Issue - decisions

Matter for Decision

The Budget-Setting Report (BSR) included the detailed revenue bids and savings and capital proposals and sets out the key parameters for the detailed recommendations and budget finalisation being considered at this meeting. The report reflects recommendations that will be made to The Executive on 11 February 2019 and then to Council, for consideration at its meeting on 21 February 2019.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Finance and Resources

 

To recommend to the Executive to:

 

i. Approve Revenue Pressures shown in Appendix C (a) and Savings shown in Appendix C (b).

ii. Agree there are no bids to be funded from External or Earmarked Funds (which would be included as Appendix C (c).

iii. Approve Non-Cash Limit items as shown in Appendix C (d).

 

To recommend to Council to

 

i.      Approve delegation to the Chief Financial Officer (Head of Finance) of the calculation and determination of the Council Tax taxbase (including submission of the National Non-Domestic Rates Forecast Form, NNDR1, for each financial year) which will be set out in Appendix A (a).

ii.     Approve the level of Council Tax for 2019/20 as set out in Appendix A (b) (to follow for Council) and Section 4 [page 27 refers].

Noted that the Police and Crime Commissioner, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Fire Authority and Cambridgeshire County Council have issued precepts to the City Council for the year 2019/20.

iii. Approve delegation to the Head of Finance authority to finalise changes relating to any corporate and/or departmental restructuring and any reallocation of support service and central costs, in accordance with the CIPFA Service Reporting Code of Practice for Local Authorities (SeRCOP).

iv.  Approve an additional contribution of £250k to the Cambridge Live Development Plan Earmarked Reserve to include transition funding, proposal NCL4325.

v.  Approve the proposals outlined in Appendix E (a) for inclusion in the Capital Plan, including any additional use of revenue resources required. Report page no. 3 Agenda page no.

vi.Approve the revised Capital Plan for the General Fund as set out in Appendix E (d), the Funding as set out in Section 7, page 39.

vii. Note the impact of revenue and capital budget approvals and approve the resulting level of reserves to be used to support the budget proposals as set out in the table [Section 8, page 45 refers].

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Head of Finance which was verbally updated at the meeting to correct an error relating to the Legal Practice item (reference S4247 p141 of the second circulation agenda).

 

Members of the Executive and Spokes Councillors who did not ordinarily attend the Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee joined the Committee for discussion on the budget.

 

C4156 Cherry Hinton Library

In response to Members’ questions the Head of Finance confirmed:

i.    It was not unusual for capital bids to be funded in a variety of ways or to utilise funding from third parties (for example a school could use s106 contributions to develop sports facilities). If the British Legion pulled out of the project then the council would need to make some provision to comply with accounting practices.

 

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Robertson commented:

i.                 That some schemes utilised funding from third parties for example through lottery bids.

 

C4180 Vehicle Fleet

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) confirmed:

i.                 She would check to see whether there was similar grant funding available for smaller electric vehicles as there was for larger vehicles.

ii.               A fleet review would be undertaken in the coming year; it was difficult to provide comparisons between vehicles.

 

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Moore commented:

i.      That this issue was not simply about costs; but a lot of the vehicles were very big and the council needed to be sure that the new electric vehicle technology would function in the way the council required.

 

I14191 Environmental Health service fees and charges

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) confirmed:

i.      That existing fees and charges would be increased by inflation; new fees were not being introduced.

ii.       She apologised for inconsistencies between the BSR and the background briefing note to the BSR.

 

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Moore confirmed:

i.        That mentoring visits referred to in I14191 were primarily training sessions for food operators.

 

URP4222 MRF cost – reduction income and increase costs (with current contract and market) under Amey contract

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) confirmed:

i.        That there was an officer dedicated to dealing with recycling. Work was undertaken with households who regularly had contaminated recycling.

 

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Moore commented:

i.        That the council could not focus on everything all year round. Recently there had been a campaign which focussed on increasing the recycling rate of metals. The council was also monitoring the contract with Amey Cespa more effectively. The current project would focus on contaminated recycling.

 

B4219 Volunteer Groups – Continue with Officer support with recycling and cleansing groups in City and South Cambs    

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) confirmed:

i.    That the post referred to in proposal B4219 was a different post to the officer referred to in proposal URP4222.

 

B4187 Increase Procurement Team Resources from 2.5FTE to 3FTE.

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (FB) commented:

i.      That the additional procurement officer resource would assist internal departments when they were undertaking procurement exercises and would also mean that the council would have more resources devoted to monitoring the delivery of contracts.

