Agenda and minutes

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

There were no absences or substitutions.

To confirm as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on 17 February 2020.

The Minutes of the last meeting of the Committee held on Monday 17 February 2020 were approved as a correct record and were then signed by the Chairman.

The Chairman drew the Committee’s attention to Minute 54 from the 17 February meeting and that a response to the Committee’s recommendations on the waste and recycling service had been published from the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Public Space.  The Chairman expressed his concern about elements of the response.  However, as the matter would be considered at the next Council meeting those concerns would anyway be raised there. In response to requests, the published response of the Portfolio Holder would be circulated to Members of this Committee.

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 Allen declared an interest for the public record in regards to agenda item number 5, Business rates COVID 19 Grants Scheme as he had received this grant.

Councillor C Guglielmi declared an interest for the public record in regards to agenda item 7, NEGC Ltd. Budget and Business plans as he was the alternate director to NEGC Ltd.

Councillor Turner declared an interest for the public record in regards to agenda item 7, NEGC Ltd budget and Business plans.

Councillor Scott declared an interest for the public record in regards to agenda item 5, Business rates COVID 19 Grants Scheme as he was the chairman of the Autumn Centre and they had received the aforementioned grant.

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.

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

The Committee will review the decisions taken by the Leader of the Council during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in so far as they relate to the pandemic and the response to it.

The following is a list of those decisions and the supporting papers are available through the links created by the list:

The Committee reviewed the decisions taken by the Leader of the Council during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in so far as they related to the pandemic and the response to it.

The following was a list of those decisions and the supporting papers were available through the links created by the list:

Discretionary Business Support Scheme ref: 4989

Write-Off of Leisure Centre Membership Fees Income for May 2020 ref: 4848

Business Rates Covid-19 Grants Scheme ref: 4733

Council Tax Hardship Scheme ref: 4732

Write-Off of Leisure Facilities Income ref: 4731

Tendring Community Fund - Allocation of £1,000 to Members ref: 4730

CAROS Scheme - Waiver of Rents ref: 4728

Members were given the opportunity to ask any questions, which in turn were responded to by the Assistant Director of Finance, IT and Section 151 Officer

Following discussion, the Committee RECOMMENDED TO THE CABINET:

a)     That the swift decision to use of part of the Tendring Community Fund to provide for Ward Councillors to nominate organisations to receive grants to enable them to respond to the Covid19 pandemic locally, within an overall limit of £1,000 per Ward Councillor, be recognized as being a success. 

b)     That the approval of the publicly announced intention to write-off the Leisure Centre Membership Fees for June etc be regularised.

c)      That the waiver of rents for those within the CAROS Scheme be extended to the end of August 2020 at least.

d)       That a second allocation of £48,000 from the Tendring Community Fund to provide for Ward Councillors to nominate organisations to receive grants to enable them to respond to a second wave of the Covid19 pandemic locally (and related lockdown), should that situation occur, be committed to at this stage.

To provide an early update on the financial impact of COVID 19 on the Council’s in-year financial position and to look ahead to 2021/22 as part of the long term forecast.

The Committee was provided with an early update on the financial impact of COVID 19 on the Council’s in-year financial position and looked ahead to 2021/22 as part of the long term forecast.

It was explained that there had been various strands of work that had been undertaken, locally and nationally, along with numerous updates and guidance from the Government since the country had entered a period of ‘lock down’ from late March 2020. This report sought to provide a high level view of the impact that the COVID 19 crisis was having on the Council’s financial position so it did not attempt to summarise or pull together all of the information that had been available to date or provide commentary on wider service delivery / performance management issues, although they were touched upon where relevant in the report.

In providing this high level narrative on the Council’s financial position, information was presented across the following headings:

1.      A summary of the position at the end of April for significant income streams

2.      Impact on the Local Council Tax Support Scheme (LCTSS) and Council Tax and Business Rate Collection performance

3.      The direct financial impact, including expenditure and income, as at the end of April, with estimates for May and June.

