Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Bickerton, Jeffries, McCloskey, McLain, Wall and Whyborn.  

Councillor Stennett declared a personal interest in Gloucestershire Airport as he is on the board of directors. He subsequently left the chamber when the airport was discussed under agenda item 11.

24 June 2013

The minutes of the last meeting had been circulated with the agenda.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 24 June 2013 be agreed and signed as an accurate record.

The Mayor thanked members who had attended her real ale trail event. This raised £350 and helped to promote the Mayor’s charities. There will be a second real ale trail event on Friday 26 July and she encouraged all members to attend.

The Mayor expressed her excitement for the arrival of the royal baby.

The Leader of the Council expressed his condolences to Councillor Jeffries who was not in attendance at Council due to a family bereavement.

The Leader informed Council about the newly launched proposals from the Local Government Association for the restructuring of Local Government Finance. He would forward a link to the ‘Rewiring public services’ document which would provide more information. 

The Leader gave an update on the motion which had been passed at the last Council meeting which expressed concern that ambulances would be permanently diverted between 8pm and 8am from Cheltenham General Hospital to Gloucester Royal Hospital. The Leader had sent a letter to the NHS in Gloucestershire however the change to ambulance service provision had since been ratified.

These must be received no later than 12 noon on Tuesday 16 July.

Report of the Chief Executive

Andrew North, the Chief Executive, introduced his report.  The report explained how Cheltenham Borough Council had evolved over the last few years to become a major commissioner of services, resulting in a smaller amount of staff who were directly employed by the council and a smaller budget to support those remaining directly providing services. This together with the climate of current financial austerity had made it appropriate to consider the potential for reducing the amount of senior management in order to reduce costs. He explained that the process had started with a consideration of the type of organisation that the council aspired to be in terms of its vision and organisational culture. He also highlighted the main features of the "Cheltenham Futures" programme that had been set up to manage these changes going forward. He now sought approval from Council to formally consult on the proposed changes to the structure of senior management and authority for the Borough Solicitor to make technical changes to the Constitution to facilitate implementation of the new structure.

In responding to questions from members, the Chief Executive made the following responses:

• He reminded members that some years ago he had been involved in exploring the possibility of a shared Chief Executive with Tewkesbury Borough Council. He confirmed that active consideration was being given to sharing the Chief Executive post across the four councils involved in the GO partnership as they increasingly worked more closely together.  A proposal was currently being put together to apply for government funding to progress the transition still further.
• He reassured members that the one-off payments referred to in section 2.3 of the report related to contractual entitlements only and followed the council’s redundancy pay policy; though this was more generous than the statutory minimum redundancy payment, it had not been enhanced in any way. 
• Asked whether he was sure that the council could effectively monitor and influence the performance of providers in commissioning arrangements, he responded that the council had already learned from mistakes made. They had certainly learnt from the experiences with Ubico during the period of heavy snow and the importance of clarifying the decision-making process.
• He confirmed that scenario planning was very important. With increasing reliance on particular providers such as GO and Ubico it was important to plan for the risk of service failure and have the necessary backup arrangements in place.
• He agreed that it was very important to support staff through the process. Staff were already living with the implications of a three year pay freeze and this years limit of 1% plus the loss of benefits such as free staff car parking. He was very pleased to note that throughout a period of radical change, staff had maintained a high morale and commitment to their work and he attributed this to the high quality of staff and management being open with them about the need for change. A section on the intranet was now dedicated to the Cheltenham Futures Programme and suggestions and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Report of the Cabinet Member Corporate Services.

The item was introduced by Councillor Jon Walklett, Cabinet Member Corporate Services. The report set out the findings of a Cabinet Member working group set up to review the Council size and electoral cycle. Following three meetings of the working group and a member seminar, the group concluded that they did not wish to make any recommendations regarding initiating a review of Council size at this stage. A similar argument applied to the community governance review where their recommendation was that further work should not be progressed at this stage.  Regarding the future electoral cycle, the group could not reach a consensus. In order to facilitate a debate by Council he proposed that recommendation 3 in the report should request Council to resolve not to commence the process to move to a four-year electoral cycle. In proposing this recommendation, he highlighted to members that the proposed annual savings of £26,000 p.a resulting from the move to four yearly elections would not kick in until 2018. He indicated that those members on his side of the chamber had considered all the pros and cons set out in the report and had put the needs of the people of Cheltenham before party politics in deciding to give their support to maintaining the current two-year cycle.

