Transcript

welcome to the Council on the 22nd of May 2024. Before the beginning of things start I have some housekeeping announcements. Please note the location of the fire exits over there and over there. Please make sure that your mobile phones and other devices are switched to silent. An audio recording of the meeting is being made and will be published on the Council's website. Item 1, apologies for absence, apologies from Councillor Ruth Fletcher. Item 2, the minutes.... Not really because he's not summoned to attend but thank you very much anyway. Okay, Item 2, the minutes of the previous Cabinet meeting held on the 25th of January are on pages 3 to 12 of the Agenda. I move that these minutes are approved as a correct record. Are you in agreement? Item 3, Declaration of Members' Interest. Does any member of the Cabinet have an interest to declare relating to any item on the Agenda? Oh, lovely. Item 4, Announcements. I have one Announcement concerning the Drill Hall. The first stage of the process to transfer ownership of the Drill Hall to Life Spring Church has passed. The Hall is a registered asset of community value and as such any intention of sale has to be advertised to give community groups an opportunity to have time to develop a bid for the building. The deadline for groups to submit an Expression of Interest passed last week and there have been no such expressions received. As such, we continue to proceed with the sale. There is still much to negotiate and I hope that we will conclude a sale in the autumn. I will keep Members informed as the process continues. Do any other Cabinet Members have any Announcements? None? Actually, before I come to the Chief Executive, I should have said this earlier but I'd like to welcome both Councillors David Skipp and Councillor Anthony Franklin to the Cabinet for your first meeting. Congratulations and welcome. Alright, Chief Executive's Announcements. None? Excellent, thank you. Item 5, public questions. No questions from members of the public have been received. Item 6, purchase of two 15-ton refuse collection vehicles on pages 13 to 20. I invite Councillor Jay Mercer, Cabinet Member for Environmental Health, Recycling and Waste, to introduce this report. Jay. As part of our statistical duties, you will know we collect domestic waste from all residential properties in the District, which includes a number of those cited along narrow lanes and tracks which are not accessible with our normal larger vehicles. We therefore use smaller 15-ton vehicles for these collections and soon we will be purchasing an even smaller 7.5-ton vehicle to access the very hard to reach areas. The purpose of this report is to seek authority to purchase two new 15-ton refuse collection vehicles to substitute the existing ones collecting from our isolated property rounds. We experienced an accident in December 23, which you've heard about before, which involved a rear axle failure and a vehicle rollover and this has influenced this suggested decision. The new vehicles feature a redesigned structure and that mitigates the risk of such accidents in the future. One of the 15-ton vehicles was written off due to the accident and we are already hiring to cover this, and the other is due for refurbishment this year, but due to the incident we are proposing a decision to replace it. We have a budget of $70,000 for each vehicle to be refurbished and we're also making a saving on our normal refurbishment budget, which as detailed in the report and which combined with that $140,000 will pay for the two new vehicles. Therefore we're not asking for additional funds but the authority to purchase two new vehicles rather than refurbishing. Thank you. Thank you very much Jay. Do any other cabinet members have any comments on this recommendation? No. Do any members present have any questions about this recommendation? No. In which case could I ask for a show of hands from cabinet members present in favour? Okay, that's unanimous, thank you very much. Item 7. Refuse Vehicle Refurbishment Tender Award, pages 21 to 30. Once again I invite Councillor Jay Mercer, cabinet member for Environmental Health Recycling and Waste, to introduce this report. And again some of this we will have covered before but we manage a fleet of refuse collection vehicles as you know which need to be maintained to be roadworthy and compliant under the relevant licensing laws. At the cabinet's meeting on 22 November 2022, the cabinet considered a report that recommended all of the Council's vehicles, refuse collection vehicles, be refurbished in both their bodies and tabs and that was approved at Council. Following the award of that contract which went to the highest scoring bidder through the relevant framework, the refurbishment of the vehicles began on 1 January

