Thank you, Councillor Hicks. I think Jonathan Moore wants to come in before Councillor Taylor.
Thank you, thank you, leader. Jonathan Moore, monitoring officer. There was a suggestion
earlier in the meeting that, in effect, it's not constitutional, and within the terms of
reference of the place and resources overview committee, to consider this matter, and I'll
just explain why that's not the case. So first of all, as Councillor Biggs has explained,
there are some cross-cutting issues here that cut across both overview committees, and then
article 7 of your constitution deals with the business that goes to overview committees,
and it explains that, except in relation to education functions, which can only go to
people and health overview committee, the fact that there's a primary responsibility
seen for one of the overview committees does not prevent the other overview committee from
considering that matter where you've got an issue that cuts across the terms of reference,
the main role of both committees. So your constitution is absolutely clear that you
can do that, and especially when, as Councillor Biggs has explained, we're dealing with something
which is cross-cutting in nature, but I just wanted to make that clear that you are acting
in accordance with your rules if you agree the recommendation.
Thank you for that very useful clarification. Councillor Taylor.
Thank you. I just wanted to look for a second at paragraph 3.1, which talks about
the money that's already been given to the Council through the Household Support Fund
of nearly £2.3 million, which needs to be spent between April and September, I think,
now. Appendix 1 outlines how we're going to spend that, and this, please, isn't meant
to be any sort of criticism. The distribution of that money, to me, reads that it was decided
by SLT, and I think it's probably because that was during the election rather than any
other for any other reason. Could I ask that Appendix 1 is also considered by the overview
committee? I know this is money that is already being spent at the moment, but I just think
it would be good if we had some member input into that. That's my first question.
My second one, we've had a lot of debate, which I think is a bit of a wasted debate,
and thank you very much, Jonathan, for clarifying it, about which committee it goes to. This
is really dancing around the head of a needle, as far as I'm concerned. Wouldn't it be just
as easy if we asked Councillor Canning if he would like to invite all members of the
other overview committee in? Because we are a very open and inclusive administration under
the Liberal Democrats, and as we are doing in this committee, we are inviting anybody
to speak on any item, and I'm sure that would be the case. Certainly, when I was chair of
Scrutiny, I would have welcomed anybody coming in and talking. Thank you.
Councillor Azar, you're out. It's cabinet members only, so. The advice I've been given
is that the appendix one should probably go to Scrutiny to be looked at. I don't know
if Jonathan Merr wants to comment, because it's retrospective. Although I take Councillor
Canning may wish to involve other members, I'm sure he'll be open to that. He's obviously
away on holiday this week, but I suspect I won't get an answer till the end of the week,
but I can ask him. I understand the comment about it going to
Scrutiny, but I think because we've got another amount of money that is being added to it,
it needs to complement. Therefore, we need to be sure that what we're doing is correct.
I know it's a bit of a difficult one. Thank you.
Thank you, chair, for allowing me to comment. So the 2.294 million has already been spent.
That's the money that's already had. We've got an additional sum from April through to
September when the scheme finishes this year. That's a delegated function that comes as
a direct grant that comes from government. So whilst the 2.294 that's been spent, you
could look at the outcome of that. I would suggest that's a scrutiny function, not an
overview because you're not taking any decision otherwise. There's nothing for you to do.
It's been spent. It's gone. If you wanted to look at where the money is going over the
next six months, that's something you could take to overview, but I would say we're already
committed. I mean, the spending for this summer is already in plan. I can see nods from officers
to my left, your right in terms of that. So it's already committed. So maybe a scrutiny
review of that. Of course, that will all depend on whether an incoming government after the
election decides to continue the household support from beyond September, I would argue.
Otherwise, it's a bit of a moot point about what we might not do in the future because
we don't have that, if that makes sense.
Okay. Thank you.
Any other cabinet colleagues who should comment? I don't see anybody. I think there's a slight
concern that the recommendation wasn't read out properly. If I just read out recommendation
three, just for clarity, so that's authority be delegated to the cabinet member for customer,
culture, and community engagement to agree the targeted program of work in consultation
with the executive director of corporate development, brackets section 151, and have in regards
to any views and recommendations of the place and resources overview committee. Okay. Just
for clarity.