Councillor Garnham requested that a separate vote be taken on each part of the recommendations and indicated that members would be requesting a recorded vote on recommendation 3.

Councillor Seacome, speaking as a member of the working group, said that he had originally been in favour of a two-year cycle but he had been convinced by the arguments that a four-year cycle would be more advantageous. He could not see any justification for the frequency of borough elections being different to those for parliamentary elections. He considered that the by-election issue was almost an irrelevance in view of the number of by-elections that had been required in recent years.   He was convinced that the four-year cycle would enable better planning and would be better for officers supporting the implementation of Council policy. The move to a four-year cycle would also provide savings for local parties as well as savings for the authority. The issue of member continuity had been raised but he felt that if the right candidate had been chosen they should be able to slot into their work on the council fairly easily. He encouraged members to have a full debate on this issue and not be constrained by party politics.

In the debate that followed a number of members spoke in support of four yearly elections.  Councillor Garnham, as leader of the Conservative group, had been a member of the working group and he felt it would encourage a greater turnout at elections and address the current decline in voter turnout by giving the public something to vote on as parties set out their four-year manifesto. He encouraged members not to sit on the fence and to take what he saw  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Report of the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny

The item was introduced by Councillor Duncan Smith as chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (O&S). The report reviewed the new arrangements for Overview and Scrutiny which were implemented following the elections in May 2012. The annual report set out the achievements of scrutiny over the last 12 months and in particular highlighted the outcomes of a range of scrutiny task groups. He hoped that members would acknowledge that the annual report set out the very positive contributions made by O&S and he thanked all those members who have been engaged in the process during the year. He particularly thanked Rosalind Reeves, the Democratic Services Manager and her team and all the officers who had supported the scrutiny process throughout the year.

Regarding the scrutiny questionnaire, although it had received a comparatively full response from members, he was still disappointed that 25% of the members in the chamber couldn't pick up a pen to complete a simple survey. Whilst excusing some members who felt they were not in a position to comment, that still left 6 members who hadn't bothered to respond in any way. He encouraged those members who had not responded to speak in this debate so that he could understand why they had not engaged in the process. He emphasised that all members had a role to play in scrutiny whether they were Cabinet members, members of the O&S committee or others. The O&S committee had adopted a strategy of supporting every idea that have been put forward by members but it had a very thin agenda going forward so he  encouraged members to suggest suitable topics. These could be a issue causing problems, an area that was going well or a direction of travel which members would like to look at more closely.

The Mayor invited questions and Councillor Smith made the following responses:

• Asked whether Cabinet Members should be more involved in scrutiny task groups, he felt that engagement with Cabinet Members was important but he had some difficulty in them becoming a permanent part of a task group. There could be a potential conflict of interest if the Cabinet Member was then required to be questioned by the task group. He questioned the need for Cabinet Member working groups and felt it would make more sense for Cabinet Members to use scrutiny task groups as a policy development tool.
• Asked to comment on why some members felt they had lost opportunities to be kept informed under the new arrangements, Councillor Smith acknowledged that clearly members wanted to hear more from the Cabinet Members.  In his view there were only 10 members on the O&S committee and he felt the comments about not being informed had come from those members not on the committee. Therefore he felt this should be more of a challenge for Cabinet as how they were going to address this issue.
• Asked to comment on using the results of the skills audit to assist in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

Report of the Cabinet Member Finance

The item was introduced by Councillor John Rawson, Cabinet Member Finance. The report highlighted the Council’s financial performance for the previous year which set out the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) revenue and capital outturn position for 2012/13. The information contained in the report had been used to prepare the Council’s Statement of Accounts for 2012/13.

