Agenda, decisions and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the District Executive meeting held on 02 December 2021.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 2^nd December 2021 were approved as a correct record and would be signed by the Chairman.

There were no apologies for absence.

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.

Members are reminded that they need to declare the fact that they are also a member of a County, Town or Parish Council as a Personal Interest. Where you are also a member of Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council within South Somerset you must declare a prejudicial interest in any business on the agenda where there is a financial benefit or gain or advantage to Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council which would be at the cost or to the financial disadvantage of South Somerset District Council. 

There were no declarations of interest made by Members.

There were no questions from members of the public.

The Chairman wished all Members a very Happy New Year and said it would be a very busy year in the lead up to becoming a Unitary Authority. 

The Chairman also advised that a letter of resignation had been received from Councillor Linda Vijeh as a District Councillor.

The Chief Executive of Citizens Advice South Somerset provided Members with a short presentation of the work of the organisation.  She noted that:

·         They had been open over the Christmas period and were very busy.

·         They had helped to distribute the Somerset Household Support Fund of £250 grants to households who were struggling to meet essential living costs and had received 370 applications in South Somerset.

·         The main advice issues were Universal Credit applications, benefit claims, seeking affordable housing and managing personal debt.

·         There was uncertainty on the funding for debt casework for 2022/23 as the Money and Pension Service had recently advised they were not going to commission regional debt advice as the applications they received did not meet their requirements.

·         There was currently a deficit budget forecast for the following year for the service and some funding schemes were ending or changing.

In response to questions from Members, the Chief Executive for Citizens Advice South Somerset and the Chairman advised:-

·         The service received £34,000 grant funding from SCC public health and they had also awarded £400,000 as a one off grant to provide additional capacity on the Somerset Adviceline.

·         CASS received no funding from the national body but membership allowed them access to insurance and quality of advice audit. 

·         She was not aware that Citizens Advice centres in London received funding to pay for officers rather than volunteers but would check this and confirm with Councillor Hobhouse.  (Subsequent to the meeting, it was confirmed that National Citizens Advice do not make any payments to London City Citizens Advice Centres).

·         Funding for CASS should continue when the new Unitary Authority was established.

·         It would be helpful for SSDC and CASS to work together to prevent large council tax arrears for clients.

·         Housing was a huge issue as some private landlords were selling their rented properties in the area.

·         CASS would use their reserves to keep the service operating for one year while new funding sources were sought but the new Unitary Authority was expected to be a funding provider.  Wessex Water and Western Power Distribution also contributed grant aid to the service.

·         The Somerset Local Government Reorganisation Joint Committee would be discussing funding for the voluntary sector at their next meeting on 4 February 2022.

·         SCC had granted £400,000 as an additional capacity grant to help on the Somerset Adviceline across the county.  The funding was to cover 2 years to June 2023.  In South Somerset it funded a full time employee to supplement the volunteers on the advice line. 

During discussion, the following points were made:

·         The new Unitary Authority should be able to make an arrangement for the future funding of Citizens Advice across Somerset.

·         Debt often had serious mental health consequences which impacted on the health care service but the Unitary Authority was the opportunity to join together on this.

The Chief Executive of SPARK Somerset provided Members with a short presentation of the work of the organisation.  She noted that:

·         The merger of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 116.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services confirmed that major projects required a closure report and the Chard Leisure Centre was part of a wider initiative within the town.  The report helped to learn through the experience and improve programme management for the future.  In particular the costings had not taken account of a potential ground contamination issue and the public consultation which requested a full size 5 lane pool.  The early feedback had been very positive and the project had been delivered on time and to budget, but not all the elements that had originally been envisaged were completed.  The cost of the project had increased as construction industry costs increased, supply chain interruptions due to the pandemic and Brexit had all impacted.  The lessons learned from the project would assist in planning other projects in the future.

The Regeneration Programme Manager advised that 11 of the proposed capital programme projects for the following year would be impacted by the report recommendations. Four of the projects were part of the Regeneration Programme which she would be monitoring and the remaining 7 projects would be required to produce a staged assessment plan.

In response to questions from Members, the Regeneration Programme Manager and Chief Finance Officer advised:-

·         As the project progressed, external project management and cost consultants were consulted but the budget had been set very early in the process and the feasibility study had produced costs to build a standard leisure centre and not how much it would cost to build the Chard leisure centre with its subsequent issues.

·         The new budget set with appropriate contingency levels was correct and the project was delivered on time and within that budget.

·         A Contingency Budget would be proposed as part of the new Capital Programme for the next financial year.

During discussion, the following points were made:

·         Allocating a large contingency budget would mean there was less funding for other projects.

·         Public opinion should be taken into account in the towns regeneration projects.

·         The ground conditions at the site had been highlighted by local members on a number of times in the early stages of the project.

The Director for Place and Recovery said that significant changes had been made to the governance arrangements of regeneration projects to clarify when decisions should be referred to Executive or Council for approval.  Also financial monitoring had been improved to ensure future regeneration projects were closely monitored.

The Chairman of the Regeneration Board said they knew it was going to be a challenging development site and the lessons would be learnt for future projects.

In response to questions from the Scrutiny Committee the Director for Place and Recovery advised:-

·         This was the lessons learned report which was agreed to be presented to Members.

·         The detailed breakdown of the finances were in the report presented to District Executive in September 2021.

The Regeneration Programme Manager advised that there was an open planning application for building 11 at the site and depending on the outcome  ...  view the full minutes text for item 117.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services said the Council were required to review their Council Tax Support Scheme each year and following the substantial changes made in the previous year, implemented in April 2021, it was early to revise those changes.  There were no revisions to the Equality Impact Assessment as there was no evidence that it was out of date, and there were no other adverse indications and therefore the proposal was to keep the scheme the same without change.

The Benefits Specialist explained the graph in the report relating to the dip in Universal Credit between April and June due to period of assessment now being on a rolling basis.  This was not the case for pensioners claims for council tax help as they were not eligible for Universal Credit and tended to have a more stable income. 

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services noted that the risk of continuing the scheme without review was not a risk to the clients but the drop in £20 per week in Universal Credit would impact on them.  He said that SSDC would react to any severe impacts but he was happy with the level of risk carried by the Council. 

There was no debate and the recommendations were proposed and seconded and unanimously proposed to Council for confirmation. 

The following additions and amendments to the Forward Plan were noted:

The Chairman noted that there were a high number of reports due to be presented to District Executive in February 2022 and so it was proposed to hold two meetings to allow proper debate on all the reports.

The Chief Finance Officer confirmed that one of the District Executive meetings would be specifically to discuss budget related reports.

Subsequent to the meeting, it was agreed that two District Executive meetings would be held on Thursday 10^th February and Thursday 17^th February 2022 at 9.30am as a virtual meetings via Zoom. 

Members noted that the next scheduled meeting of the District Executive would take place on Thursday 10^th February 2022 as a virtual meeting using Zoom meeting software commencing at 9.30 a.m. 

There would also be a subsequent meeting on Thursday 17^th February as a virtual meeting using Zoom meeting software commencing at 9.30am.

The Chairman asked Members to agree that the press and public be excluded from the following item and this was agreed without dissent.

The Chief Executive provided members with a brief verbal update on the progress of Local Government Reorganisation in Somerset.