Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on 31 October 2017.

The minutes of the meeting held on 31 October 2017 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Carol Goodall, Tony Lock, Martin Wale and Colin Winder.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (as amended 26 February 2015), which includes all the provisions relating to Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI), personal and prejudicial interests, Members are asked to declare any DPI and also any personal interests (and whether or not such personal interests are also "prejudicial") in relation to any matter on the Agenda for this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no members of public present at the meeting.

This is an opportunity for Members to question the progress on issues arising from previous meetings.  However, this does not allow for the re-opening of a debate on any item not forming part of this agenda.

There were no issues raised from previous meetings.

The Chairman asked everyone present at the meeting to observe a moment of silence in memory of Ian Clarke (Solicitor to the Council and Director of Support Services). She noted he had been a great support to the Scrutiny Committee and would be greatly missed.

The Chairman noted that on 24 November, several members of the Scrutiny Committee had met with the Director of Strategy & Commissioning and the Performance Manager to discuss Performance Monitoring, which had been interesting and useful. She noted a formal report would come forward to the Scrutiny Committee in the New Year for discussion.

The Chairman noted that the Scrutiny comments had been considered and were included in the District Executive minutes which had been circulated.

Members considered the reports within the District Executive agenda for 7 December 2017 and made the following comments:

Somerset Waste Partnership Annual report and Draft Business Plan 2018-2023 (Agenda item 6)

·         Page 24 – Core services contract review – members noted Viridor had many such contracts nationally and queried if there are likely to be other alternative providers.

·         Page 5 – Purpose of the report refers to an agreement not being reached with the contractors, Kier, regarding the delivery plan and implementation of Recycle More. Members were concerned if similar issues may arise with alternative contractors. (although were reassured by the Officer and Portfolio Holder why this would be unlikely)

·         Members noted the same report has gone, or will be going, to the other authorities within the Somerset Waste Partnership, and queried where we were in that process. i.e. first or last authority to consider the report.

Community Infrastructure Levy - Guidance and Governance (Agenda item 7)

·         Rec B – Scrutiny queried if there would be a timeline associated with the Infrastructure Business Plan.

·         Page 29 - Members sought clarification that the table at the top of the page did not take into account the parish or town councils that may be eligible to receive 25% of CIL receipts (ie those with Neighbourhood Plans).

·         Members sought clarification that SSDC were continuing to encourage parishes to do Neighbourhood Plans.

·         Members also queried if a parish has a need for a specific project but no Neighbourhood Plan, was there scope for the parish to bid for, or receive more than 15%. (Dave Norris did clarify the situation in response to this and provided examples of the 123 list)

SSDC Review of Operational Office Accommodation (Agenda item 8)

·         Members supported the structured approached and more feasibility work being undertaken.

·         Scrutiny queried the potential for losing car parking spaces in some of the proposals for development/relocation and what impact this would have and the cost implications.

·         Members sought reassurance that that SSDC owned the freehold of all the properties concerned, and queried if there were any ground rents due on properties, and also that penalties associated with any leases would also be taken into consideration.

·         Some members noted the Locality Working Group had met 3 or 4 times, but only now had the aspect of operational accommodation been added to the scope for the group. Members felt things could have been done in a different way as concerns had been raised previously, and it now felt like the issue was being rushed.

·         One member requested reassurance around the commitment to the redevelopment of Chard given the changes in Officer roles.

·         Members requested that regeneration groups were consulted as part of the feasibility work.

·         Committee members requested more frequent Communications to keep members informed at each stage.

The Wincanton Neighbourhood Plan Referendum (Agenda item 9)

·         Members acknowledged much work had been done to get to this stage, and endorsed the recommendations.

·         Members queried which other parishes were also going through the process,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 87.

The Scrutiny Manager presented the report which summarised the monitoring activity and work conducted since the last Task and Finish report in December 2016 about the Council Tax Support Scheme. The report also detailed recommendations for the Council Tax Support Scheme for 2018/19. Members of the Scrutiny Committee were asked to endorse the report to District Executive.

The Chairman, Task and Finish members and Scrutiny Manager responded to points of detail. Some members queried if it was cost effective to be running the scheme and sought re-assurance of the monitoring of the costs of collection.

At the end of the short discussion, members were unanimously in agreement to endorse the report of the Task & Finish Group to District Executive. Members also wished to thank all the officers involved for their work.

Members noted the updates provided by the Scrutiny Manager on each of the Task and Finish Groups currently in progress or commencing in the near future.

Council Tax Support Scheme 2018 – This Task and Finish work was now complete. The report and recommendations would go forward to be considered by District Executive and Full Council in January.

Council Tax Support Scheme 2019 – The Task and Finish group had held their second meeting and were progressing with potential options to reduce administration time for the scheme.

Homefinder Somerset - No updates since the last meeting.

Transformation – Customer accessibility - this review would commence in January 2018.

Car Parking Charges – The review would commence when resources permit.

Members briefly discussed the priority for Car Parking Task and Finish work and agreed it had a low priority until resources became available.

The Scrutiny Manager noted that an update regarding Performance Monitoring had been provided earlier on the agenda under Chairman’s Announcements. A member also briefly provided some feedback to those who had been unable to attend the Performance Monitoring meeting on 24 November.

It was noted a Performance Monitoring report would come forward to the January meeting, as mentioned under Chairman’s Announcements earlier on the agenda.

Members noted the next meeting of the Scrutiny Committee was scheduled for 10.00am on Tuesday 2 January 2018 at 10.00am in the Main Committee Room, Brympton Way.