Transcript
Hello everybody. Welcome to the May Cabinet. We'll start with apologies. We've got everybody
here. There aren't any apologies. We've got declarations of interest up next. Councillor
Blummer has advised me that she'll be leaving the room on item 8, so she's got a pecuniary
rest as she rents property from the council, so she'll be leaving the room for that. Minutes
of the last meeting, ages 5 to 10, refer. Councillor Layton, you've got something that you've
let the officers know in advance. That's right, I have, yes, that was on page 8. That's
been altered. I don't suppose I need to read that out. I think that's fine. Councillor
interjecting. No, okay. We'll then subject to Juliet's—we'll go to the back. Thank
you. Okay. We've got six for zero against and two abstentions. Right, we move on then
to Leader's announcements. I want to start by I think the issue that's filling up all
of our post-bangs at the middle, certainly our inboxes, which despite not being within
the purview of this council, lots of people are very steamed up about, and they're contacting
us at a frustration to demonstrate leadership. I am, of course, talking about the closure
of the Tesco roundabout, Kingsville Medo, roundabout, and Sirens sister. I want to put on the
record on behalf of this council. It is a totally unacceptable situation that a main
arterial route through the Cotswold, not only Sirens sister, has been closed for such a
long time. The communication from the County Council has been desperately poor. It's
been really, really poor. I haven't heard anything from the Cabinet member associated
with it, and it just feels to me like, sorry, there's nothing we can do, so we're just
not going to say anything. On behalf of this council, I want to put on record how totally
unsatisfactory and unacceptable we all find this, and the impact that inevitably it's
having on the local economy. We all have anecdotal evidence, certainly, of people that are going
to just bothering driving around Sirens sister, any war going somewhere else, because it's
such a nightmare to you to get around. Indeed, I had an email from a business just within
the vicinity who said that their trade is down 50%. So it's quite an unacceptable situation,
and I know that we've all lobbied the County Council. I think the good news is we have
now got a bit of a plan together, but again, there's been no public comment on that. It's
gone to individual councilors, but no public comment. Really frustrating, and on behalf
of all residents in the Cotswolds, I want to reassure you that we find it just as gawling
as you do. Clearly, a lot has been left to be desired, so hopefully that will be open
as soon as possible. That's only one from me this evening. We move on then to public
questions. We haven't got any members of the public here. Member questions, we haven't
had any submitting prior to the publication of the agenda. We therefore move on to item
seven, which is issues arising from overview and exclusion of the audit committee. We have
got one, and that's a recommendation from the overview and exclusion committee meeting.
Clearly, that was on Tuesday this week, which hasn't given us really adequate time to consider
or review that. We will defer our response to that to the next cabinet meeting, but just
for property, I will read the recommendation out from ONS. The cabinet considers a necessity
to increase resource for ecology, given our goal, declare an ecological crisis and increase
legal monitoring obligations. So noting that, I know a few cabinet members were at that
meeting, but we will respond at the June meeting, and we will respond informally, hopefully
well ahead of that date to the members of the overview and exclusion committee meeting.
We move on then to our first item, which is the asset for decision, which is the asset
management strategy. We're agreeing to adopt an asset management strategy, providing a
clear strategy for future decision-making and investment in the Council's land and property
assets. Council revenue is going to give us an overview and a very succinct appraisal
of this report. Thank you, Leader. I noted very succinct in your introduction. I'll do
my best. This is a really important document for the Council. What it's endeavouring to
do, and what it will do if we agree it this evening, is give us, as a Council, and split
clear, our officers a clear framework about how we want to manage our assets. Picking
up on the point about overview and scrutiny, this was looked at by a view and scrutiny
on the meeting on Tuesday, which I attended together with the Deputy Chief Executive.