Are there any members of the cabinet who disagree with any of the four recommendations? I'd
like to take them all as one. So in the absence of any disagreement, I think we can take that
as accepted. Recommendation is accepted. Thank you.
The next agenda item, if I can bring my agenda back up, is send inspection outcome and plan,
which is a good news story. And I think it's Councillor Sutton who's going to introduce
this.
Thank you chair. Yeah. Claire Sutton, cabinet member for children's services, education,
and skills. I'm sure we've all read the report, so I won't go on in great detail. Yeah. This
is, it's, it's, it's really, really good news. I mean, the team have been very modest about
this, but we're the first unitary authority to receive a grade, grade one in this particular
type of inspection, which is, which is fantastic. You'll have noted that it's jointly, it's,
it's a partnership inspection from Ofsted and the CQC. So embraces both education and
health. So it's not just an inspection of children's services. And it particularly focuses
on the lived experiences of our children and families. The PAC also includes the self evaluation,
which demonstrates that the partnership knows itself really well in that the self evaluation
had already identified areas for improvement, which cross cut with what, with what the inspectors
found. So actions to deliver on recommendations are already well underway and have been added
to the revised SCND strategy due for review this year. Clearly we all know from our case
work, et cetera, that there's always more to do. But I firmly believe that the inspection
findings reflect our culture and values, which are essentially born of the leadership offered
by our children, young people and families. I particularly actually want to thank the
Dorset Parent Carer Council, which is our own parent carer forum, which celebrated its
15th birthday last week, which I think is a milestone in itself. And to mention the
leader of this group, Leslie Mellor, who having been in post for what a matter of three weeks,
I've already met her three or four times, so she's everywhere working incredibly hard
and doing a fantastic job. So fundamentally, I just want to ask members to welcome the
findings and agree to the publication of the self evaluation and the recommendations.
Thank you, Councillor Sutton. Are you prepared to propose that recommendation?
I propose that. >> Councillor Taylor. Do we have any questions
from non-Cabinet members? My cabinet colleagues, anybody wish to speak? Is everybody -- no,
Councillor Taylor. >> Somebody's got to speak. Can I just say
congratulations? I think it's a fantastic report, and well done to all the staff involved.
Does any cabinet member disagree with the recommendation? In the absence of any disagreement,
we can say the recommendations are approved. Thank you. And the next one is Councillor
Sutton again. It's Children's Safeguarding Partnership Review, item number nine.
Thank you. Again, everyone will have read it, so I'm not going to go on. As most of
us at least will know, the current Pan-Dorset Safeguarding Children's Partnership comprises
Dorset Council, BCP, Dorset Police and NHS Dorset. Fundamentally, the challenge over
the last three years has been, to be honest, a divergence in the performance of the two
local authorities, so it's not just performance, but also the practices are different. We've
done our best to adapt, but fundamentally, it's been difficult to deliver the Pan-Dorset
policy for this reason, and examples of this, which I've been provided with, include the
extra familial harm strategy, which was delayed because of these issues, and the different
needs and priorities of the two authorities, and therefore, needing to allocate resources
differently has also caused delays. So the proposal is to create two separate partnerships
with the new Dorset Children's Safeguarding Partnership to also include Dorset education,
and the statutory partners, that's the police and NHS Dorset, have already agreed to this
proposal should it be agreed. The positives are focus on children and families in Dorset,
having policy and priorities in a timely way, and including education as a full statutory
partner I think is really important in terms of generating a stronger focus on Dorset schools,
integrating that far more closely, and better oversight of wider legislative changes, which
my team can provide further details of. I'm reliably informed that no additional money
is required to deliver this, and the partnership has agreed a fair budget split. Some functions,
such as safeguarding training, very sensibly will continue, Pan-Dorset, and work is being
undertaken to ensure that the Pan-Dorset website still works. Obviously, we don't want any
disruption there, but we need to be clear in terms of signposting where there are differences.
So the recommendation which I'm going to propose this time is the creation of, sorry, I haven't
got the words in front of me, which I need to find. So what we're looking to do is create
two new children's, two new partnerships, including the new Dorset Children's Safeguarding
Partnership. The boards of both NHS Dorset and Dorset Police have already agreed this
in principle. So what I am formally proposing ...