1. Unfortunately we experienced severe delays with the vehicles, they were returned late and they were often not working properly. After ongoing calls and emails and in-person meetings with unfulfilled promises, the decision was taken to terminate the contract which was finished on 3 May 24. Therefore a procurement exercise was undertaken to identify a replacement contractor and the Council now needs to award the subject contract to the winning bidder as detailed in the exempt Appendix B to this report. We already have a capital budget set for the initial refurbishment contract and we will ensure that the new supply remains within this budget. Therefore we're not requesting the approval of any further funds and I recommend the recommendations in the report to you. Thank you very much Jay. Do any other cabinet members have any comments on this item? Nope? Or any questions from any other members present. Councillor Serkis. Thank you leader. Two points. I've said it before but I don't think I've heard a satisfactory answer. This is a breach of contract by the existing contractor and I cannot understand, perhaps my learning friend the Monitoring Officer can help with this. I really don't understand why when the contractor was in breach of contract, why we got less than a full indemnification of our costs. That doesn't seem right from any point of view, least of all from a legal point of view so I don't know whether our illustrious head of legal could answer why we didn't go for a full. I know I've heard the argument that we got rather more than another local authority did. Well I'm not sure I find that a terribly convincing argument. So perhaps that can be dealt with. And secondly this is probably a question for Laura and I regret that I didn't ask it when we had a briefing the other day. As I understand it or maybe I've misunderstood it, it's quite possible that there will have to be adaptions to the fleet of refuse vehicles to cater for the food waste collections that are coming down the track and are going to be mandatory. And I thought that was going to involve some element of modification. Are we going to anticipate any such modification and would that and could that be part of the refurbishment that we're now talking about to anticipate what is coming down the track? Thank you leader. Thank you councillor Sirkis. Your first question does not actually relate to recommendations before us at all so I suggest you take that along with officers at your leisure. Councillor Mercer do you have any comments on the second question? I'm going to refer that to the head of service if I may. Thank you. So the food waste vehicles are going to be a separate fleet to the current vehicles. So they'll be specialized for food waste and the current vehicles continue doing what they're doing now. Thank you. Were there any other questions? No. In which case you have the recommendations cabinet members. So could I have a show of hands in favor of the recommendations please? Thank you that's unanimous. Now if I can count correctly if I can item eight retender of the arboricultural contract on pages 31 to 40. I invite councillor David Skip, cabinet member for leisure culture and green spaces to introduce this report. David. Thank you very much leader. Yeah this is the a retender of the arboricultural contract. It was previously or the previous tender commenced on April 1st of April 22 and by the end of 31st December 23 the contract was terminated by mutual consent. It's related to tree inspection and works for trees on council owned land and once it became clear that the contractor was not able to deliver the service in line with the terms of the then contract that's why appropriate action was taken by officers from my view looking back it seemed to have been taken appropriately and swiftly. An interim solution has been in place since that time using several local contractors who are used on a case-by-case basis for different types of tree work. It's important to have continuity of this service as not carrying out works to trees again have safety implications and also spreading the work means the council is not favoring one contractor so they could submit a bid for the new contract if they were so inclined and officers are currently carrying out the lessons learned exercise to reduce the risk of another contract failure. The specification that was used for the previous contract is also being reviewed. The next stage will be to carry out the market engagement process to ensure that contents of the new contract are attractive to contractors. For example that's why the previous contract was for seven years giving sufficient time for contractors to regain the value of the equipment that they had to purchase to run the service. Tenders will be advertised for bids in October with contract award in December or January and as you may have heard from scrutiny the procurement the new procurement bill comes in from October 2024. No decisions have been taken on whether a different approach to the contract will be taken. One option is rather than appointing one contractor there will be a framework with several contractors. This would spread the risk of the contract failing but could involve more work for officers managing the contract. So the recommendations are to approve a procurement exercise to identify a supplier to provide arbori cultural services on council owned land. Two, to approve the award of the contract to the winning bidder on standard market terms and three to delegate authority to the director of communities in consultation with the cabinet member for leisure culture and green space to finalize the terms of and enter the contract for the provision of arbori cultural services. Thank you very much David. Do any other cabinet members have any comments or questions on this