Some of the points I'll try to bring in that were made into my presentation this evening,
one of them being assets in the local government jog and inter-finition here. Really, we're
talking about land and property, but it was certainly pointed out that the Council does
have other assets other than land and property, other obviously technology and all that sort
of thing. Fundamentally, this framework is about land and property. You can see within
the report, we have a valuation on that, and we go through a process of valuation of our
assets in order for them to be valued for the accounts on an annual basis. Some of them
are actually done every year, some of them every three years, I think. But currently,
our assets are valued at around £64 million in total, and we have just about £5.4 million
of those are commercial investments that were purchased by this Council within the last
term of the previous administration, I think around about 2017. And then the bulk of the
remainder are buildings and land that we own and lease in order to provide the services
that we provide for the residents, and our biggest single asset being the building here
in Syran's sister that we're sat in this evening. I thought it was useful, although
it is already published on the website, for a list of assets to be published, and you can
see those as an XA. Inevitably, when you do this, there may be one or two minor, tiny
little errors in there, and two apologies, particularly to Northleach with Eastington.
It's a town council, not a parish, isn't it, Tony? And I think there's a couple where
we've excelled as formatted as if they were dates rather than actually numbers of houses.
So I'm sure officers will pick that up, but I do think it was useful exercise so that
all members, and indeed members of the public, have visibility of the assets that this Council
owns. Moving back on to the strategy, though, and that's really where the meat of my presentation
will be, is around how do we as an organisation use the land and property that we have to deliver
on our goals and objectives we have as a Council, and to deliver the services that we are required
to deliver both statutorily and those which we choose to deliver. So Annex B is the strategy
that we're being asked to agree this evening, and what our document really can serve is the
context of the Council, and then we look at, obviously some of the, I've mentioned the assets
that we have in the list, and obviously we map them out in there, where they're freehold
and leasehold, and what we, what we, what sort of assets they are, whether they're investments,
whether it's land, whether it's residential assets. Most importantly, I think in terms
of how we manage them going forward are the principles that are on page 12, you see a
numbering in the white out of the blue in the corner, so everyone can see that, including
those of you looking electronically. And the principles there that we want assets that
fit for purpose, cost effective, and well utilised, sustainable and efficient and commercially
managed. And then on page 13 of the objectives, I won't read all those out, because there
are eight there that members can see. And then the importance of assets with the capital
programme and how that links in with our budgets is covered on the next page. And then it just
really lists some of our, going forward, some of the major assets that we have. I've already
mentioned this office. We have the area centre in Morton. We have the leisure centres and
the museum. And we have public conveniences and other buildings are mentioned in there.
And there's also a section on the investment property. So I mentioned those that are held
outside the district and how we're looking to manage those and what we might do with
those in the future is in outline there. And then we have some investment properties within
the district and a managed by our team here that work for us through publicer. And then
it goes on to talk about opportunities potentially with our car parking, car parks and some of
our major assets. And obviously we are looking about, particularly with siren sister with
the largest number of them are located, how we may use those in terms of the redevelopment
of siren sister. Obviously there's a master plan process that's going on for the town centre
at the moment. There's also a little bit more about the commercial opportunities within
the document. And there's a reference to the local plan and the context that we're operating
with our local plan. And we know obviously we're in a process of updating our local plan
at the minute. Very importantly there's a section about sustainability, climate change
and decarbonisation and our priorities and principles around net zero. And then just finishing
up really the last two or three pages governance. There are obviously financial rules about
how we make decisions as a council. And you can see those shown on page, little page 25,
where if we want to currently in our current financial rules, make decisions in current
property with over half a million pounds that needs to go to the full council. And the portfolio
holder for assets, authority is limited up to a quarter of a million and with cabinet
being the amount in between. I think quite importantly here you can see what we are looking
to do is set up a strategic estates board which will be a subset of the transform working
group to look at some of these opportunities for assets, bring it through the cabinet transform
working group through to the cabinet and onto council. Should that be necessary? And then
the last couple of pages of the strategy really deal with the recommendations around how we
are going to deal with our assets going forward. And then an implementation plan is on the
last page. And particularly this was picked up as well on Councillor Jenkinson is here
this evening. He raises and in the ONS meeting about how we are going to make assessments
of properties. We are looking to do a qualitative scoring criteria but I know Angus I remember
you talking about Boston matrix which we are happy to talk I am sure about as we go forward
and if we can develop our assessments of assets. Essentially we are looking at assets whether
we need to keep them for operational reasons, for investment reasons and also other things
around what value they provide both in service to delivery, social value to our communities,
potential to co-locate. Those things are listed out on the last page of the strategy and I
will commend it to you and I will stop there, Leader.
