Decisions

An urban freight consolidation centre was established to serve Bath in January 2011, with the aim of reducing the number of goods vehicle deliveries to businesses in the city.  The contract and funding, jointly procured with Bristol City Council, ended on 31st July 2014.  A joint competitive tendering exercise was undertaken for a new contract to run for 3 years with an option to terminate the contract after 2 years. A decision is now required to award the contract.

(1) To AWARD the new contract for three years, with an option to terminate after two years.  If either authority took the decision to terminate the contract after two years, the other authority would have the option to continue for a further year; and

(2) To ASK the Strategic Director of Place during the contract period to explore local options that would help to expand the service further.

Submission of an information dossier to UNESCO addressing comments on the WHS Management Plan & informing them of proposed developments

(1) To ENDORSE the submission of the dossier to UNESCO.

The review will provide an update on the B&NES Economic Strategy produced in 2010, which is aligned to three core areas of people, business and place. The accompanying Skills Plan will provide a basis for delivering the people area of the strategy

(1) To ENDORSE the objectives and priorities set out in the Economic Strategy Review and agree the Action Plan as a framework for partnership action in the period 2014–2020; and

(2) To DELEGATE authority to the Strategic Director for Place, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Sustainable Development, to:

(i) agree a framework for measuring and monitoring progress against the key priorities in the Economic Strategy; and

(ii) agree minor amendments to the Strategy & Action Plan in conjunction with the Economic Partnership Group prior to publication of the documents.

This report presents the first monitoring information for the Authority as a whole for the financial year 2014/15 to the end of July 2014.  The report also includes a number of budget transfer requests for both revenue and capital

(1) To ASK Strategic Directors to continue to work towards managing within budget in the current year for their respective service areas, and to manage below budget where possible by not committing unnecessary expenditure, through tight budgetary control;

(2) To NOTE the revenue budget position;

(3) To NOTE the capital expenditure position for the Council in the financial year to the end of July and the year end projections;

(4) To AGREE the revenue virements listed for approval; and

(5) To NOTE the changes in the capital programme.

This report gives details of performance against the Council's Treasury Management Strategy and Annual Investment Plan 2014/15 for the first 3 months of 2014/15

(1) To NOTE the Treasury Management Report to 30th June 2014; and

(2) To NOTE the Treasury Management Indicators to 30th June 2014.

The draft Advice & Information Strategy was consulted on with members of the public, a wide range of agencies and service providers and was discussed at the Wellbeing Policy Development & Scrutiny Panel in January 2014. Cabinet at its meeting in February 2014 asked for a further report setting out the consultation responses and an updated draft policy for adoption.

(1) To NOTE the consultation feedback received and subsequent amendments made to the draft document; and

(2) To AGREE the Strategy.

The PDS Panel received the report of the Task & Finish Group following their review of Early Years, Children's Centre and Early Help (0 - 11 years) Services and from that made recommendations to Cabinet.  Cabinet considered the Panel’s recommendations at its meeting on 13^th November 2013.  The Cabinet decision from that meeting was Called-in and the Call-in was considered by the Panel at its meeting on 25^th November 2013.  The Panel agreed to uphold the Call-in and to ask Cabinet to reconsider its original decision.

Cabinet considered the Panel’s recommendations at a meeting on 4^th December 2013.  The reconsidered decision made at that meeting was not subject to Call-in.

The Panel received a presentation from Officers on the developing model at its meeting in January 2014 and Cabinet considered the matter under the discussion of the budget at its meeting on 12^th February 2014.  An update report will be brought to Cabinet at its meeting on 11^th June 2014.

The Panel will receive and comment on the report to Cabinet on September 8^th prior to the Cabinet meeting on September 10^th.

(1) To NOTE the results of the consultation processes and the range of views expressed by respondents, both for and against each element of the proposed changes;

(2) To AGREE to implement the new proposed service model, in order to deliver the cost savings approved in the Council’s approved Medium Term Service and Resource Plan;

(3) To NOTE the ‘Right to Provide’ proposal submitted by Children’s Centre staff who wish to explore the development of a ‘staff mutual’, (which could help to enable some elements of universal provision to be delivered without direct Council funding), and to AGREE to permit the staff to develop a business case;

(4) To DELEGATE authority to the Strategic Director (People and Communities) and Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children and Youth, in consultation with the Section 151 Officer, to have discretion at key stages to halt the process if it becomes evident that the business case is not going to be viable;

(5) To AGREE in light of the above that the Council will continue to be the direct provider of Children’s Centre Services for 9 Children’s Centres until March 2018 unless a staff mutual is established at an earlier date for an appropriate procurement process to be undertaken;

(6) To AGREE in light of the above the continuation of the Bath West Children’s Centre Services (the 2 Children’s Centres contracted from an external provider) through appropriate procurement mechanisms to run until March 2018 in order to align with the in-house service;

(7) To AGREE that both the Council service and commissioned provider will be required to work together to enable the new two-service model to be progressively implemented ahead of a full re-commissioning process to let a contract that runs from April 2018 onwards;

(8) To APPROVE the inclusion of further transitional funds of £104,000 in 2015/16 and plan for transitional funding of £76,000 in the Council Budget for 2015/16, with transitional funding to be spread over the following 2 financial years to support these measures, due to the resulting delay in achieving the full implementation of the new two-service model;

(9) To INSTRUCT officers and commissioned providers to continue to promote and explore opportunities to enable some universal services, such as groups and peer networks, to be delivered without direct Council funding; and

(10) To ASK the Early Years, Children and Youth Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel to receive a report and review implementation of new models a year following implementation.