The Cabinet Member Finance explained that the Financial Outturn report had been put together in difficult circumstances with unprecedented levels of cuts in Government funding. He indicated that the council had managed its resources well and delivered services slightly within budget, leaving a budget saving of £201,000 in 2012/13. He was proposing that this was added to the General Reserve. In addition £186,000 had been set aside to provide a safety net against possible future fluctuation in business rates income, following the localisation of business rates.

Where budgets were committed or still needed to be spent on the items for which they were budgeted, the Section 151 officer had delegated power to carry them forward.  Other carry forward items required member approval were set out in the report and he highlighted two of these. 

He proposed that £10,000 should be carried forward from the Town Hall underspend mainly to fund initial costings and designs for the Town Hall redevelopment scheme.   This was a hugely important project which had the potential to increase the council’s income as well as giving Cheltenham a Town Hall fit for the 21st century. 

He was also proposing that £170,000 of the substantial Ubico underspend should be reinvested in Ubico, to fund new vehicles and technology, to assist in rationalisation, and to train staff.  This would result in a better and more efficient service for the people of Cheltenham.

The Council received £100,000 of funding from the High Street Innovation fund. This had paid for retail skills workshops for local businesses as well as enabling the continuation of the business rates discount scheme. However, take up of the scheme had been lower than expected. Therefore, there was a plan to reallocate some funds to other services. For example, £15,000 would be spent on funding consultation with the business community regarding the possibility of setting up a Business Improvement District and £24,000 was to be spent on new equipment for the pedestrianised area of the town centre to make it cleaner and more welcoming for businesses, tourists and shoppers.

The Cabinet Member Finance informed members that the investment that Cheltenham Borough Council had put in to Gloucestershire Airport had seen a disappointing return. Gloucestershire City Council and Cheltenham Borough Council had each provided a temporary lending facility of £350k which had been provided to support the extension of the runway. They had not seen a return on investment and the airport could not afford to repay the loan in the original timeline set. He also indicated that Cheltenham and Gloucester councils would not be receiving any dividend this year, though to be fair this was as a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

Report of the Cabinet Member Sustainability

The item was introduced by Councillor McKinlay, Cabinet Member Built Environment as Councillor Whyborn, Cabinet Member Sustainability was not in attendance at the meeting and had given his apologies. The report highlighted that the Friends of Imperial Square Heritage and Conservation (FISHAC) had started to raise the substantial funds required to restore the historic railings to Imperial Gardens. The intention was that Cheltenham Borough Council would then procure and subsequently deliver the works, in three phases. In order for the project to progress to its construction phases it was a requirement that FISHAC entered into a legal agreement with Cheltenham Borough Council which would require funding raised by them to be provided to the Authority.

The Cabinet Member Built Environment stated that the report was not about the design or whether there should be any railings. He said that the purpose of the report to Council was to help Members decide whether to allocate a budget for external funding. This was necessary due to the amount involved and it was therefore, effectively, an emergency item. If passed, the Council would enter into a procurement phase and may have to pay out some of the money before the money is received from FISHAC.

A Member asked about the phasing of the works and questioned whether the payments would also be in three separate phases. The Cabinet Member Built Environment responded that this was detail still to be worked out. He said the work would only be carried out if the money was raised and that money wouldn’t be spent unless there was a guarantee that the money would be received.

One Member suggested there could be a risk that only half the park was  completed if the remaining funds could not be raised.

Another Member thanked Councillor McKinlay for the report and urged him to give the project his support.  

A Member stated that he could not support the recommendation as felt the decision to install railings around an open space such as Imperial Gardens was the wrong one to take. They acted as a barrier to the gardens and ruined the vista. He suggested that it was a good thing that this had taken a year to get through planning as there had been a debate to be had. He said that in Victorian times the railings had been there to help keep undesirables out, however this was not the approach that should be taken in the 21^st century. There was also the potential that people may get their head or limbs stuck in between the railings as the width between each bar is quite large. He told members that he was pleased that the height of the railings had been altered, but stated that ‘we could sleep walk into changing the nature of our best gardens’.

Another Member informed the meeting that getting an agreement from Council was important to FISHAC as it meant they could go forward and get funding from charitable bodies.

One  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

None received at the time of publication.

No notices of motion had been received.

None received.

There were no urgent items for discussion.