Transcript

[ Silence ] [ Silence ] [ Silence ] [ Silence ] [ Silence ] [ Silence ] Good evening everybody and welcome to the Welland Hattfield Borough Council's cabinet meeting and especially welcome to our new additions to cabinet as well. I now need to make a number of statutory announcements. Those present at this meeting should be aware that by law it can be recorded by anyone attending, therefore the meeting can be filmed, audio recorded, photographed, or reported electronically by the use of social media. Anyone recording must cease as soon as the meeting is declared closed. To confirm this meeting is being live streamed, hello everyone, therefore anyone present should be aware that they are being recorded and broadcast across the internet. Please can I remind members to use the crib sheets on the tables regarding the use of microphones and can you please indicate when you wish to speak by raising your hand and only turn your microphones on when called upon. Thank you very much. So, if we start we've got item one which is minutes. Can I ask cabinet to approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 5th of March 2024 as a correct record of the meeting. Brilliant, thank you. Question number two which is apologies, and we've received no apologies for absence for this evening. Item three, public question time and petitions. We've had no public questions or petitions that have been received at the time of the meeting. Item four, and this is the action report. So, this is essentially a summary of actions as identified in the last cabinet meeting and where we are with them, as well as a summary of decisions taken by fellow cabinet members under delegated powers authorized to them. Notable inclusions in the action plan include the changes to the council tax premiums for second and empty homes which was approved by council and the approval of the parking services works program for 2024-26. Can I ask members of the cabinet to note the action status report? Thank you. Just on item number five, we have received one item of urgent business to discuss this evening which relates to the purchase of a property. The report of which was circulated to members yesterday afternoon, but we'll come back to that later on on the agenda. Item number six, declarations of interests. Can I ask members of the cabinet to confirm if they have any conflicts of interest in relation to the items on this agenda this evening? Nope, perfect. Brilliant, so moving straight into the agenda, we've got item number seven, which are items requiring key decisions. First, we have the capital outrun 23-24 and for that I'd like to pass over to Councillor James Broach as executive member of resources to take us through this. Thanks, James. Thank you, Chair. This report presents the capital outturn for 23-24 financial year. For the general funds, just under £6.8 million of budget is being rephased into the new financial year to allow completion of key capital projects. The rephasing of capital is not uncommon as the exact project timings are not known when the budget is set and projects sometimes encounter unforeseen delays. Table one shows the summary of expenditure by directorate and the main variances are outlined in paragraphs 3.4.1 to 3.4.2. For the HRA, £41.9 million of budget is being rephased into 23-24 with the largest element of this being in relation to the affordable homes programme for the completion of ongoing schemes and major repairs and for these the main variances are outlined in paragraphs 3.4.3 to 3.4.4. The capital financing set out in section four has been amended to reflect the reduced expenditure in the year. Less borrowing has been required in year but will be required in future years when projects are completed. Balances are higher again due to rephasing of expenditure into 23-24. It is worth noting that right-to-buy sales were lower for the year than previous years due to the economic climate and the cost of living crisis. Numbers started to pick up again towards the end of the financial year and will be monitored closely in this coming year. I ask cabinet to note the out-term position and approve the rephasing of budgets as set out in appendix A. Thank you for that, James. Do we have any comments or thoughts? No. Thank you for that. Does cabinet agree to the recommendations as set out in the report? Agreed. Thank you. Next we have the revenue out-term for 23-24 and James, can I ask you to do us the honours again? You can. Some positive news in this one, cabinet. This report sets out the financial out-term for revenue for the 23-24 financial year with a very positive out-term in light of the ongoing pressures and cost of livings with a reduction to the original planned use of general fund reserves of 601,000 pounds. There's lots of detailed variances in the report, in particular dependencies B1 to B10 and variances for the non-service related budgets such as investment income as set out in section 3.3. 