Thanks very much. Do we have any questions Tony?
Thank you Mike. A great baseline document to start from. I do not think we have ever had
this in my lifetime in Coswell District Council. It is an immense piece of work and I suppose
I did want to flag up but it is now an opportunity for every single person, all 96,000 residents
across Coswells to say that little bit there. I wonder if we could do that with it. So immense
piece of work. Thank you for working with so many officers to get the baseline established
which is absolutely vital. One thing I did want to flag up is that as part of how we manage
our strategic assets going forwards most cabinet members were in the throes of a combined parking
strategy for the Coswells. Looking across all of our assets there are still three key
settlements for the Coswells that have no district wide provision for car parking so I do want
us to keep our minds open not only to where we get some of the better returns from our
assets but also where we might need to invest in the future to create the same provisions
whether it is for residents or for businesses or visitors in those parts of the Coswells
that we do not currently serve as well as some others. So let us keep our minds open
to this being the baseline for potential future growth of our strategic asset base as well
as perhaps revising it and getting rid of some assets that we do not really get a return.
Thanks Tony, anybody else? Paul?
No thanks Mike for giving us very comprehensive documents. I just wanted to point something
out page 41 when the report talks about leisure services and although it is correct to say
to quote the report there is no need for significant change to the buildings or the leisure centres
as we currently have there is three of them in Sir and Sister Portman, Chipping Camden
just to flag up here publicly that very shortly there is substantial work being done at Sir
and Sister leisure centre which will completely revamp some of the changing room facilities
it says there is a major investment going on so I just wanted to flag that because I
think it is important that although some of the outside fabric of these buildings may
not need changing, inside things do need to be done and that is a substantial investment
from this council which is coming and which customers will see a real payback from once
we get to the end of the summer.
Okay, Mike?
Okay fantastic report thanks for all the great work Mike and the rest of the officers and
Tony for everybody on the assets just as a climate person just say it is obviously important
to make sure our assets are as decarbonised as quickly as possible so getting rid of our
gas heating out of our buildings for example getting rid of the diesel out of our waste
truck assets and so on is important I think we all agree with that and we are very much
going to the course, I just wanted to highlight it is it is a critical one and the climate
changes predominantly caused by fossil fuels about 90% so that is kind of a critical thing
that should be always in our mind to do with any assets is never by anything that has fossil
fuels involved in it going forward and seeking to remove those things as quickly as possible
as well as in energy efficiency which of course helps our running costs greatly so I am sure
we asset teams know very well so thank you again thank you Mike right we are in danger
of violent degree with each other so I am going to second that and we are going to is
it a new point because we are going round the houses a bit complimenting yep comment.
Yes I do think it is an excellent strategy and I will say that again what I particularly
like is the fact that it is very clear and whilst there is obviously you know some detail
in this it is very clear and I particularly like the principles and the strategy is really
important and my only point was that as we move forward with this is to ensure that there
is adequate meant and as a one we have been reports forward to look at specific things
and time to do that because I think you know we all know these much of it when we look
at annex A and the little patches of land in particular might not seem a lot and especially
to those that are perhaps sitting here in Trinity Road but that little strip of land
in a chipping canton or in summer for decades or in the town of North Nietzsche the members
all know very very well and I think it just want to reiterate the point that it would
be great for members to have some involvement in that process thank you very much.
Yeah I will pick that up I think it is something that has been fed back to all of our senior
officers actually in their appraisals that we need to get better at short of consulting
letting go letting ward members know what is happening in their own ward so if we are
doing something with I do not know the old station Councillor Rassington needs to be updated
if it is somewhere else you know the ward member needs to be updated and I think we have
fallen out of doing that a little bit as an organisation so again all three of our senior
officers have had their appraisals that has been fed back and I think the last ones tomorrow
so that will be that will be fed back again no doubt it is also something that the constitution
work and group are going to look at so we can formalise a process for doing that across
the board. Lovely okay then along in a second that so we have two recommendations to adopt
the asset management strategy attached it and it is B to our papers and instruct consultants
cost generous to review existing assets in line with that strategy like any final comments.
