Agenda and minutes

Councillor Court and Councillor O’Sullivan for lateness

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 10 November 2014 be confirmed and the Chair be authorised to sign them

None

None

The Chair outlined the procedure for Public questions and filming at meetings

Kevin O’Leary, Director of Environment and Regeneration was present at the meeting.

There were also three witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee as follows –

·         Jonathan Flowers- Local Government Market Director, Capita PLC and Director, Veredus

A copy of the presentation was laid round (copy interleaved) and following the presentation the following main points were made –

·         Middlesbrough had carried out a lot of work on income generation and this should be investigated

·         Capita were currently working with L.B.Barnet in relation to a number of services including offering a more extensive range of pest control services – Capita provided the investment and had a 51% share in the joint venture

·         Reference was made to land sales and that the policy of 80% commercial rents in Barnet and the selling off of land did not conform to the policies adopted in Islington

·         It was stated that there was office accommodation that could be used in Islington to gain income and create employment

·         Jonathan Flowers stated that individual authorities needed to look at how they approached income generation as each authority would be different

·         Jonathan Flowers expressed the view that any Trading Company established should be an ‘arms length’ company

·         In response to a question Jonathan Flowers stated that in his view the partnership with Barnet was going well and their link with Staffordshire County Council on the schools service had been successful

·         In response to a question about Governance arrangements it was stated that work had been done on this by Essex County Council

·         There was a need for Councils to consider whether they wanted to compete in providing services that were already provided by local businesses

·         A Member referred to a previous joint venture undertaken by the Council that had not made a profit and had not been successful. Islington wished to bring services back ‘in house’ where possible and that Barnet was not a good comparator

·         The shift towards commercialism would mean a shift in the attitude of staff and a culture change

·         Members expressed the view that the SID for the review  and the Council’s political priorities should be recirculated in order that the aims of the review were met when considering the recommendations

·         Consideration should also be given to mutual and co-operative ventures and that the Council should focus on maximising income from services that they already operated and selling expertise

The Chair thanked Jonathan Flowers for attending and his presentation

James Gilchrist, Head of Greenspace and Leisure –L.B.Islington

A copy of the presentation was laid round, copy interleaved.

Following the presentation the following main points were made –

·         Section 106 monies had been used to upgrade and refurbish the pitches at Market Road, however given the lack of greenspace in the borough it would be difficult to create any more pitches

·         Reference was made to the event at Finsbury Square and that given the Council’s financial position consideration should be given to holding more commercial events. However it was noted that a number of events  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44.