Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

The Chair will draw attention to the emergency evacuation procedure as set out in the Notes

The Senior Democratic Services Officer drew attention to the evacuation procedure as set out in the Agenda.

Councillor Charles Gerrish had sent his apologies for this meeting.

The Chair also informed the meeting that Councillor Mark Shelford would have to leave the meeting at 4.45pm.

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officeror a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

Councillor Paul May declared disclosable pecuniary interest on any matters related to Sirona as he was non-executive director on the Sirona Board.  Councillor Paul May would leave the room during questions, statements and discussion related to Sirona.

Questions submitted before the deadline will receive a reply from an appropriate Cabinet member or a promise to respond within 5 days of the meeting.  Councillors may ask one supplementary question for each question they submitted, up to a maximum of two per Councillor.

There were 25 questions from Councillors and 2 questions from members of the public.

[Copies of the questions and responses, including supplementary questions and responses if any, have been placed on the Minute book as Appendix 1 and are available on the Council's website.]

Councillor Paul May had left the room during the duration of Cabinet questions and answers related to Sirona.

Councillors and members of the public may register their intention to make a statement if they notify the subject matter of their statement before the deadline.  Statements are limited to 3 minutes each.  The speaker may then be asked by Cabinet members to answer factual questions arising out of their statement.

The Chair informed the meeting that David Redgewell had asked to address the Cabinet at this meeting but due to his poor health he was unable to attend today.  The Chair said that the Cabinet had received David’s statement in advance of the meeting and wished him a speedy recovery and best wishes.

Councillor Tim Ball read out a statement where he expressed his concerns on grass and weeds cutting.  Councillor Ball said that he didn’t think that the Council would be making any savings with this policy.  Some areas in Twerton had been covered by high grass, so high that the tallest school children could not be seen by incoming traffic.  Councillor Ball also added that some residents had tried to cut the grass, which they shouldn’t, and asked the Cabinet to reverse its policy.

Councillor Paul Crossley read out the statement by suggesting that grass cutting was an unidentified cut in the budget as there was no consultation carried on that matter. Councillor Crossley said that Southdown Ward looked quite untidy on many places and that there were more people reporting hay fever syndromes.  Councillor Crossley also said that dog owners were reporting more cases of ticks, that children play areas were not kept and that he has had so many complaints from the residents in terms of grass cutting issues.  Councillor Crossley concluded this statement by asking the Cabinet to reverse the policy and make sure that all the grass was cut before schools’ summer holidays.

The Chair responded that the Cabinet was aware of this issue.  The Chair also said that the situation would soon improve and Councillor Bob Goodman would email all Councillors with the latest information.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday 11^th April 2018 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

This is a standard agenda item, to cover any reports originally placed on the Weekly list for single Member decision making, which have subsequently been the subject of a Cabinet Member requisition to the full Cabinet, under the Council’s procedural rules

This is a standing agenda item (Constitution rule 14, part 4D – Executive Procedure Rules) for matters referred by Policy Development and Scrutiny bodies.  The Chair of the relevant PDS Panel will have the right to attend and to introduce the Panel’s recommendations to Cabinet.

A list of Cabinet Single Member decisions taken and published since the last Cabinet meeting to note (no debate).

The Cabinet agreed to note the report.

The report presents the revenue and capital outturn for 2017/18, highlighting a net revenue over budget position of £1.255m after allowing for proposed carry forwards.  The report refers to requests to carry forward specific revenue budget items to 2018/19 and to write-off revenue over budgets where recovery in future years would have an adverse impact on continuing service delivery.  The report also refers to requests to re-phase specific capital budget items to 2018/19 and to remove net capital underspends.

Councillor Dine Romero made an ad-hoc comment about overspend in Adult Social Care and asked the Cabinet to lobby the Government for more funding in this area.

Councillor Will Sandry made an ad-hoc statement where he expressed his concerns on capital programme delivery.  Councillor Sandry said that the Council had started a number of big projects yet there was no delivery required.

Councillor Robin Moss made an ad-hoc statement where he also expressed his concerns on overspend in Adult Social Care and that the Council had reached a financial cliff edge in support services.  Councillor Moss also asked the Leader to lobby the Government for more funding in Adult and Social Care.

Councillor Paul May introduced the item by thanking the officers and Councillor Charles Gerrish on the report.  Councillor May added that this report had presented the revenue and capital outturn for 2017/18, highlighting a net revenue over budget position of £1.255m after allowing for proposed carry forwards. The position had vastly improved through the management actions that were agreed and implemented earlier in the financial year. The improvement had continued since the last report, which forecasted an over budget position of £3.396m based on monitoring for the year to December 2017, mainly due to lower cost of Children’s placements and improved income in Adult Social Care.

The report had referred to requests to carry forward specific revenue budget items to 2018/19 and to write-off revenue over budgets where recovery in future years would have an adverse impact on continuing service delivery. Budgets were also rebased for 2018/19 to realign them. It was proposed that the over budget position was funded by appropriate drawdowns from the mitigations set aside earlier in the financial year that were held as contingency against in year spending pressures. This included the use of the specific transitional grant funding provided by the government and set aside by the Council at the start of the financial year.

The main areas of over/under budget (greater than £1m) were:

• Adult Care, Health & Wellbeing – £1.148m over budget - The overspend related to continued pressure on Adult Social care spend arising from demographic change, with increasing levels of complexity and acuity of need impacting on the cost of individual packages of care / placements, despite enhanced control measures.
• Children & Young People - £1.534m over budget - The overspend relates to demand driven pressures mainly relating to children's social care placement costs due to a significant increase in expenditure for supporting individual children, in particular, the support for residential placements, support for fostered (including independent fostering) and court directed parent and baby placements, along with direct payments for clients at risk of care and inter-agency adoption placements.

Councillor Paul May moved the recommendations.

Councillor Mark Shelford seconded the motion.

Councillor Vic Pritchard said that it was not a shock to the Cabinet about the Adult Care, Health and Wellbeing overspends.  The Cabinet had lobbied the Government, and it would continue to lobby though, the Council should be more independent  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

In February 2012 the Council adopted the 2011 edition of the CIPFA Treasury Management in the Public Services: Code of Practice, which requires the Council to approve a Treasury Management Strategy before the start of each financial year, review performance during the year, and approve an annual report after the end of each financial year.

This report gives details of performance against the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy and Annual Investment Plan 2017/18.

NOTE: Councillor Mark Shelford had left the meeting at this point (4.45pm).

Councillor Paul May introduced the report by saying that the average rate of investment return for 2017/18 was 0.30%, which was 0.04% above the benchmark rate.  The Council’s Prudential Indicators for 2017/18 were agreed by Council in February 2017 and performance against the key indicators was shown in the report, and all indicators were within target levels.  Councillor May also highlighted a summary of returns, a summary of borrowings, strategic and tactical decisions, future strategic and tactical issues and budget implications.

Councillor Paul May moved the recommendations.

Councillor Tim Warren seconded the motion by welcoming that the average rate of investment return for 2017/18 was 0.04% above the benchmark rate.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that the Cabinet agreed to:

1)  The Treasury Management Report to 31st March 2018, prepared in accordance with the CIPFA Treasury Code of Practice, is noted;

2)  The Treasury Management Indicators to 31st March 2018 are noted.