then please leave. Agenda item two, apologies for absence. We only have one apology this morning that's from Councillor Lee Brazier and then that moves me into a agenda item three which is the appointment of a new chair so open to any nominations. Councillor Smith? Yes, thank you Chair. I'd like to pose Councillor Thomas high this. Thank you. Obviously it's the standard of the committee that Ashford moved into the chair and follows Mansfield. So with that, anybody who got a second now? Thank you Councillor Hill so with that, we'll put it to the vote. Thank you that's unanimous. Congratulations Councillor Hollis. I'll move out the way for you. Thank you. Thanks for the year you've put in so far. It's been certainly lots of challenges that we face and I think lots of discussion that's going to be born in this meeting and I think the meeting is to come based on the last year as well. But I think the next item is to appoint a vice-chairman and by convention we'll be looking to the members from Newark to select who they'd like to propose. Thank you, let's put Councillor Paul Peacock and do we have a seconder? A seconder? All in favour? Wonderful. So Councillor Peacock, would you like to come to the front please? And then agenda item five is decorations of interest by members and officers if we have any? No interest to declare? And then we've got... Councillor interjecting. Sorry. Can I use you on? I shouldn't speak out of the way. No that can't be. And then we've got agenda item six, minutes of the meeting held on the 15th of January 2024. Do we have a proposal for those or any comments to make on them? Yeah. Everybody happy with those minutes? Yeah. Councillor Bergen to propose and Councillor Whitby to second. All in favour of those minutes? Thank you. And then we move into the first substantive item which is the operations report. And I presume we're going to hear from Nada. Thank you. Thank you. So this is the reports just been noting, the first item is regarding the staffing restructure so we've now gone to consultation with staff with a view to responding to any comments around the consultation by the end of the month. Essentially the need for the restructure is around the need to reinstate weekend working. The decision was taken some time ago to close the book remembrance room. We know that it's caused problems with members of the staff and therefore we need to reinstate the weekend working so we're getting very close to being able to do that as part of the consultation. The consultation also and the staffing restructure also focuses on how we work more efficiently as a team with the hope that we can make an efficiency saving of around £12,000 annually in terms of staffing costs even with the introduction of the book of remembrance weekend working. So we should be able to come to a finalising that process relatively quickly. In terms of the cremator and ancillary equipment on Point 2.2 we're still facing the challenges of our ageing cremators. We did have another breakdown last week. It was only a short one and we were able to get the cremator back up and running quite quickly. So we are fully operational and in the process of having all of the cremator service this week but we're still feeling it and still maintaining a lower capacity in order to not put any additional pressure on the cremators. We are looking to get number three re-lined in the next couple of months and we're just waiting for confirmation date and when that happened but that's actually just normal periodic maintenance that's required anyway. We are still experiencing some issues with number four cremator and that's because of the ageing software. We think there's a bit of a software problem with number four but it is operational currently but of course this kind of ties into where we are in terms of our issues with our ongoing cremators. We had a Mother's Day service in March, it's the first one that we've carried out and it was really well received. We have some amazing feedback from attendees at the service and we're therefore replicating that and holding a Father's Day service this coming June. We're utilising local celebrants and funeral directors so that we can keep the costs down as much as possible but it means that we're involving our wider bereavement services team to support us in holding events. What's been really positive is the support of Ashfield and New York and Sherwood in sharing that information on their social media platforms and pushing that out with your own PR because that means we've got a wider problem, we're getting many more attendees. We saw over a hundred people through the doors and for a first event for Mother's Day it was really successful so we hope to replicate that and we've obviously got Christmas planned in as well before, I think it's the 14th of December this year. We are looking at holding additional services also, so looking at where we might be able to hold service in the cemeteries for families who've had utilised services within the crematorium but also in cemeteries so that we can support children, bereaved children specifically within the service. We're working with local charities at the moment to see how we might be able to be supported and to hold those services which would be really helpful. Item 2.8, cremation numbers during the last quarter in comparison to quarter 4 of 22/23 have seen about a 15% reduction. We are equating this to the fact that we've had limited capacity because of the issues with the cremators. There has been a dip in excess death rates anyway and we won't see the impact of that or the actual data until later on in the year but obviously again because we're having to reduce numbers, that has reduced our cremation numbers like for life on this time last year. Any comments, any questions or comments for Nada? I just have a couple of thoughts okay so I'm alright in assuming that we've got 3 cremators currently operational at 4, 3, yeah and the one that's off is completely non-recoverable isn't it? Yes, I thought that was the case yeah and with regards to the re-lining what impact will that have on day-to-day activity because obviously when we've had it potentially re-lined before we've had all 4 and that was only got 3 so what would that actually mean for day-to-day activity? It essentially means that it's out of action for up to 3 to 4 weeks because we have a period of about 2 weeks of the work taking place and then you have a period of drying out so that you're not damaging the cast quickly after it's been reset but what we're doing is obviously we've tried to make sure that we're doing it during our quieter period anyway so there's as little impact as possible so we've already arranged the decision we're just waiting for a date so that we can get that booked in as quickly as possible so it has minimum impact in terms of affecting