Agenda and minutes

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Contact: Keith Simmons Email:  democraticservices@tendringdc.gov.uk or Telephone  01255 686580

Items
No. Item

18.

Apologies for Absence and Substitutions

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

 

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were also submitted on behalf of Councillor Land (with no substitution), Harris (with no substitution) and Morrison (with Councillor I Henderson substituting)

19.

Minutes of the Last Meeting pdf icon PDF 187 KB

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Monday 5 July 2021.

Minutes:

(1)       It was RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on Monday 5 July 2021 be approved as a correct record; and

(2)       it was noted that, following the 5 July 2021 meeting of the Committee (Minute 15 refers) there had been an informal task and finish style meeting of Members of the Committee to look further at the issue of untenanted Council Homes (2Voids”) on 2 September 2021 and a further meeting would be taking place on 29 September with a view to recommendations on this subject being submitted to the next meeting of the Committee for consideration

 

20.

Declarations of Interest

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Personal Interest, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

 

Minutes:

Councillor I Henderson declared a personal interest in item 5, “Enquiry into Particular Elements of the Councils Sport and Leisure Service” (Minute 22 below refers) as he had a close family member working in one of the Districts Leisure Centres.

21.

Questions on Notice pursuant to Council Procedure Rule 38

Subject to providing two working days' notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

Minutes:

On this occasion no Councillor had submitted notice of a question.

22.

Report of the Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Tourism - A.1 - Enquiry into Particular Elements of the Councils Sport and Leisure Service pdf icon PDF 2 MB

The purpose of this report is to provide the Committee with the information requested for its programmed enquiry into particular elements of the Council's Sport and Leisure Service.

 

Minutes:

The Committee had before it a report that outline that the pandemic had significantly impacted Leisure Services nationally over the last eighteen months, as three waves of lockdown had shut Facilities and membership numbers had declined. Tendring District Council Leisure Service had not been immune from the national trends.  A responsive approach throughout the pandemic had been required as the operating environment changed on a monthly basis. The downtime in the pandemic had enabled progress on major refurbishment works to the Council’s main Facility at Clacton Leisure Centre. The Council, in its post Covid recovery strategy – Back to Business - had committed to further improvements to the external offer at Clacton, with a complete redevelopment of the Skate Park (which had now been reprogrammed to 2022). 

 

As requested by the Committee, the update set out the Facilities usage over the previous five years and projections for usage in the current and next following four years, demonstrated the impact of the pandemic and future trends. The report also showed some of the financial consequences of the pandemic in the budget over the last five years, included revenue income, expenditure, capital/one-off investments and grants to the Council.

 

The Portfolio Holder indicated that the projections of future use were only projections and, as with all projections, should be treated with caution.

 

In the discussion, the approach to delivering excellent customer service and care in the leisure facilities was considered.  Opportunities to improve these were raised and the Head of Sport and Leisure agreed to look at these matters with those in that service area.

 

In response to a question, the Head of Sport and Leisure agreed to provide the Members of the Committee with the detail of income/expenditure over the current and last four years by leisure facility together with the usage data from those individual centres.

 

The Head of Sport and Leisure also advised that the improvement works at Clacton Leisure Centre had identified the benefits of improved building management systems to reduce energy use.  He also outlined the rebranding that had taken place at the sites and the new leisure facilities website.  The opportunity for the Council’s Tourism Service to promote the Council’s Leisure facilities was referenced to the Portfolio Holder and officers to look at.

 

After an in depth discussion it was RECOMMENED to CABINET to restate the Committee’s request that an updated draft District-wide Leisure Strategy be brought forward as speedily as possible for consultation and that the Strategy should seek to enable a fresh direction to the delivery of leisure facilities and address the issues facing the District; including encouraging people to progress from being fairly active to active and from inactive to fairly active and the provision for those with disabilities.:

 

The Chairman thanked the Portfolio Holder and the relevant Officers for their contributions to the Committee’s enquiry.

 

23.

Report of the Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Tourism - A.2 - Enquiry into Particular Elements of the Councils Seafronts Services pdf icon PDF 165 KB

The purpose of this report is to provide Committee with the information requested for its programmed enquiry into particular elements of the Council’s Seafront Service.

 

This Committee’s enquiry into this subject may be supported by the Deputy Leader, Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance.