4.    Cash flow implications

The position at the end of April for significant income streams

Members were informed that at the end of April 2020, the income collected was £384,907 lower than for the same period last year, with the biggest impact being seen in car parks and sport and leisure facilities. Further details were set out in Appendix A. When reviewing the overall income position, there are 3 distinct headings that the various income strands fell within as follows:

1)      Areas where there was a stronger link to the timing of the service being delivered and the point income was derived from fees and charges. The situation with parking and leisure facilities fell within this heading. In such cases the income was deemed to be ‘lost’ and therefore unrecoverable over the rest of the year.

2)      Areas where the income was deemed to be deferred as it was linked to an activity that had not happened yet but was still likely to happen so it would be collectable at some time in the future, possibly over the remainder of the financial year. Planning and Building Control fell within this heading as would cemeteries and the crematorium, albeit for different reasons.

3)      The third heading was really an extension of point 2) where the income was deemed to be deferred but was likely to span more than one financial year. A good example of this would be career track income where there had been delays to new starters on the career track programme. As the career track scheme followed a three year programme, income would still be receivable but it will have to be accounted for in different years in order to align with the course start and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

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.

The Agenda for the Cabinet Meeting on 26 June 2020 will have been published prior to the Resources and Services Committee Meeting and as such supporting papers relating to a number of the proposed decisions will be available to Members of the Committee to aid the discussion of those proposed decisions.  A list of forthcoming decisions taken from the Notice of such decisions on the Council’s website is below (with the intended date for the relevant decision):

The Chairman and Members of the Committee will also identify matters that they would wish to be subject to enquiry by the Committee at meetings to be scheduled in July and August 2020.   

Subject to the Committee’s agreement the proposed dates for those meetings are:

Thursday 16 July 2020; and

Thursday 13 August 2020.

These dates are relatively close to the preceding meetings of Cabinet.

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 enquire into any such decision before it was taken. The relevant forthcoming decisions were before the Committee.

The agenda for the forthcoming meeting of the Cabinet on 26 June 2020 had been published prior to the Resources and Services Committee Meeting and as such supporting papers relating to a number of the proposed Cabinet decisions were made available to Members of the Committee and aided in the discussion of those proposed decisions. A list of the forthcoming decisions taken from the Notice of such decisions on the Council’s website was as follows (with the intended date for the relevant decision):

Negc Ltd - Budget & Business Plans Etc. 24/07/2020

Corporate Priorities & Projects And New Performance Report 2020/21 - 24/07/2020

Housing Development And Acquisitions Strategy - 24/07/2020

Idox Corporate Application Support Contract Renewal - 26/06/2020

Financial Outturn 2019/20 And Proposed Allocation Of The

General Fund Variance For The Year  - 24/07/2020

Treasury Out Turn 2019/20 - 24/07/2020

The Chairman and Members of the Committee also identified matters that they would wish to be subject to inquiry by the Committee at its meetings to be scheduled in July and August 2020 (or subsequently).

Subject to the Committee’s agreement the proposed dates for those meetings were: Thursday 16 July 2020 and Thursday 13 August 2020.

The proposal for a meeting of the Committee on 16 July would prove problematic for several members of the Committee as it was also a date for a number of Parish/Town Council meetings. 

It was RECOMMENDED that no more funding from this Council shall be released to NEGC Ltd until the Budget and Business Plan identified in the forthcoming decisions referred to here has been subject to an enquiry through this Committee.

The Committee RESOLVED:

(a) that the following not be included in its Work Programme:

a)     IDOX Corporate Application Support Contract Renewal 26/06/2020

[Note: The Portfolio Holder for Corporate Finance and Governance indicated his agreement to the above recommendation concerning NEGC Ltd and funding of it.]

(b) that the proposed date for a meeting of the Committee on 13 August 2020 be approved and that the Chairman be authorized to determine the date for the July meeting of the Committee on the basis that the proposed date of 16 July was not suitable for several Members.

[Note: The