My apologies, doesn't seem to be working on this side. In order to meet the needs of two
separate local authorities and enable the effectiveness of the partnership arrangement
moving forward, the separation of the Pan-Dorset safeguarding children's arrangements and the
creation of the Dorset Safeguarding Children's Partnership and the BCP Safeguarding Children's
Partnership be agreed. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Sutton. Do I have a seconder? Councillor Ryan Holloway. Any questions
from my non-cabinet colleagues? No. Any questions from cabinet colleagues or comments? Councillor
Lucas. It does seem sensible. I just wonder, are
there any downsides? Is there any risk in that separation? I'm thinking people who work
across BCP and in Dorset, is there a small if not minuscule risk of somebody sort of
slipping through the cracks, I suppose? Would you like that assurance that that's being
considered, please? Thank you. Yeah, we've discussed this in
some detail. Obviously, I'm quite new to this, so not in the strongest position, to be frank,
to provide the detail. But I'm absolutely confident that's the case. But I'll hand over
to the people behind me to give you a more comprehensive and reassuring answer.
Hello, Lisa Reid, Corporate Director for Quality Assurance and Safeguarding Families. There
has been consideration across the Safeguarding Partnership, which includes our BCP colleagues,
and there won't be any considered risks. It just allows both local authorities with the
Safeguarding Partners to allow sole focus of Dorset children within the Dorset Children's
Partnership and similarly for our BCP colleagues to do that independently as well.
Thank you, Lisa. Does any cabinet member disagree with the recommendation? Okay, in which case
the recommendations are carried. We move on to item number 10, which is the quarter four
ad term report for the 23/24 budget, and it's presented by Councillor Simon Clifford.
Thank you, Chair, Councillor Simon Clifford, Cabinet Member for Finance and Capital Strategy.
So this is a slightly odd report in that it's me marking someone else's homework. So this
is a year-end report of how the Council performed in terms of its budget over the previous 12
months. Having said that, there's an awful lot within this that underpins our future
sustainability as a Council, our future spending and our forecasts. So there'll be an element
of both being touched on here. First off, I'd like to give my thanks to all
our staff for the work over the course of the year, particularly those contributing
in terms of budgets. You might expect most Councils with a demand-driven adults and children's
services that they would really struggle under the heat of inflation, energy bills, and everything
else that's been going up that causes our suppliers and everyone else so much pain.
I think it's commendable that our adults and children's services have kept largely within
budgets within 2 or 3% or so, which is quite remarkable in many ways, and I give them full
credit for that. I'd also like to thank the rest of our staff
who contribute, but particularly in terms of the leadership that's shown across our
Council, I think there has been some outstanding directors who have done a fantastic job. I
think this Council has some absolutely first-class management, and I think the staff are hardworking,
committed, and very passionate about their jobs. Everyone has contributed to that.
However, when you read this report in detail, you will see areas that will raise some red
flags and certainly did raise some red flags with me. If I refer you to page 173, we have
the finance team, the finance director's own view of the risks associated with this Council.
You'll see that the one risk is at medium, the current risk is at medium, but the residual
risk is at high. Residual risk is an amalgam of national problems such as funding, such
as the demand-driven services, but also some local problems. One of them is the dedicated
schools grant. Over the course of the next few years, we're going to hear a lot more
about that, and another phrase, you're going to hear a lot more is a high needs grant.
These are areas that are going to be very difficult for all Councils to resolve, and
Dorset is no different. We have a plan in place of sorts. It is with
government being particularly helpful towards it, but we have a plan in place that will
enable us to ride out what is a very significant financial risk to our Council.
On top of that, we have, as I said, this report underpins much of the future spending. We
have an acknowledged financial black hole. I know finance people don't like the word
black hole. They prefer deficit, but for most people, financial black hole in five years'
time of 50 million pounds. That is a huge amount for this Council to adjust to in order
for us to be sustainable. It is a little disappointing that the previous administration have not
had concrete plans in place on how they're going to deal with that, and it's something
that we know across all our cabinet positions and across all our management and all our
staff are going to have to start to work out how we do that and how we deal with that issue.