our cremation numbers I would just say with the utilisation of our holdover policy that does allow us to maintain numbers a bit better so that we can roll over cremations with permission for families of course. When we do see a reduction in the cremation numbers where do they go? Because presumably people ring up and say well the funeral director of presuming rings up so we'd like to look and we haven't got room for them and do we have an indication of where they end up going to or until they come back to do it then call next time and see if we're available? I mean what we say is wherever possible we work with families to try and find an alternative date of course because more often not families do want to come to us so we will try and accommodate that as much as possible and what it means is that potentially their booking is delayed where we do lose families we don't have any indication as to where they go other than we know who are our competitors locally in terms of where families will tend to go to but we don't have any quantitative data that will tell us what that looks like. Councillor SMITH. Yes thank you Nada. I can't remember at the last meeting I asked if the other crematorium we haven't seen a similar dip in their stats and I know there's a note in the minutes to bring it back to this meeting and I don't know if you've got that information to hand. So we don't as yet have the data for 2023 so the Creation Society collects that data from crematoriums locally and we'll look to get that kind of the middle of this year. I think I've made reference to it in the development report but we will bring it back to the next meeting that tells you what that data is looking like for last year. It only gives you full, complete years so rather than working fine actually it'll give us a calendar year for last year. Councillor Wibbe. Yes the question about a dip in excess deaths is there a possibility that that's dip because we had an increase in excess deaths a few years ago and it might be a problem that's nationwide. Councillor Wibbe. Yes I think absolutely it could be attributed to the excess deaths previously around the pandemic. Some of the data is a bit unreliable because of that at the moment so really it's waiting to see how it then starts to pan out and we see the numbers level out a bit but some of the data is a bit unreliable on that basis. Councillor. Any other other other more questions or comments? Do we need to vote to note this, vote yet, vote to note the report then. Thank you. So then we move to agenda item eight which is the annual statement of accounts and we'll do really let through those, thank you. Councillor. Thank you, Chair. So the purpose of this report is to present to the Committee the statements of accounts for 23/24 for the joint crematorium and showing the financial position as at the end of March 24, including the revenue and capital activity during the financial year. The accounts have been audited by the appointed audited which is TIAA, limited and no issues have been identified. Each authority has now received a disaggregation for them to include those in the authority's own statements of accounts which are due to be completed by the end of this month. I don't intend to go into the detail within the actual accounts but myself and Eli are here and we can answer any questions should you have any. In terms of the financial out-in position, in summary the surplus at the end of the financial year is better than budgeted by 104,233 which has been allocated to general reserve for future use or distribution by this Committee. The table one which is on page 19 of the agenda pack summarises the activity by income and expenditure type and identifies variances across these areas. Although income was lower than anticipated, as you've just heard from NADA in terms of the ops report, because of the lower throughput, total expenditure was also lower, therefore still achieving a better anticipated out-in position. Details of the main variances are in sections 3.2 and 3.3 which is on page 21 and 22. As you know from previous meetings, there was always going to be a significant underspend on the capital programme to delay in the decision in terms of any new or redevelopment of the crematorium, so that was the out-in position on the on the capital programme. In terms of the balance sheet, I know the Committee has always been concerned about the age-debt position, so there has been a continued effort to reduce the age-debt and to ensure prompt payment. Although the actual debt figure at 31st March 24 is higher than it wasn't the same point last year, it's not something as a Committee you should be concerned about because the actual older debt has reduced, and it's new debt, and there was a concerted effort to make sure all debt was raised by the end of 31st March as well. What has happened during the year, because of the efforts to reduce the debt, the actual provisions made for but debt payments has actually reduced in year, which is a positive sign to show that actually the debt position is improving. So I therefore ask the Committee to consider the recommendations, the first recommendation is that the same as the account as presented in Appendix A for the financial year 2324 is approved, that the 2324 budget is surplus distribution as detailed in Appendix A, 3.7 is approved, that up to £4,603.861 is of the unused capital budget for 2324 as detailed in 3.8.1 in Appendix A is carried forward for use in 2425, and then the detailed revenue and capital information in Appendix D is denoted, and like I said I'm happy myself and Ellie will take any questions that you have. Thank you very much, does any member have any questions or wants to like to raise? If not, we'll propose recommendations then that's printed, do I have a mover? Castle Whippian, seconder, oh, Castle Bergen, all in favour? Thank you. Now I move to the dates of the next meeting, which can be found I believe on page 88 of the report. As you'll see it lists not only the date but where the meetings are proposed for, I presume all members are happy with that, any questions but we can note that, we can note that report if not, and then we'll move to the work program, which is printed on 89 to 91, do you remember any questions on the work program agenda item 10? Nope, so if you've happened to note those as well, and then we then move to exclusion of the press and public. So to consider resolving that under section 100A, part 4 of the local government act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in part 1 of schedule 12A of the act. Do you ever remember to propose that? Castle Smith and Castle Whippian, seconder, all in favour, excluding the present public? Yeah, too anonymous, do we need to stop the live stream? Thank you, wonderful. So we now move to the final item of the agenda which I presume