Agenda and minutes

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

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Amos, Everett, Miles, Newton, Nicholls (Portfolio Holder for Corporate Enforcement), Honeywood (Portfolio Holder for Housing), Skeels (Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Tourism), Talbot (Portfolio Holder for Environment) and Stock OBE (Leader of the Council).

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.

Councillor Baker declared that, he has a family member in receipt of a Disabled Facilities Grant.

Councillor Broderick declared that, her daughter is currently employed by the Citizens Advice Bureau, and she has previously been employed by the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Following the adjournment of the meeting held on 17 December 2018, the meeting will resume and the Committee will ask questions of the members of the Cabinet in respect of service delivery matters related to items in the Financial Forecast that are relevant to their respective portfolios.

The Committee will then decide what comments and/or recommendations it wishes to submit to Cabinet in relation to the updated Financial Forecast/Budget 2019/20.

Following the adjournment of its meeting held on 17 December 2018, the Committee resumed its scrutiny of the Financial Forecast / Budget proposals for 2019/20 as follows:-

Members of the Cabinet, accompanied by the appropriate Management Team Member, attended the meeting in turn and answered questions put to them by the members of the Committee.

Having considered all of the information that had been given to the Committee and having reconsidered the possible comments and recommendations to Cabinet that had been discussed at the meeting held on 17 December 2018:-

It was RESOLVED that the following are the Committee’s final and definitive COMMENTS/RECOMMENDATIONS to be submitted to the Cabinet:-

1.    The Cabinet, via the LGA, lobbies Government about local business rates and how much that can be retained by local Councils. The Council expects to be able to retain as much as possible from the business rates collected locally,  so that funding can be used to support key priorities such as the eradication of coastal deprivation across the Tendring area.

2.    That Cabinet supports the continuation of the Grant Co-Ordinator post. Ideally the post should be funded from external funds. However, if this is not possible it is recommended that the Cabinet given serious consideration to the continuation of this post through alternative resources.

3.    The Milton Road car park business case should be considered as part of the wider Harwich public realm review.

The Committee Comments that;

1.    The Government wants local Councils to be self-sufficient and Tendring District Council, alongside other Councils, does not want to have to rely on government funding. A fair deal is required for local Councils to enable this to be achieved.