As well as that, you'll notice that at the end of year we finished just slightly under
a million pounds overspent. Well, the size of our budget, that on the face of it, is
great news, really well done. That does slightly hide the issue, though. Had it not been for
a close to a 15 million pound windfall, we would not be in a position that we are now,
and we would have had to done some fancy footwork in order to make our budget balance.
That windfall was very welcome but is not a regular occurrence, so we have to be careful
where we're going with service overspends. And again, we've had a year with services
overspending across the board but a lack of control there that's coming from our political
colleagues who are no longer in power. Finally, I remember in February at the Council meeting,
much was made of an 8.6 million pound transformation program that was going to take us into the
promised land. It was going to make our budget balance and we were going to take the money
out of reserves in order to cover it. I can remember at the time the now leader of this
Council asking pertinent questions such as, what's going to happen? Where are the cuts
going to come? And how much of this money is going to be spent? The answer was, don't
worry about that. Don't worry. All is in order. We Tories have got a great track record of
delivering transformation and we will do that again. Sadly, that is not the case. As I came
into my brief, I've only been in it for three weeks and it was almost on the first day I
realised that there is no plan to deal with this 8.6 million pound hole. No plan. Something
that the party opposite like to bandy around at this time of year. That leaves us with
various issues that we're going to have to look very hard at over the course of the next
few years. It is disappointing to be in a position we're in, but I know with commitment
we've got from all our cabinet colleagues that we will get there and deliver a positive
budget. My thanks again to all the staff who have contributed. In particular, I'd like
to thank the finance team sitting behind me at the minute who have been invaluable in
bringing me up to speed as best they could, accepting within three weeks or so that there's
an awful lot to be learned. They've done a great job and I'd like to propose the three
recommendations we have, one, two and three as written.
Thank you, Councillor Clifford. Do I have a seconder? Councillor Biggs. I'll open the
floor to non-cabinet members. I'm sure there will be lots of questions. Councillor O'Leary,
I think was the first. Thank you and congratulations, Councillor Clifford. It's nice to see one
of my residents doing well. The question I have is following that political ramp, is
the Council on track to still increase Council tax by the maximum amount following next May
and how will that impact your promises and plans to reduce car parking charges in Weymouth,
build new Council houses and other such promises that were made? Thank you.
Yeah, I'm not sure what that's got to do with the out turn, but that's a future budget.
Councillor Clifford will answer. So two conflated issues there. The first one
is Council tax. So we've inherited the Conservative Party's forward plan for the year where they
had a maximum Council tax increase planned. I should note that in the medium term financial
plan, which is a plan that they put forward in February for the next five years, they
have Council tax maxed out throughout that entire period. We wait and see what happens
with the adult social care grant as a potential new government comes in. As to car park charges,
there will be more on that in the coming weeks. I know a decision is imminent and I don't
want to prejudice that decision. I'm just trying to see from the body language of the
cabinet member sitting in front of me whether that decision has actually been made or not.
But perhaps he would like to either answer the question or bat it away until such a decision
has been made. But it's been very clear from day one that car park charges at some of our
coastal towns will be reduced as a commitment. Thank you, Councillor Clifford. Do I have
any other questions? Councillor Perry. Thank you. I was a little bit surprised by
some of the comments directed at the transformation programme. I was heavily involved in the transformation
programme in the last administration, particularly in the area of children's services. The blueprint
for change programme, which Councillor Clifford may not be aware of in its entirety, was set
about creating a sustainable children's service that would dramatically, not only dramatically
improve service, but ensure that our children's services budget deficits could be brought
into some sort of line and ensure that we could achieve the balanced budget, which we
were able to do as an administration throughout the five-year term that we were in the lead
in the administration of Dorset Council. Could Councillor Clifford please confirm if the things
like the blueprint for change and those efficiencies of children's services and indeed the adult
services, the two big budgets, if you like, in the People's Directorate have actually
delivered and are going to continue to deliver for the people of Dorset?
Councillor Clifford was obviously referring to the Our Future Council programme, which
when initially presented was £12 million, I believe, back in the end of December. And
then we had a breezy bonus from the government beginning of January of circa £4 million.