3.4 sets out the proposed movements to and from earmarked reserves. For the HRA, there was a small adverse movement of 54,000 pounds and details of key variances set out in appendices D1 to D4 and then non-service related budget variances set out in 4.4. I ask cabinet to approve the recommendation as set out in section 2. Thank you for that, James. Can I ask if there are any comments or questions from cabinet members? No, that's excellent. So can I ask then, does cabinet agree to the recommendations as set out in that report? Agreed. Thank you very much. Next, we've got item C on the agenda, which is the parent company guarantee waste management contract. Councillor Santorini-Vampante, as executive member for Environment, would you please talk us through this one? Thank you, chair. When the council entered into the waste service contract with ABATA Ltd, we obtained a parent company guarantee with ABATA's parent company, ABATA SAU. There should be any need to call upon these resources of the parent company for any contract breaches. Ownership of ABATA Ltd is due to change from ABATA SAU to FCC Environment UK Ltd. As a result, a renovation of the parent company guarantee is required. I recommend to cabinet to agree that a deed of renovation is entered into that transferred liabilities of ABATA SAU under the parent company guarantee to FCC Environment UK Ltd. Thank you. Thanks for that, Sanjiv. It feels very straightforward. Are there any comments? So I just wanted to add a little bit of information. Just to reassure residents, this doesn't affect day-to-day management of our waste service. This doesn't change times, or anything like that. This is simply what happens in a free market economy. Companies change names. Cosmetics change hands. This shouldn't affect residents on the GERP site, and we'll make sure to maintain the service you expect. Thank you. Thanks for that. It's a helpful clarification. Any other comments? Nope. Can I ask then, does cabinet agree to this recommendation? Agreed. Thank you. Moving on, we've got item eight, which is the performance exception report. So this item, for the last quarter of 23/24, essentially is a summary of the Council's performance across key metrics, but reported on an exception-by-exception basis, following the monitoring and review performance report. I think probably worthy of note that 85% of projects are completed or on schedule with no risks attached, and alongside that, 65% of all KPIs have been met or exceeded. There are currently 17 KPIs which have not yet met the annual target, and notes from officers explaining the reasons why have been provided within the report. And I would like to thank members of cabinet and officers for their time and explanations on those KPIs and for kind of detailing the measures that are going into addressing those areas. Can I ask that cabinet notes the report, unless there's any comments from members? Nope. So can we note the report? Agreed. Thank you. Item number nine is the risk management, so this is the quarter four risk registers, and Councillor Kiran Thorpe as executive member for governance, would you mind presenting this item? Thank you, chair. As the name suggests, this report presents the risk register at the end of quarter four. A new risk framework was introduced for the current financial year, and as part of this, the risk registers had a comprehensive review. The risk registers include indicators for risk direction which will assist members in identifying where risks are increasing or decreasing. Included in this report are all strategic risks, those operation risks with a residual score or severe, risk manager commentary is included for each risk which explains any updates to the risks along with additional actions being undertaken to manage the risk. I ask members to note the report along with the comments and actions being taken in respect of risk. Thank you. Can I ask if there's any comments or questions from cabinet members? In that case, does cabinet note the recommendations of the report? Brilliant. Thank you. Item number 10 is the treasury management and investment strategy annual report, and James, we're back over to you for this one, if you wouldn't mind. Thank you, chair. This report reviews the treasury management activity and prudential indicators for 23/24. Full council approved the 23/24 treasury management strategy back in February, 2023. The key thing to note from this report is that all of our treasury management activity undertaken is complied with the approved strategy which is the SIPPA code of practice and various relevant legislative provisions. The report goes down into a lot of detail about our borrowing over the years in paragraph 6.1 to 6.5 and for our investments in paragraph 6.6 to 6.10, our treasury management indicators are outlined in 7.1 to 7.6 which also details our compliance, and our investment strategy indicators are outlined in paragraphs 8.1 to 8.7. Naturally, with anything financial, we have to take lots of advice, and in this case, our treasury advisors are all in close and they've given us a detailed review of the year in appendix A. And further details of our investments and borrowing are outlined in appendix B. I ask cabinet to note the report and treasury management prudential indicators for 23/24. Thanks, James. If there are no comments, then as asked, will cabinet approve the recommendations in the report and note the recommendations. Excellent. Thank you. Moving on, we have item 11. So this is appointment of cabinet panels, committees and boards. So I'd like to present the nominations for cabinet panels, committees and boards for the approval of cabinet this evening, and thank other party leaders for their nominations. These nominations are essentially filling in the meetings that Councillors -- some of the meetings that Councillors attend and it varies from things from like housing and parking to climate change, biodiversity and community, and the full list is within the pack. Can I ask cabinet to approve the appointments as set out in the paperwork? Agreed. Thank you. And similarly, we have -- we'll just say congratulations to everyone who has been appointed, especially the newer members. I'm sure I speak for everybody on behalf of cabinet when I say we're looking forward to seeing the contributions brought to those meetings. And as I was saying, similarly, just as before, item number 12, these are the appointments for representatives on executive outside bodies. I present these as presented in the paperwork, and these are for various organisations and bodies sort of across the county that we need