Issue - meetings

To enable Cabinet to consider recommendations made by the Resources and Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee in relation to the Portfolio Holders’ review of performance and management of projects under their respective Portfolios.

RESOLVED that the recommendations made by the Resources and Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee be noted and that the response of the Portfolio Holder responsible for Housing and Planning thereto be endorsed.

Cabinet was aware that the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee (“the Committee”) had, at its meeting held on 23 September 2024, considered a standing agenda item in respect of reviewing its work programme.

That report had included the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning’s response to the Committee’s recommendations that had arisen from the Committee’s enquiry into the Spendells Project and an unauthorised expenditure of several hundreds of thousands of pounds, which had resulted in a report to the Cabinet on 24 May 2024 under section 5A of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. That enquiry had taken place at the meeting of the Committee held on 22 July 2024.

The Housing and Planning Portfolio Holder’s formal response (as endorsed by Cabinet on 20 September 2024) had been as follows:-

“I would like to begin by thanking the Committee for its consideration and recommendations.

As I have said on more than one occasion that the reasons for undertaking the Spendells project are never more valid. It will provide temporary accommodation for up to 30 families with children, a better place for them to be accommodated, than a hotel room, reducing the impact on both the children’s education and the family’s overall health.

This Council continues to face, as does the rest of the country, homelessness issues along with the provision of temporary accommodation, together with ongoing, and increasing, financial costs.

This project, even at an increased cost, remains the right thing to do.

An internal review is currently ongoing and we will understand in due course, fully, what has happened and what lessons there are to be learned.

Without seeking to deny the particular issues in relation to this project, particularly the unauthorised expenditure, it must be understood that all construction and major projects, such as this one, all carry inherent risks.

It is unfortunate that this project has had particular difficulties, but in line with the Committee’s recommendations I am content to recommend to Cabinet that:

a)  the Chief Executive’s formal review, when completed, be reported to the Cabinet including:

i)     a more detailed financial breakdown of the seven items not included in the original specification, of additional expense itemised in the previous report to Cabinet;

ii)    the lessons learnt;

iii)    articulating a robust response and action plan for going forward;

b)  Portfolio Holders should review, with their Corporate Directors, the performance and project management of all existing projects within their respective portfolios and report their findings to the Leader of the Council and the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee together with such additional actions as the Leader wishes to undertake in response.”

At its meeting held on 23 September 2024 the Committee had enquired whether the investigation into the Spendells project had been completed and Members had been advised that the investigation was still ongoing. The Committee had then discussed their concerns around not having a timescale for when the findings of the aforementioned project management reviews would be reported and that whilst  ...  view the full minutes text for item 75