So it changed to £8 million. But I distinctly remember asking the question, I think, to
Councillor Haynes, who is on the call, what was the plan? And the plan was we'd tell you
at some point in the future. But I'll let Councillor Clifford to continue.
I'd just like to add that I was at pains at the beginning of my introduction to point
out the success of the adults and the children's demand-led services and how well they'd remained
as much as possible within their budgets. I think it was a less than 3% overspend.
Any other questions? Councillor Settle.
Well, as it's my homework here marking, first of all, I don't envy the task because at every
meeting I always said our problem is this council remains underfunded. It doesn't matter
who is in central government. It's a decades-old problem. You talk about £50 million, that
medium-term financial plan has shown more than that in the past. And we've been moving
it along each year. We've already taken £100 million out of costs, which you're well aware
of, and we would have continued to do that. Our future council programme is a necessity.
You know what pressure. You're experiencing it now. Nothing has really changed. But other
than the administration, you've inherited the same problems I had. I think it's unfair
to criticise us because you're saying that we've left you in a poor condition. That's
not true. We've left you in a robust position, and you have significant reserves, and you
can move forward. Obviously, the way you move forward will be different from the way we
would have moved forward, and I respect that. But it's not fair to say that we're leaving
you a £50 million hole, because that hole has been in place ever since we started, and
we have been trying to address that. If you listen to YouTube, which you will see that
I have said, we are not trying to address the in-year problem as much as we are trying
to address the medium-term financial plan and the projected profit. We have been well
aware of this throughout. We've made huge savings. We've put in transformation in place.
We've done our absolute utmost to ensure that that money is moved down the line. You will
be no different. I hope in five years' time when I'm marking your homework, I will be
able to say similar, but I hope I won't be able to because I want you to succeed. We
all want you to succeed, and I believe that most people in this chamber wanted me to succeed
because it was for the people of Dorset, not for party, not for politics, is to ensure
the people of Dorset had a reduced council tax burden, which was almost impossible to
do given the shortages that we were faced with each year, and a security of future for
Dorset as a council. That was always our aim, and I know that it's your aim. I don't want
to fall out with you, but don't talk to me like that. It could be fought again because
it's just not fair, and you know it. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments, Councillor Settle. Councillor Dickinson.
Thank you very much, Eda. Could Councillor Clifford, another resident of mine, could
he tell me whether or not he is to go ahead with the 15% reduction in executive pay?
I'm not sure that's in the report in front of us. Councillor Clifford will answer, but
there's no plan. I'd be happy to listen to a proposal if that
was coming from Councillor Dickinson. I've not proposed it myself, and it's not in our
report. I can absolutely guarantee I have never said the words 15% reduction in senior
executive pay, but there you go. We're not getting into debate about who said
what and what, Clifford. Thank you. Was there somebody next? Councillor Kimberl, and then
Councillor Monks. Thank you, Chair. Paul Kimberl, Portland.
Thank you for the report, and clearly we've really got to sit down and work through this
to go forward. You certainly have my backing because obviously this is, and I'm not going
to go down the road of a blame game. It's a fact that we're underfunded, and I think
that's the way. But whatever I would say, please keep us updated as we go forward on
this and how we go forward. I realise you've been left quite a problem. However, keep us
updated. Thanks. Okay. I don't think there was a question there,
Councillor Monks. It would be remiss of me to miss the opportunity
to ask a question with regards to car parking charges. Taking note of the report and the
suggestion by the portfolio holder that the parking charges for Weymouth will be reduced,
how will that affect other market towns across Dorset? Because my impression of the report
is that there's no opportunity to reduce parking elsewhere. Will some of that be offset against
places like Bemidstor? And also, would this be, I'm sorry, Chair. I'm new to this. I'm
also aware from the colleagues over there that this decision is imminent. Is there any
form of consultation with residents on any changes? Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Monks. I will take the fact that you're new. As latitude, there is
no question to answer here. We're talking about the out-turn report. So I'm not going
to let that question go forward. Is there anybody else who isn't a cabinet member who
wishes to say anything? Okay. Over to my cabinet colleagues. Anybody else want to say anything?
