Agenda item

Clare Minchington has registered to make a statement on the Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme.

Clare Minchington addressed the Committee on the subject of the Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme. A copy of the statement will be attached as an online appendix to these minutes and a summary is set out below.

‘I should like to draw the committee’s attention to failures in the governance and decision-making surrounding the Liveable Neighbourhoods (LNs) programme.

In June 2021, an LN Bid for Walcot (including Camden Road) was rejected by the Cabinet and instead, a smaller LN initiative for London Road and Snow Hill was approved.

The scaled down Phase 1 LN was approved by Cabinet and consultation was subsequently undertaken with local residents in London Road and Snow Hill. This generated excellent suggestions to improve the liveable nature of the area – unsurprisingly a bus gate on Camden Road was not discussed, as a bus gate on Camden Road which by the Council’s own figures carries 6,000 vehicles a day, cannot be seen as small-scale, or as adjacent to London Road, Snow Hill and Kensington Gardens.

A FOI request to BANES in 2023 revealed that the expansion of the scheme from that approved by Cabinet would be a single-member decision, but we have not found such a decision in the Weekly List.

The Council has failed to follow the correct procedure before successfully applying for WECA funding in September 2024 for the Camden bus gate, which was previously rejected by Cabinet. They have also failed to properly consult on the proposal as the focus of consultation activity was rightly around a LN for London Road and Snow Hill.

I would ask the committee to:

1.  Reconsider the scoring of the Corporate Governance Risk in the Council’s risk register in light of the high likelihood of successful legal challenges to the validity of this ETRO in particular and other ETRO’s being implemented across Bath.

2.  Commission an internal audit of the LN programme focussing on compliance of BANES with its own consultation and decision-making frameworks, policies and processes.

3.  Pay particular attention to the ‘independent’ examination of financial records conducted by the internal auditors to provide assurance that WECA LN grants are being used in compliance with their Terms and Conditions.

The Chair commented that it was not within the scope of the Committee to talk at length about the Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme, but would ask that they focus on the three final points raised in the statement.

The Director of Financial Services, Assurance & Pensions thanked Clare for the points she had raised and said that a full written response would be given in due course. He added that in terms of the Corporate Governance Risk this was focussed on whether there were appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure lawful decision making can take place through the Constitution. If there was a specific legal risk that was highly significant that would feature as a separate risk. He added that he would speak with the Council’s Monitoring Officer for clarity on this matter and update if needed in the response to the statement.

He explained that the Committee were to discuss the development of the Internal Audit Plan for 2025/26 in a later agenda item and asked them to keep this request in mind for their discussions. He added that Internal Audit have already carried out reviews on other areas within the Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme within 2024/25 and would be willing to share that with members if required.

He said that Internal Audit do carry out examinations on all WECA grants and that he was not aware of any issues in relation to the compliance with these terms and conditions.

Clare Minchington commented that the risk of reputational damage to the Council could arise from the decision-making framework not being followed appropriately.

The Chair thanked Clare for her statement and said that the Committee should decide on whether any further action should be taken on this issue following the receipt of the written response from officers.