Agenda and minutes

Councillors Klute, Court and Doolan

None

Declarations of interest

 If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a) Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b)  Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f)   Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

None

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 7 December 2015 be confirmed and the Chair be authorised to sign them

In response to a question it was stated that the actions outstanding for the last meeting had been circulated

The Chair outlined the procedure for Public questions and filming and recording of meetings

The Chair stated that some Committee Members had undertaken scrutiny visits in relation to the knife crime scrutiny and these had been very informative and would assist in the recommendations.

The Chair added that the notes of the visits would be circulated to the next meeting and further visits were being arranged

Councillor Andy Hull, Executive Member Finance and Performance and Councillor Richard Watts, Leader of the Council were present for discussion of this item.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         The Committee welcomed the additional funding of £0.5m for investment in keeping the borough’s young people safe

·         The Committee noted the severe budget reductions that the Council has had to face since 2010 and that the latest financial settlement has necessitated the Council having to adopt additional funding cuts of over £73m from 2016-2020 and that in 2016/17 this would be £24m due to Government  ‘frontloading’ of cuts

·         It was noted that the Council balances would be reduced from 5% to 4% in 2016/17

·         The Committee expressed concern at the underfunding of the social care budget, which had meant that the social care precept, that the Government has said that Local Authorities could introduce to reduce the shortfall in social care funding, had to be imposed by the Council

·         The Committee noted that there would be likely to be over 100 posts reduction at the Council as a result of the budget cuts, however the majority of these redundancies would be achieved voluntarily

·         It was welcomed that, despite severe funding restrictions, front line services had largely been maintained and that a substantial amount of the savings had come from sharing of services, channel shift, etc. and that the budget was the fairest that could be achieved in the circumstances

·         The Committee were informed that there had been significant savings as  a result of the loss of senior management posts across the Council

·         With regard to the new NLWA menu pricing model it is hoped that this will benefit the Council and savings can be achieved

·         The Committee were informed that there had been a reduction by the DfE in the Education services grant of £0.2m in 2016/17, which is seen as part of the Government’s strategy to remove Local Authority control of schools

·         There is still uncertainty over the public health financial settlement and also that there is still concern as to whether the Government will change the details of the provisional settlement already notified to the Council to that of the final settlement, resulting in even more funding reductions to the Council, which will necessitate further savings

·         Members were of the view that the ethnic profile of staff made redundant should be looked at once the budget reductions had been implemented, given that final details of these redundancies will not be known until all the reorganisation proposals had been finalised

·         Councillor Russell stated that she had not yet had a chance to discuss in detail the budget proposals, but she was meeting the Director of Finance and Resources next week and that she would submit any comments to the Executive Member Finance and Performance for consideration

·         A Member enquired the proportion of HRA properties at target rent and whether it would be possible to increase rents ahead of the legislation date and it was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 198.

Appointment of Head of Human Resources

Members were informed that the new Head of Human Resources had now been appointed and would be commencing her employment on 21 March 2016