Thank you sorry to interrupt I did not mean to. I just wanted to come back on a couple
of the points that have been made by colleagues obviously agreeing with those. I think Tony
York point about we might and was made at the ONS meeting with each other you were there
as well about actually we may want to acquire assets in localities where we can currently
have them we may feel we need to for operational strategic reasons so that obviously would
be underneath the framework that we're talking about this evening and Paul thanks for reminding
us about the capital program allocation for the leisure centre development which is there
so yeah I'm happy very much to propose and Joe has seconded the resolution so he's just
read out. Brilliant okay then we'll go to the vote. Lovely that's unanimous if we can
get council blue in the back of the room. Okay then we'll go to our next item which
is a proposal of a property important in the water council revenue back to you.
Thank you and I just remembered that what I was going to say in my summary was to thank
very much Claire Lock and her team for the work they've done on the asset management
strategy so sorry Claire I forgot I was going to say it and then I forgot so I'm saying
it now as we go to the second piece of work that's been done and I'll see Jasmine here
as well from the assets team. So this is the first thing you'll be asked to take under
the framework that we've essentially just agreed. You'll see from the report that we
have a property in Borden on the water that has been vacant since February I believe that
was previously the visitor information centre for Borden but essentially that organisation
who was renting it chose to shut down and surrender their lease so clearly we have a
property in Borden we need to work out what to do with it and obviously we've taken some
advice on that and Jasmine's obviously here to go on spending more detailed questions
about it about whether it's in our best interest to keep it let it or sell it and what we haven't
identified is any strategic use for it for us as a council we don't offer any adjacent
land or buildings so the recommendation for you this evening is that we should look to
sell the property clearly there's some figures in here based on what evaluation but obviously
you can only sell it whatever value somebody's willing to pay for it so these are obviously
indicative but we have a indicative figure of 240,000 being the value of the asset and
with it costing us approximately 5,000 pounds to sell it so there would be a capital receipt
of estimated of 235,000 pounds if we were to go ahead this evening and agree this. Obviously
there are some alternatives so we could look to let it out for retail or other appropriate
use and obviously that would obviously require us to continue to manage that and we could
generate a revenue from it but it obviously it is currently in good condition but obviously
then it would need to be maintained but I mean it's clearly the recommendation before
us this evening is to put it onto the market and put it up for sale and I therefore move
the two recommendations that are on page 55 that we approve the recommendation dispose
of the form of history information centre building in Victoria's street port and on
the water and that we delegate authority to the deputy chief executive and chief finance
officer in consultation with myself to approve the final terms of the sale including the
sale price.
Great. Any questions or comments? No? Okay. I'm happy to second that then. Anything to
add? No. We'll go to the vote then. Okay. That's unanimous. Thanks very much. We're
going to move on now to cancel a day. He's going to introduce the legal services partnership
agreement. Don't go over to you. Thank you. Thank you. So the legal services provision
to the three publicer councils, Cotswold District Council, Forest of Dean Council and West Oxford
Church District Council have been shared for some years now since about 2016 on a very
collaborative and cooperative basis. That situation has been reviewed by cadence innovator specifically
to look at the nature of it and whether it is both economic, efficient and effective.
And in particularly to look at some of the elements surrounding it regarding the strategy,
the governance, the people, processes and technology. Cadence innovator done a good job
and a very straightforward job in assessing what is missing at the moment, what needs
to happen, not least the fact that it has continued for some many years now as a relatively
informal agreement, albeit under those arrangements such as allowed by the local government act.
But what I'm seeking from cabinet and what legal services are seeking from cabinet this
evening is permission to move to a more formal agreement under section 113 of the local government
act 1972, which would enable them to, if you like, underpin the strategy and there's in
annex a clear list of the services that legal services now provide to all three councils.