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee heard how in 2014 the Council instigated a £36 million coastal defence project stretching from Clacton Pier to Holland on Sea in partnership with the Environment Agency. Not only had that protected the coastline, it had led to the creation of 23 new sand beaches which provided a major opportunity for tourism development.

 

The Committee also heard that in 2016 the pre-construction phase started to stabilise the cliff between Hazelmere and Queensway, the pre-construction phase consisted of ground investigations, numerous surveys, obtaining planning permission, producing detailed designs, producing tender documents, obtaining tenders, and appointing a contractor in line with the procurement policy. The construction of the project commenced on 28/08/18 and was completed on 28/06/19 at a cost of £4.3 million. The project stabilised a 500m length of coastal slopes by temporarily removing 83 beach huts, excavating to construct a new piled slope retaining wall and new steel piled retaining wall at the base of the slope to provide a stable shelf for the beach huts to be returned. The scheme also included new drainage and Equality Act compliant ramped from the top promenade to the lower promenade.

 

The scheme was identified in the Clacton & Holland Geomorphological Assessment and Conceptual report 2015 produced by Mott MacDonald. The report had identified the areas most at risk of failure between Clacton Pier and Holland Haven. The report also suggested a detailed slope stability study of the cliffs to be carried out at a cost of £225,000. Based on that estimate the suggested cost to carry out detailed slope stability studies on all the cliffs the Council was responsible for would be approximately £700,000.

 

With the assistance of the Assistant Director for Building & Public Realm and Mr David Clarke of Hestur Limited (the Council’s contractor for the current cliff stabilisation works), the Committee considered the risk factors for the cliffs in the area and the measures to reduce the risks and otherwise undertake works to stabilise the cliffs for the future.  The aim would be to achieve cliffs with a sustainable factor of safety of 1.0.  Mr Hestor advised that neighbouring cliffs to those currently being stabilised could fail with a marginal deterioration of the factor of safety.  The works being undertaken were using techniques to reduce vibration and therefore not themselves cause the factor of safety to worsen in those neighbouring cliffs.  He also advised that the current stabilisation works could be completed by December 2021 (although it had provided for them to be completed by March 2022 to allow for adverse weather impacts).  The Assistant Director for Building & Public Realm referenced an initial visual overview of the slopes from the Pier to Holland Haven confirmed some were at more risk of failure and the bowed railings and cracked promenade in places were some of the indicators to this.  He further advised that the original pitch-fibre drainage system was still in place in the cliffs although its effectiveness had likely deteriorated.

 

The Members heard how there were currently 3,040  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

24.

Report of the Assistant Director of Finance & IT. - A.3 - Financial Outturn 2021/22 and In-Year Financial Performance Update for 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 152 KB

To provide an overview of the Council’s financial outturn for the year 2020/21 and the allocation of the associated General Fund Variance for the year along with the latest in-year financial performance position for 2021/22.

 

This Committee’s enquiry into this subject will be supported by the Deputy Leader, Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee was provided an overview of the Council’s financial outturn for the year 2020/21 and the allocation of the associated General Fund Variance for the year along with the latest in-year financial performance position for 2021/22.

 

The Members heard that on 30 July 2021 the Portfolio for Corporate Finance and Governance considered the Financial Outturn 2020/21 and:

 

 

(a)    notes the financial outturn position for 2020/21 as set out in this report and appendices;

 

(b)    approves the financing of General Fund capital expenditure for 2020/21 as detailed in Appendix D;

 

(c)    approves the movement in uncommitted and earmarked General Fund reserves for 2020/21 set out in Appendix E;

 

(d)    approves the qualifying carry forwards totalling £23.322m (£14.352m Revenue and £8.970m Capital) as set out in Appendix K;

 

(e)    agrees that all other carry forwards totalling £0.536m requested by services be transferred to the relevant earmarked reserve pending consideration by Cabinet at its September 2021 meeting;

 

(f)     in respect of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), approves the movement on HRA balances for 2020/21 including any commitments set out within Appendices H and/or I along with recharges to the HRA from the General fund of £2.813m for the year and the financing of the HRA capital expenditure set out in Appendix I;

 

(g)    that, subject to the above, notes the various COVID 19 grant funding amounts set out in Appendix K (ii to iii) and approves the use of the funding as set out in the same appendix and in the main body of this report;