item? Nope. Any questions from other members present on the recommendations. Councillor Nowell. Thank you chairman. I made my views known at the PDAG a couple of weeks back and I don't intend to repeat them again now. However I would like to say that I fully support this administration's attempts to secure a better contract than we have done in the past and I fully support the re-tendering. Thank you. Thank you very much councilor Nowell. Any other questions? Nope, lovely. In which case you've heard the recommendations and have them in the papers. I have a show of hands of those in favour of the recommendations please. That is unanimous. Thank you. Item nine, housing grants approval of additional budget and spend on pages 41 to 46. I invite Councillor Sam Raby cabinet member for housing communities and well-being to introduce this report. Thank you leader. I'm going to be very brief on this. So we need the approval of additional budget and how we're going to spend it. So the cabinet recommends that council agrees to increase the housing services budget for the council to receive additional homelessness prevention grants that have been allocated by the department for levelling up housing communities and the use of the additional homelessness prevention grant is restricted to preventing and relieving homelessness which is something that's hugely important at the moment. So I'm going to get on to the recommendations. So the cabinet recommends that council approves the receipt of the additional homelessness prevention grant of £266,546 and that they approve an increase in the housing service 24/25 revenue income and expenditure budgets of the same number £266,000, £100,546 to enable the receipt of the additional grant. This is absolutely crucial and I just want to say that although it's a no-brainer to receive additional money these grants have been used to prevent our residents ending up in bed and breakfast accommodation which is hugely expensive for the council but it also means that those residents who are in the sad position of losing their their homes are put in more stable position to carry on with their lives. So I'd like to recommend that council approve. Thank you. Thanks very much Sam. Do any other cabinet members like to comment on this one? No, in which case I will do because you're absolutely right. Oftentimes these grants come forward from government and it just makes perfect sense to, you know, it would be silly not to take the money and put it to good use but I can't think of many more reasons that we would receive such grants that are more important, more significant than helping tackle homelessness so I'm very much in favour of this one. Any questions from other cabinet members, sorry other council members present? I mean you've all been there but you know. I echo everything you just said. Thank you very much Councillor Lambert. In which case could I have a show of hands in favour of the recommendations please? Okay that's unanimous thank you very much. Right, item 10 report on use of chief executive's emergency powers. I invite the Director of Resources to introduce this report. Thank you. The report before you sets out the circumstances surrounding the use of the chief executive's emergency powers by the acting chief executive on the 28th of March 2024. The constitution requires that where the chief executive's emergency powers are exercised a report on the circumstances is made to the next meeting, in this case being this cabinet meeting. The report summarises the contributory factors in the process and the chain of events that resulted in the emergency powers being used. In this case the powers were used to award a one-year extension on the insurance contract that was due to expire on the 31st of March 2024. I brief the chairman of the overview and scrutiny committee and at the O&S committee meeting on the 13th of May the committee agreed to set up a short task and finish group to review this matter in detail and learn any lessons from it. That process is about to kick off very shortly. I would also like to reassure cabinet that the council was not without insurance at any point. Cabinet is recommended to note the contents of the report. Thank you very much Dominic. The recommendation is to note the contents of the report. I believe that those contents are also noted. Thank you very much. Item 11 overview and scrutiny committee. I appreciate that councilor Paul Clark is not here this evening but as councilor Sirkis is here and is a member of the overview and scrutiny committee do you have any items you'd like to raise? In the absence of... I'm sorry do you want to? Please no. I'm sorry, in the absence of the attendance of the chairman of overview and scrutiny he's asked me to report back to you that there are no matters for him to refer to cabinet this evening. Thank you very much councilor. Thank you very much Councillor. Item 12 forward plan. This item is is for noting. Does any member of the cabinet have anything to say or add on this item? No, thank you very much. Item 13 to consider matters of special urgency. There are no urgent matters to consider this evening, even the calling of a general election. I therefore close the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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