Under governance, that would remain largely as it has done under the existing cooperation
and collaboration. So that is the group of the three chief monitoring officers who each
work together with currently the head of legal services and the legal transformation project
manager and that they continue to do so under the formal agreement, which they're seeking
to sign and receive approval for this evening, that they would continue largely with the
structure that has been created during that time. I was amazed as you might be to discover
that we've been surviving each of us as councils with fewer than three FTEs to run each of
the three councils, which is remarkable. We're closely up to about four FTE per council
now, which should provide a much more full service. And remember anything that our legal
services team can't do tends to end up going out to agency and costing us more money in
the long run. So hopefully we're moving towards a much more stable and the more process driven
the legal services team. The processes which were reviewed by cadence in a will participate
will happen if you like. That's the right word on icon, which is the soft legal software
system that's been implemented. All the proper procurement processes followed in order to
do that. Icon is now up and running. It means that all of our legal case management is
now properly tracked through that software. Each of our legal officers uses it to interact
both with the case and with any external partners to monitor its progress. It also integrates
seamlessly with Microsoft 365 regarding documents and email management. So I hope that will
reassure you all, Cabinet. Our next steps really, and we're in the very closing stages
of this, are to see if we can sign off the partnership agreement. And we're asking for
your permission, the Chief Executive of myself, to sign that in conjunction with the Forest
of Dean Council and West Oxfordshire District Council so that we can move towards the first
of what I hope will be very successful, shared managed service across the three councils,
which is wholly run by the councils for the councils benefits in the future. This will
form a successful and transformative working model for councils moving forward. Thank you,
colleagues. Brilliant. Thanks, Tony. It's very useful informative. Any questions or comments?
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just really pleased to see this report. It feels like some while
ago when we sat through presentations from our legal team and from an alternative provider
and decided that actually this was the route that we wanted to go down. And so we brought
cadence in of our in. And it's great to see that work coming to fruition, particularly
I think the, and you mentioned quite a bit about it, the case management system I can
giving the ability for a much clearer view about what our officers are being asked to
do. And to make sure that they're being asked to do work that is properly theirs to do and
not other officers seeking to use the legal services as a support service for themselves.
So I think it's really, really important that, you know, we are investing in that service
and it's providing a good quality service to colleagues across the three councils and,
you know, with the case management system in place, they'll be much clearer and more
able to see the volume of work they're doing and what nature of it is and for which councils
they're providing the work. So I'm really, really pleased to see this and very happy
to second the recommendations.
Great. Thanks, Mike. Any more for any more? No? Okay, then I'm happy to second that. Did
you get there first? Sorry. You know what? I just zoned out there a bit. Brilliant. Okay,
then we'll go to the vote in that case. Okay. Okay, lovely. That's unanimous. The next
item then is over to Councillor McKewen just acknowledging its successful grant application
for EV challenging points over to you. Thank you. So we sit here on our lovely warm spring
day in the early 20s, enjoying the beautiful green and pleasant Cotswolds. But we have
to be reminded that last year was the second hottest year on record in the UK, the year
before was the first time the UK ever went over 40 degrees. If that continues, we won't
be sitting in a green and pleasant Cotswolds. It will be brown and parched rather like southern
parts of Europe. So, and as Councillor Jenkins and usefully shared a report just a couple
of days ago, scientists are saying that the climate change impact is actually going faster
than projections were suggesting. So the problem of climate emergency is very well founded.
This is important. Why this is important is because transport is the Cotswolds biggest
carbon footprint as it is in the UK and our cars are more than half of that. Therefore,
driving EV adoptions has one of the biggest most meaningful impacts on carbon reduction
that we can get in a short period of time. There's some negative stuff but there's also
some great positive that I'm sure Tony would appreciate that there's great opportunities
for the business community as we move to green technologies. So also accelerating that has
some big positive upsides. Now, for EV adoption, 30-40% of homes do not have our street parking.