to have representation on. Can I ask that cabinet approves these as listed out in the report pack? Agreed. And thank you and congratulations to those appointed. Item number 13, this is the council achievement list from January to March 2024. The report summarises the council's key achievements, highlighting campaigns, engagement events, projects and sort of service improvements from the last quarter of 23/24. And I think we have a video to play. If it starts playing, great. Thank you. [Applause] [End of session] [End of session] [End of session] [End of session] [End of session] [End of session] [End of session] Brilliant, thank you. I really like the upbeat music of that video, plus all the lovely achievements. So as you can see, the council does some fantastic work with our communities, and I think although you've seen them there, I would like to highlight just a few from the report. So we hosted our first ever community awards and celebrated the success of our community heroes. The event was really well received by the community and enjoyed by everyone who attended. I'd also like to thank all of those involved in arranging and those that were nominated for the awards. We approved and implemented a public space protection order in Welland Garden City to help protect public spaces in the community. We achieved tree -- well, achieved tree, that's difficult to say. We achieved tree city of the world status for the fifth year running, which recognizes the importance of caring for urban trees, something that really assists in our biodiversity and climate change ambitions. We support a range of events and helped raise awareness for a range of communities and important topics such as International Women's Day, LGBTQ+ History Month -- it was really great to be there when the flag was raised -- but the council chamber and the great British Spring Clean, and I'm really looking forward to taking part in Green Week as well. A big thank you to the effort of colleagues from across the council and our partner organizations and officers and members for -- on delivering on these. It's really great to see. Would anyone else like to say anything before I -- yes, Sandy? Thank you, Joe. I just wanted to say my favorite thing. Over the past year, I was able to attend a special thank you event at Oakland's College to thank our local nature volunteers who -- I can't say how much worse off we would be without the hard work of those local people who really care about their environment and really care about their own health to be able to do these kinds of stuff. Stuff like Sherwood's Park, Danesbury, and even in Hatfield, believe it or not. So I'm very, very thankful for the stuff they do, and I hope we can continue to support them. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Anybody else? No. Fantastic, then. Can I ask Cabinet to note the report and the excellent achievements over the last quarter? Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Item number 14, and this is urgent matters arising, and as promised at the start, here we are. I'm going to ask Jemma Moore as executive member of housing if you'd be able to take us through this item. Thank you. Thank you. There is a need for Cabinet to consider an urgent report. The report seeks Cabinet's approval to purchase a property as a council home to meet the housing need for a family. One of the family members has a disability. The council home has previously been adapted, but it's not able to be adapted further to meet the family member's disabilities. Since the current family home was assessed as no longer being suitable in 2022 to meet the family members' needs, officers have been reviewing all properties that become vacant in our housing stock to assess them as to whether they are suitable or can be adapted to meet the needs of the family. However, there are a limited number of four bedroom council homes officers have not found any suitable properties. Having considered the health needs of the family member and the period of time that we have been reviewing properties within our housing stock, we consider that the most realistic option of meeting the housing need is to purchase a suitable property on the open market and undertake any adaptations that are needed. Officers have searched and assessed a number of properties on the open market over the last few months. The reason for urgency in this report is that a four bedroom property has been identified and assessed as suitable with adaptation by the occupational therapist to meet the family member's disability and also meets the rest of the family's needs. If the report is not considered until the July cabinet, the property may no longer be available for purchase. A survey has been undertaken of the property which identified that there are no significant works required and evaluation confirms that the price proposed is within the valuation range expected for the property. Adaptation works to make the property suitable to the family's needs of the family member's disability will be funded from existing budget for aids and adaptations. With the reasons explained, I recommend to cabinet that the cabinet approve the purchase of this property. Brilliant. Thanks. Thanks for that, Gemma, and thanks to officers for sending through the report to us. Yes, there's been enough time to look at that before, before this meeting. Can I ask if there are any questions or comments on this before we follow through to the recommendation? No. Can I ask then does cabinet agree to the recommendations as set out in the report that was circulated? Agreed. Brilliant. Thanks, everyone, and everyone watching. That brings us to the end of the agenda for this first cabinet meeting. And with that, I close the meeting, so good night and thank you. [ Silence ]