 

(h)    that, subject to the above, recommends to Cabinet that the overall General Fund Outturn Variance for the year of £1.539m be used to support the essential works at the Weeley Crematorium;

 

(i)     recommends to Cabinet that £2.060m be allocated to support the recent bid to the Government’s ‘Levelling Up Fund’, funded by the use of amounts identified within the 2021/22 budget as set out in this report; and

 

(j)      authorises the Council’s Section 151 Officer, in consultation with the Corporate Finance and Governance Portfolio Holder, to adjust the outturn position for 2020/21 along with any corresponding adjustment to earmarked reserves as a direct result of any recommendations made by the Council’s External Auditor during the course of their audit activities relating to the Council’s 2020/21 accounts”.

 

The Members also had an update provided directly at the meeting of the Committee that, at its 17 September 2021 meeting, Cabinet had (in respect of the Outturn Position for 2020/21):

 

 

(a)       Agreed that the total of £0.536m requested by services can be retained by them via the associated carry forward requests as set out in Appendix A; and

 

(b)       after considering the recommendations of the Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance, agreed:

 

(i)that subject to the approval of an associated Project Initiation Document /  Business case, it is approved in principle that the necessary remedial works be carried out at the Weeley crematorium funded by using the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24.

25.

Scrutiny of Proposed Decisions

Pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee will review any new and/or amended published forthcoming decisions relevant to its terms of reference and decide whether it wishes to enquire into any such decision before it is taken.

 

Matters may only be raised on those forthcoming decisions at Committee meetings where the Member has notified the Committee Services Manager in writing (or by personal email) of the question they wish to ask, no later than Midday, two working days before the day of the meeting.

 

There were no Forthcoming Decisions.

Minutes:

Pursuant to the provisions of Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 13, the Committee reviewed any new and/or amended published forthcoming decisions relevant to its terms of reference with a view to deciding whether it wished to look into any such decision before it was taken. The relevant forth coming decisions were before the Committee.

 

The Committee NOTED there were no forthcoming decisions.

26.

Recommendations Monitoring Report pdf icon PDF 107 KB

To present to the Committee the updated Recommendations Monitoring Report, outlining any recommendations the Committee have sent to Cabinet. The Committee is requested to consider the report and determine whether any further action is required on the recommendations submitted.

Minutes:

The Committee before it the current Recommendations Monitoring Report which set out those items which had previously made recommendations to the Cabinet/ Portfolio Holder and the approved response to the recommendations and any subsequent action for the Committee to consider.

 

In addition, the Head of Democratic Services & Elections advised the Committee that on 17 September 2021, the Cabinet had approved the following in respect of the Committee’s recommendations on the Council’s Tourism Strategy from 24 May 2021 (Minute 6 refers):

 

“I would like to thank the Committee for its views and where possible, suggestions will be built into the work programme for the delivery of the strategy. Further to this, I would suggest the Committee set up task and finish groups to look in detail at how some of the suggestions could be delivered in practice. In particular, the carbon offsetting of the Clacton Airshow and how further improvements can be made to improve cleanliness. I look forward to seeing the results of the in-depth scrutiny by the Committee in these areas and welcome further thorough scrutiny that results in an improved strategy.”

 

It was RESOLVED that the Committee notes the report.

 

 

27.

Review of the Work Programme pdf icon PDF 160 KB

To present to the Committee a draft detailed Work Programme 2021/22, to consider the detail and ordering of the Work Programme.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The work programme of the Committee was submitted to it in order to enable the Committee to review that programme.

 

The Chairman reported that since the adoption of the work programme, he had discussed the timing of the proposed enquiry into the Council’s communications strategy.  Following the discussions, the Chairman proposed that this enquiry be rescheduled from the 13 December meeting of the Committee to 13 March 2022.  As a consequence, space would be created for the Committee to undertake an enquiry into the joint use agreements for leisure facilities which was currently the subject of consultation.

 

The Chairman further indicated that he would wish to see an opportunity for the Members of the Committee to consider informally the information requirements for the enquiry into Council enforcement in the next few weeks so as this information could be submitted to the Committee at its formal meeting on 1 November 2021.

 

The Committee noted the contents of the report and RESOLVED to approve the changes set out and otherwise relayed to it.