Meeting documents

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the District Executive meeting held on 4th August 2016.

The minutes of the District Executive meeting held on 4^th August 2016, copes of which had been circulated, were taken as read and, having been approved as a correct record, were signed by the Chairman.

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Henry Hobhouse.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (adopted July 2012), which includes all the provisions relating to Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI), personal and prejudicial interests, Members are asked to declare any DPI and also any personal interests (and whether or not such personal interests are also "prejudicial") in relation to any matter on the Agenda for this meeting. A DPI is defined in The Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012 No. 1464) and Appendix 3 of the Council’s Code of Conduct. A personal interest is defined in paragraph 2.8 of the Code and a prejudicial interest is defined in paragraph 2.9.

Members are reminded that they need to declare the fact that they are also a member of a County, Town or Parish Council as a Personal Interest. As a result of the change made to the Code of Conduct by this Council at its meeting on 15th May 2014, where you are also a member of Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council within South Somerset you must declare a prejudicial interest in any business on the agenda where there is a financial benefit or gain or advantage to Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council which would be at the cost or to the financial disadvantage of South Somerset District Council.  If you have a prejudicial interest you must comply with paragraphs 2.9(b) and 2.9(c) of the Code.

There were no declarations of interest made.

Questions, statements or comments from members of the public are welcome at the beginning of each meeting of the Council. The total period allowed for public participation shall not exceed 15 minutes except with the consent of the Council and each individual speaker shall be restricted to a total of three minutes. Where there are a number of persons wishing to speak about the same matter, they should consider choosing one spokesperson to speak on their behalf where appropriate. If a member of the public wishes to speak they should advise the committee administrator and complete one of the public participation slips setting out their name and the matter they wish to speak about. The public will be invited to speak in the order determined by the Chairman. Answers to questions may be provided at the meeting itself or a written reply will be sent subsequently, as appropriate. Matters raised during the public question session will not be debated by the Council at that meeting.

There were no questions from members of the public present.

The Chairman introduced Mr Alex Parmley as the new Chief Executive Officer for the Council from 3^rd October 2016.

The Chairman welcomed Mr Gary Orr, Chief Executive of the Yarlington Housing Group, to speak regarding the Right to Buy clawback agreement. 

Mr Orr advised that when the company was formed in 1999, they had raised significant private finance and had built 1,211 new houses since then.  However, 889 houses had been lost in the preserved Right to Buy scheme and people who could afford to buy their own homes 10 to 15 years ago could no longer afford the current housing prices.   In the last 5 years £5.2m had been paid to SSDC in preserved Right to Buy receipts and he said a significant proportion of this had not been reinvested into new housing.  He said that if SSDC could commit the £1m per annum they received each year to new housing, then Yarlington Group could lever in further private finance which could generate an additional 30 homes built per year. 

The Portfolio Holder for Strategy and Policy noted that Government funding for the disabled facilities grants was expected to be reduced which would be at a cost to the Council

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee suggest that the Council consider if the Right to Buy clawback monies should be ring fenced as a principle and she offered to set up a Scrutiny Task and Finish group to look at this and assess any impact on the Council’s Capital Programme.

The Assistant Director (Finance and Corporate Services) cautioned Members against ring-fencing all the Right to Buy receipts for affordable housing.  She reminded them that there were several priority projects on-going however, they could review this decision on an annual basis. 

The Corporate Strategic Housing Manager reminded Members that they had allocated £750,000 to Yarlington for affordable housing projects in the previous year and this was realising 3 bungalows in Yeovil and 17 properties in Misterton. 

During discussion, Members drew attention to the flexibility of the current scheme which allowed them to direct funding to their highest areas of need and also that there were other Housing Associations in the area who SSDC worked with.  

At the conclusion of the debate, Members agreed to retain the current clawback arrangement from Preserved Right to Buy receipts, and, to undertake a Scrutiny Task & Finish review in the Autumn to review the SSDC position on the Right to Buy (RTB) Clawback.