So if they're going to adopt, they have to be within a short distance. So our strategy
is to make sure that people are within, wherever possible, within about a 10-minute walk of
their home to plug in and charge if they purchase an EV to encourage them and visitors to the
Cotswolds to adopt. So it's very important we work with a county council who are deploying
chargers on the streets and utilise our car park assets to do similar. I'm delighted to
say I plugged in only this week to our newly installed chargers here at Trinity Road that
are available to residents in this part of Sire Ancestor and it's shortly going into
the Resington Road up in Porton on the Water I think in the next couple of weeks. So we
were delighted to receive 190,000 plus pounds of grant funding from central government which
this proposal is to agree to match, to deploy around 66 chargers across 11 of our car parks
over the period of up to March next year. Because of the scale of the investment it will go
to full council for sign off and give opportunity for the officers to coordinate the exact plans
aware, make sure we're working closely with Gloucester County Council to maximize our
deployment. So my real call to action is, you know, stand with us all, take a very important
action on climate change, not just something of infrastructure but it will have a meaningful
impact and help our residents do the right thing which I know from the personal conversation
that many of them want to do. Brilliant. Thank you, Mike. If you just turn your microphone
off. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Just good news on the hold. So yeah Tony.
So great news this Mike. Thank you so much for working so hard to make this happen and
it's brilliant that it's happening so quickly. I perhaps should flag up as I know you would
want me to that although it's titled on street residential charge point scheme, actually
it's for those without off street parking primarily which is a little bit confusing but
what it does mean is that these charge points will have to therefore appear within our assets
within our car parks in effect. I'm totally behind that as you know I look after the car
parking portfolio. Sometimes it's not always the most thankful to ask but it is great to
see that each of our car parks particularly those most convenient for those residents
with no off street parking to actually get to use the parking and to charge their cars
in those car parks. So I really really hope that our residents will take this up, take
up the opportunity to reduce their carbon emissions, adopt electric vehicle charging
in our off street car parks in our effectively our residential car parks within the towns
where we have proximity to residents and that we can make this scheme really work for us
and for them. So thank you so much for your work on it.
Thanks Tony. Actually on that I agree it's not clear if you remember the public reading
this you'd think we're talking about on the street parking so just a request to them services
in particular. Can we just make sure when we title these report names that just give
absolute clarity because it's not clear. I get the government grants scheme is called
on street but we could avoid confusion if in our own papers and our own report owned
by this council we just give clarity on that. Yeah Claire.
Yeah I'm just going to actually repeat exactly what Tony said I think it's fantastic. I'm
just really pleased to see I know a lot of residents have been wanting something like
this in the cotswolds and it's great to hopefully be getting there. Start of it well done.
Lovely Mike. Thank you Joe yeah I mean I wanted to add my support and obviously it's
something that we've been aspiring to do since you know we took over at running this council
five years ago and I know it was something that council of cotscued might your predecessor
a nice pick up and it's great to hear that the Rittington road ones will finally be turned
on and have power in them looking at Claire at the back because it's been something that
you know certainly I've been championing for at least two years if not three and it's
just been the frustration I know that we've had another council sort of had in terms of
getting EV charges up and running and obviously there's been a recognition nationally that
this needed to happen and that there were barriers in the way of local government making
things happen which doesn't necessarily have the same clout as a large supermarket in terms
of the ability to buy and to negotiate. So it's great that this is now coming forward
that we're talking about charging 66 charges at 33 points and that half of it is going
to be funded by the government so obviously we are going to have to find the other half
and that's why we're going to take this to council next week because it's not in our
capital program but yeah great great to see. Brilliant the decision required on that so
thank you Mike, you want to make a quick one very quick point just following from Mike's
a big thank to Claire and team who I know had a you know worked very hard getting this
through and working on the previous bit so Puget that car park team and our new climate
officer Olivia who's been now working closely with the team on the roll out so we wouldn't
do that without our fantastic officers so thank you so we're noting that and we just
need to vote to recommend it to council. It's unanimous thanks very much I'm back
including to the agenda whether you're going to parish council or the pub have a lovely
evening thank you.
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