Welcome here. Councillor Taylor. Thank you. I've got three questions I'd like
to ask, please. If I can turn to page 174, Agenda Item 9.4. There's a comment here that
says that the Council's budget is essentially fixed in cash terms and its ability to raise
income is limited. I think I would like to challenge that, because raising income is
one of the ways that we can have additional income to keep Council tax down. And I'd therefore
like to challenge officers to come up with income generation ideas. This was something
that was put forward in the budget café and also the budget scrutiny. And I would hope
that officers will take this and have a serious think about it. So that is just a plea to
officers. My other question is on page 195, if I can find it. For just a moment. 13.2.
I wonder if I could have some sort of explanation, because this is talking about debt and outstanding
debt. And the balance, it says that the balance outstanding was 56.3 million, which is an
increase of 12 million on the quarter. That seems a heck of an increase in debt. And I
wonder whether there's some sort of explanation as to why our debt has increased so much in
one quarter. 12 million pounds is a lot. And I'll come to my third question or my third
statement in a moment. If I could have an answer to that one.
If I deal with those in reverse order. So the debt programme, yes, you've clearly been
reading in great detail. So the figures have been shared with me as the cabinet member.
And officers have provided assurance that this is a snapshot and these comments are
accurate because of the time scale. At the time, this was effectively a pension provider
paying out at a specific moment in time. So it is a matter of routine. It just happens
to fall in that window. If I answer your first question, which was
about income generation, I'm sure that directors here and cabinet members will be passing on
those exact words, because I think it's quite right. I do agree with Councillor Suttle in
one of the areas that we can raise more income by continued lobbying of government. And we
will, of course, be doing that. Thank you. And if I can just come back to
my third one. I have to say, I think it's an extremely bad taste discussing senior officers'
pay in a public meeting when we have so many senior officers here. Our senior officers
do a sterlingly good job. And I think that is not a discussion that should be in the
public forum. Councillor Andrews. Thank you very much, Chair.
I've just got one query on page 175, 10.2. Where did we get that £14.9 million underspend
from? Where did that come out of? I just don't understand it.
Thank you, Councillor Andrews. So it's fortunate we've got two of those extremely competent
finance officers sitting behind us. My very simplified version of that is that this was
a business rates provision that was no longer required due to the tight time scale of when
it could be applied. But I'm more than happy for one of either Aidan or Sean to interrupt
or clarify if I got that wrong. I'll endorse that. Yes, it was at business
rates. Excuse me. Essentially, just in a little bit more detail, there's a business rates
window. And during the-- as we collect business rates, we do take-- set aside some of the
business rates in case there's an appeal by the business or any of the businesses that
are paying those rates. Because if the appeal is successful, then they get essentially refunded
the appeal amount. What we've done as we came to the end of last financial year, the window
of the appeal period closed, which basically meant that we'd set aside money that was no
longer needed to hedge that risk. So we wouldn't have to give the money back to those businesses
because they hadn't appealed successfully. So therefore, we were able to put it back
into the general fund. So essentially, this is the one-off fortunate amount that we were
able to put against the-- some of the pressures that we experienced during the course of last
year as Councillor Clifford described earlier. Thank you.
Thank you, Aidan. Any other questions? No? Richard Biggs.
Yes, I'm looking at page 176, 10.7. Children's Services is, as we know and has been talked
about, done a fantastic job in many areas and transformed fantastically. I do note the
overspend with external placements, 3.4 million pounds. And it is rightly pointed out in 10.9
that some of that has been offset by bringing in sort of in-house fostering and in-house
residential homes, which I absolutely applaud, and that's something we should be doing more
of. I think it's a scandal, some of the way that hedge funds are managing children's provision
throughout the country. And I think it's to be applaud that they've reversed and bring
many things back in-house but running them much better than the old-fashioned model.
So anything more that can be done in that area, I think, is to be welcomed. So that's
just really a comment, really. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Biggs. If there's no
more questions, I will read the recommendations out because I don't think they were completely
covered by Councillor Clifford's introduction. So there's three recommendations. The first
is that the draft revenue and capital out-turn and the financial performance for the year
ended 31 March 2024 be noted. The second recommendation is that the use of young ring-fence reserves
to support the 2023-24 final out-turn in addition to increasing the general fund balance in
line with the financial strategy document be approved. And finally, that a transfer
of 4.4 million reserves to a ring-fence reserve to support the dedicated schools grant safety
valve program, a realignment of existing earmark reserves as reported in section 11.6 of the
report be approved. Does any cabinet member disagree with those recommendations? In which
case, the recommendations are approved. Thank you. Agenda item 11 was going to be presented
by Councillor Bartlett. Unfortunately, his car broke down. He's very upset not to be
here. So I'm just going to briefly introduce it based on a very quick scan of the recommendations.
