Agenda and minutes

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Items
No. Item

76.

Apologies for Absence and Substitutions

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

 

Minutes:

An apology for absence was submitted on behalf of Councillor Morrison (with no substitute).

77.

Minutes of the Last Meeting pdf icon PDF 144 KB

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on

Minutes:

It was RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on Thursday 13 August 2020 be approved as a correct record and be signed by the Chairman.

78.

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:

The Chairman (Councillor M E Stephenson) declared an interest for the public record in regards to owning two businesses in Tendring which might be impacted by the Council’s “Back to Business” strategy.

 

Councillor Allen declared an interest for the public record in regards to owning a business in Tendring which might be impacted by the Council’s “Back to Business” strategy.

79.

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.

80.

A.1 - Tendring Back to Business Priorities and Projects 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 216 KB

Following on from the Committee meeting on the 13th August (minute 74) the Committee agreed that its proposed response to the Cabinet on this matter would be circulated to the Committee Members for confirmation.  The Chairman has decided to reconvene to formally endorse that response.

Minutes:

A report of the Head of Democratic Services and Elections was submitted to the Committee for its consideration. The report reflected on the discussion at the Committee’s last meeting on 13 August around ‘Back to Business’ and the outputs from that meeting, as recorded in the Minutes of that meeting, were set out at Appendix A to the aforementioned report.

 

The Committee was also reminded that, in relation to its consideration of the Outturn 2020/21 item at its meeting on 13 August, there was a desire to hone further the Council’s delivery of projects to ensure that every penny of public funds was effectively used in order to deliver against the Council’s Corporate Plan if the ambitions of that Plan were to be realised to their maximum. The relevant Minute recorded the Committee’s recommendations to Cabinet on this matter as follows:

 

(a)      Implement the invitation from the Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance to convene a meeting with the Chairman of this Committee, and other interested Councillors, to examine in detail the financial reserves and provisions to look at progressing further and speedier with those schemes or releasing the funds with a view to the outcome of that meeting being reported to the meeting of this Committee to be held on 21 September 2020;

 

(b)      Note this Committee endorses the decision to allocate £862k from the 2019/20 General Fund Outturn variance to ‘Back to Business’ Initiatives and associated activities; and

 

(c)       Consider establishing a corporate dedicated project completion resource, with project management skills, with a direction to progress projects and priorities of corporate significance to the Council, support delivery milestones for those projects and unlock capacity and other issues that could frustrate delivery of those projects and priorities. 

 

Through the combination of a review of the Council’s reserves and provisions and the establishment of a dedicated project completion resource it was envisaged that the Council could build further confidence that progress with achieving the approved Corporate Plan (as approved by full Council) would not falter for any of a range of reasons.

 

The above decisions concerning the Outturn 2020/21 and the discussion around ‘Back to Business’ suggested that a clear and deliverable action plan should be developed by the Cabinet taking in the range of proposals.  Those proposals now needed to be assessed and the component parts examined in order to identify the various steps that were necessary to achieve them.  The timing and financing of those proposals needed to be thoroughly worked through in order to avoid wasted energy and wasted public funds.  Initially, schemes and services that were already in place or were anyway going to be implemented in this timeframe could be better started or refocussed with minimal delay.  This would ensure that the Council did not defer intervention while the range of proposals were worked on.

As ‘back to business’ steps were developed they could themselves suggest that related or associated steps be also taken.  Such associated and related steps could help deliver enhanced benefits  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80.