 

URP4240 Eastnet – Forced Procurement Replacement of Virgin Media CPSN

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (FB) commented:

i.              That this was a shared services agreement with other authorities so the council had less control over the contract but the provisions in the contract were tighter than the existing contract. It would cost the Council a lot more if we undertook this procurement on our own.

 

NCL4325 Additional Contribution to Cambridge Live Development Plan Earmarked Reserve to include transition funding.

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) confirmed:

i.              That the service would be in-house from the 1 April 2019. Full details of the transfer were still being worked on but the service would report into the Community Services Section and it would be incorporated into the financial management system; it would need tight cost controls.

 

In response to Members’ questions the Head of Finance commented:

i.                 That there were no proposals to change back office costs and that these would be drawn from existing resources. Re-allocation of overheads would be re-charged in the same way other services are charged within the Council.

 

S4169 Deletion of 18.5 hours of the Grants Officer

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) commented:

i.              That the workload of the officer had reduced and they had been undertaking other tasks so the hours of the post allocated to grants work had been reduced to reflect this.

 

S4174 Deletion of 7 hours of the Housing Strategy Manager post

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) commented:

i.              That the post holder had been undertaking their role working 30 hours per week for a long time and there was no impact on their job. Reallocation of funding had not been considered.

 

KI4213 Reduction in income due to review of Shopmobility charges

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Blencowe confirmed:

i.              That charges would be removed and a free service would be available from 1 April 2019.

 

S4301 Planning Service – new and revised service delivery

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Blencowe commented that:

i.              City Councillors would continue to have the right to call in planning applications to Planning Committee. 

ii.             Residents would still have the right to approach their Ward Councillors regarding planning applications. 

iii.           Planning Committee would make the decision on any changes to the planning process.

iv.          There were a number of applications that came to Planning Committee that only had 1 objection. A S73 application with a slight variation would automatically go to Planning Committee and if there was no new information brought to the case officer this was an example of a decision that could be delegated to an Officer.

v.            The Chair of South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC) Planning Committee approved whether applications which had been called in went to the SCDC Planning Committee for decision.

 

In response to Members’ questions the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development commented:

i.              That there were 107 Planning Committee decisions last year and 91% of decisions were delegated to Officers.  There was a significant cost associated with every decision made at Planning Committee.

ii.             A Planning Committee decision cost £1400 compared to £284 for a delegated decision.  He provided examples of other council and the percentage of officer delegated decisions: Cheltenham had 91%, Harrogate 96%, Oxford 94% and Bath was 97%.

iii.           There had been an investment of £200,000 in IT which would allow faster use of planning software.  The practice was to notify neighbours by letter which was made clear in the Statement of Community Involvement, however there was no policy beyond that and legislation only required a site notice to be displayed.

iv.          An application at Darwin Green had 200 notification letters sent out and no responses were received.    The Cavendish application had 500 notification letters and 7 responses were received. He was trying to work towards a more sustainable notification process. The software would enable individuals to sign up to receive notifications when an application had been received and was going to Planning Committee for decision.

v.            Some landowners had indicated that this would be useful as tenants did not always pass on information that had been sent to a property through the post.

vi.          There would be a review process so that officer and committee time was being used effectively. A number of applications had gone back to committee when there was an objection that the committee had already considered.

vii.         There was a proposal to consult on whether there should be charges for pre-application advice.

 

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Herbert commented:

i.              That the centralised Planning Committee worked well and decisions taken at Area Committees varied when they had dealt with planning applications.  

ii.             Some notification letters did not reach those directly affected.

iii.           Officers would continue to make reasoned decisions.

iv.          Consideration of the changes would be subject to a full consultation exercise.

 

B4198 Streets and Open Spaces Growth Officer

In response to Members’ questions the Strategic Director (SH) confirmed:

i.              That this budget item was due to delayed development timetables and was an additional cost; there were areas of public open space that still needed to be adopted.

 

B4322 Community Clear up

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Thornburrow confirmed:

i.              That the council ran skip days through the different estates however she wanted 12 additional skip days that were not related to the estates to encourage residents to ‘re-use, recycle and repair’. 

ii.             She wanted to work with local councillors where there was the need and the desire to find good locations for these additional clear up days.

 

C4192 Environmental Improvement Programme

In response to Councillor’s questions, Councillor Thornburrow confirmed:

i.              That £170,000 would be coming from funding not spent in 18/19.

 

The Committee resolved by 4 votes to 0 to endorse the recommendations.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendations.

 

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted)

No conflicts of interest were declared by the Executive Councillor.