So this is to do with BCP's local plan. BCP are far in advance of their local plan than
we are, as we may know. We've had to respond as the neighbouring council and the responses
are attached as appendices. I guess the bit I take away is we are, as a council, disinclined
to accept BCP's housing need, potentially. That's probably what I took as the main point,
which is probably good news for us because it means we don't need to build as many houses
on the government's formula. Does anybody, I think Terry Sneller is going to speak about
it. So if Terry will elaborate. Yeah. So the response to the consultation
was made, sorry, the consultation ran during the pre-election period and hence an officer
response was made to that consultation. And this is seeking endorsement from cabinet of
that response that's already been made. There is also a supplementary response that was
made to the community infrastructure levy consultation that ran at a similar time. We
were obliged to engage with our neighbouring councils as they produce their local plans
under the duty to cooperate. And that has been ongoing through the production of the
BCP local plan. You mentioned the housing numbers within the local plan, the BCP local
plan. The government standard methodology proposes or arrives at a much higher number
than they are proposing within their plan. We jointly produced some evidence with BCP
that looks at those numbers. And they've gone with the lower number as their suggestion
within that plan. That will need to be assessed during the examination of their local plan
as they submit that. If it's found that they cannot meet or they
are not meeting their housing requirement, they will have to either look again at further
sites or will be coming to us to ask us if we can meet some of that need under duty to
cooperate. The detail is set out in the two appendices. I'm happy to take any questions
if there are any on that, on the responses that have been submitted.
Do we have any questions from non-cabinet members? Councillor Lacey Clark, apparently
you wish to comment?
Yes, thank you very much, Councillor Allen. Is my voice coming through okay this time?
Because I understood there might be an issue last time. You can hear me? Thumbs up? Great.
My question is, will I wholeheartedly support us not taking on a BCP's housing proportion
because we have enough people in our own, you know, with Endorsing, looking for their
own houses. Are we in a position to say that when one of the clear pledges that was made
for the election was to double the rate at which we build new houses? It's likely there's
a bit of a contradiction there. If we're doubling the rate of building new houses but don't
want to take on their supply, does that undermine our argument slightly? Thank you.
I think I can answer that. There's an echo somewhere. Yeah, we have pledged as the administration
to build more affordable homes that people can afford. We will do that. That's not in
any contradiction with taking houses from BCP. We will build them in the places where
we want them to be built and that's our plan. I don't know if Mr Sneller wants to comment?
I don't think he needs it, or Jan Britton? Only to say if Councillor Lacey Clark wants
to pursue that conversation, we had great difficulty sitting here hearing exactly what
he was saying. So it may be that he wants to get in touch after the meeting and we can
perhaps elaborate on what you just said, Leader. Did you hear that, Councillor Lacey Clark?
Yeah, okay, thumbs up. Councillor Jasperson?
Can I just ask for clarification through the Chair? To what Mr Sneller just said, which
is with regard to the BCP housing numbers, I think I heard you say that BCP were looking
for a mechanism to reduce the housing numbers lower than the government standard methodology
and that we, in our response, have supported them in that. And then I think I heard you
say that the consequence of that might be that we have to pick up some of the, if they've
gone for lower numbers and then those numbers are rejected by the government, we would have
to pick up some of that. So why did we support them in that then, if the consequence of that
could be that we have to pick up their housing numbers, which is the thing that we've been
most assiduously trying to avoid? Yeah, so jointly with BCP, we produced some
evidence which looked at the demographics that underlie the housing numbers using the
standard methodology that the government requires to use. There is provision within national
policy that if local circumstances suggest that there is a reason to deviate from that,
that through evidence that can be done, that will be examined at the examination of the
BCP local plan. We're supporting that approach of reducing their housing numbers because
the demographics and the joint evidence that we produced suggests that there is a reason
to deviate from the standard methodology. However, if it is found that they should be
using a higher housing number, then we will have to have, through the duty to cooperate,
we will have to consider whether we can meet some of that need in Dorset.
