Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were submitted by Councillors Jenny Kay, Osh Gantly and Martin Klute

Councillor Wayne stated that he was substituting for Councillor Kay

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 of the Committee held on 08 December 2014  be confirmed and the Chair be authorised to sign them

Termination Payments (Minute 56)

Councillor Doolan stated that he was currently looking into the preparation of a report on this matter, however it would not be able to be prepared for the Committee on 22 January 2015 as envisaged, but would now be coming to a later meeting of the Committee.

None

The Chair outlined the procedures for dealing with Public questions and for filming and recording of Public meetings

The Committee were informed that two of the scheduled witnesses, Sharon Bayliss and John Harrison, were now unable to attend that evening.

The Committee received presentations from Andrew Grant, Chief Executive Aylesbury District Council and David Salenius and Matt West, Housing and Adult Social Services at the L.B.Islington. ( Copies interleaved).

The Chair stated that the initial draft recommendations of the scrutiny would be considered at the next meeting of the Committee, in order to take more evidence in relation to photovoltaic solar panels.

During consideration of the presentation from Andrew Grant, the following main points were raised –

·         Aylesbury DC were anticipating the loss of all Government grant by 2019/20

·         Aylesbury had developed an integrated business model approach of income generation, cost reduction and investment in products to support the above

·         There was a core team of 3 staff and examples of income generation activities included charging for the garden waste service, a self-certification planning application process which reduced the time taken to process applications from 8 weeks to 2 weeks. The Council were now looking at franchising options to further reduce costs

·         Aylesbury had taken a number of measures to rationalise building and accommodation space for staff and using prudential borrowing to fund new developments for businesses to lease

·         Aylesbury was looking at options for developing a Universal consultancy trading company and working up a business case to see whether this would be worthwhile. Consultancy work was already taking place but this was mainly Local Authority to Local Authority

·         There was a need to establish the services that residents valued and were willing to pay for

·         A Member expressed the view that some of the measures adopted by Aylesbury were difficult to apply to a London Borough such as Islington where land values were high and some aspects were subject to the approval of the Mayor of London

·         In response to a Member as to how objections were dealt with in relation to planning applications it was stated that Aylesbury would not approve a planning application where there was a material planning objection. If there were no material planning objections and all the required specifications adhered to there was no reason not to process the application quickly and this measure had resulted in £150k in staff savings

·         Andrew Grant expressed the view that there was no point in creating a Trading Company if it was not viable given the reputational damage that this may cause to the Council

The Committee then considered a presentation from David Salenius and Matt West and during consideration the following main points were made –

·         There was an infrastructure and system ready to provide caretaker services to other private and social rented landlord and local authorities, however extra resources would be required to provide services elsewhere

·         At present caretaking is provided to Council owned properties on estates and to another social landlord

·         There was potential to provide full caretaking and cleaning services to RSL’s and providing small local landlords who have communal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 72.