I think the answer was the higher number is making no difference to us. There is a duty
to cooperate, so the lower number and yeah, okay.
We are successful in persuading the government that the lower number is correct. That reduces
the threat to Dorset of having to take further housing from BCP. So us collaborating with
them to evidence the lower number is a good strategy from our point of view.
Councillor Jasperson, do you wish to come back on that?
Just very briefly and then I'd like to take this outside for further clarification, but
can we, because we didn't go in the first draft of our local plan, we didn't make the
case for the exceptional circumstances and reducing our housing numbers below the numbers
given by the standard methodology. Do I understand what you're saying then is that going forward
we intend to do that because unless we do that, we are not going to be taking advantage
of the position. We're going to be disadvantaged by this. A yes or no will do and then I'll
take it outside the meeting. We're going slightly off the topic of the
report, but do you wish to answer that? I think it's probably easier if we take it
outside the meeting. Councillor David Taylor I think was next then
Councillor Arizard. No, you didn't. Okay fine. Councillor Arizard then.
Thank you Chair. I would like to say that when I was reading this, it's quite complicated
and difficult because each paragraph seems to counteract the other one. So in where I
was reading it, it was saying the demographics for BCP seem on lead to the fact that the
numbers of children are going down, yet we always seen in BCP that families are increasing.
So I can't understand why the model that is being used has diminished the numbers and
I would hate to think in years to come that we are going to be saddled with actually extra
housing. The other question I want to ask is in 1.9 it says the allocation of site to
help to meet the gypsies and travellers and supports delivery of the Stara Valley Park
as a strategic part of the green infrastructure will serve both the residents of BCP Council
and Dorset Council areas. I understood that we already had gypsy and travellers sites
in BCP, no in Dorset Council and why are we in that case having to share a site with them
for this reason? Thank you. Over to Mr Sneller.
Yeah, I think the more detailed response in Appendix 1 sets out the two points differently.
We support them. There is a need for gypsy and traveller pitches within the BCP Council
area and we support them making provision to meet that need. We are not sharing that
with them. I think the point about sharing relates back to or meeting the needs of both
BCP and Dorset relates to the Stara Valley Park rather than gypsy and traveller. So they
should be separated out and in the full detailed response that was made to the plan I think
it makes that clear. You ok with that, Councillor Hasler?
Well it was just that the first kind of question statement I made there was no response so
what about how did you come to the demographics that BCP area is reducing in birth rate? Thank
you. It's quite complicated. The standard methodology
that we are required to use by government uses 2014 household projections. They have
been reviewed by the Office for National Statistics and found that there are some discrepancies
within those but the government still requires to use them. When you use more up to date
or locally produced household projections you arrive at the lower number which we think
is more representative of what's actually happening within the BCP area.
Thank you for indulging me Chair. It really is a matter I speak on as a ward Councillor.
My West Parley ward of course borders BCP as a number of Councillors in Dorset Council
will be aware of. Those of us that do have that border place are constantly aware of
the challenge that we have in trying to be good neighbours with our BCP authority. We
often see planning applications on the edges of BCP that actually impact the Dorset Council
area to a greater extent than does BCP. I'm very conscious that their local plans probably
need a higher degree of scrutiny than perhaps we could afford in this forum and if I may
indulge Chair, make a request to yourself, could we organise some sort of working part
of your briefing, maybe all Councillors but particularly those of us who have wards that
border the BCP area, could we really need to understand the technicalities of this?
I think we can do a briefing is the words I'm hearing. I'll open it up to cabinet members
now who wish to comment. So I should have said I propose it in the absence of Councillor
Bartlett I guess and do I have a seconder? Councillor Andrews? Anybody disagree with
the recommendations? In which case recommendations are approved. The next agenda item is urgent
items and we don't have any and then the final one is exempt business and there is no exempt
business. So at last I'll close the meeting at 7.57. Thank you very much for attending.
I'll close the meeting at 7.57. Thank you very much.
[Applause]
Thank you very much, Mr Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr Chair.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
.