Mr Orr thanked Members for their consideration of his proposal and said he looked forward to working positively with the Scrutiny Task and Finish group.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services introduced the report and drew Members attention to the forecasted future budget shortfalls and the proposal to use capital receipts for revenue costs.  He said there was still an opportunity to influence the Government’s 4 year Rate Support Grant offer as he and other Members would be meeting with Government officers the following week in the hope of negotiating an improved offer. 

The Chairman advised that recommendation 8 could be removed as an additional meeting of Full Council had been scheduled for 13^th October, one day before the deadline to notify the Government of the Council’s intention regarding their 4 year Rate Support Grant offer.

The Assistant Director (Finance and Corporate Services) noted that the 4 year Government grant offer had been made by the previous Chancellor and there may be room for negotiation with the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

In response to questions from the Scrutiny Committee, the Assistant Director (Finance and Corporate Services) advised:-

·         168 Local Authorities were adversely affected by the Government’s 4 year RSG offer and of those, 146 were District Councils.

·         The Government were currently consulting on a proposal for Local Authorities to keep 100% business rates retention which should be in place by 2020.

·         There was also a business rate revaluation due before 2020.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members were content to endorse recommendations 1 to 7 (with the deletion of recommendation 8) of the report and propose recommendation 5, 6 and 7 to Full Council.

The Chairman introduced the report and noted that the Government’s Housing and Planning Act 2016 introduced ‘starter homes’ as an alternative to affordable housing, which could impact on developers selling open market housing on development sites at the same time as starter homes.  He also drew attention to the reducing percentage of affordable housing achieved on development sites and the extension of the right to buy scheme for housing association tenants.     

The Corporate Strategic Housing Manager advised that the report covered a 7 year period, looking 5 years back, looking at the current year and forward to the next year.  He noted that in the last 5 years, with HCA funding, SSDC had enabled an average of 191 new dwellings per year but it would realise only 50 dwellings in the current year.  Housing Associations had been approached to help bring development sites forward, particularly in Crewkerne where there was a need for housing and Stonewater had come forward with a proposed site in North Street, Crewkerne so funding was proposed to assist that scheme.  If the Executive agreed the recommendations, then £472,000 would remain in the General reserve to encourage other schemes to come forward. 

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee thanked the Corporate Strategic Housing Manager for a comprehensive report and noted that the outcome of the ongoing Task and Finish Group looking at the issue of the disposal of housing association housing in rural communities would have an impact on future reports.

At the conclusion of a short debate, Members were content to confirm the recommendations of the report.

The Portfolio Holder for Strategic Planning thanked officers for compiling the report and she drew Members attention to the conclusions on pages 115 and 116.  She said the Scrutiny Committee had highlighted a perceived gap in mentioning tourism within the report and that had now been corrected and a paragraph on this would be added to the final report.

The Assistant Director (Economy) advised that this was an annual report which looked at how the policies within the Local Plan were being achieved and household changes across the district as the Council moved towards an early review of the Local Plan.   He noted that the CIL examination had taken place in early August and it was hoped that the outcome would be favourable.

During discussion, some Members felt there were inconsistencies between the data presented in some of the tables and it was confirmed that the data source was ONS statistics and although there had been questions raised on how the data was collected, the supporting text within the report confirmed the correct age profile within South Somerset.  The Assistant Director (Economy) said the team were confident that the data taken from approved sources, such as ONS, was correct and consistent, but that a final sense check would be made.

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee thanked officers for noting their comments and adding a paragraph to the report on tourism in the district.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members were content to endorse the Authority Monitoring Report (2016) (as amended) for publication. 

The Performance Officer introduced the report and highlighted the performance indicators within target and the one below target.  She noted the significant decrease in the number of complaints received by the Council compared to the same period the previous year, and also that the telephone call logging software was now operational so data would be available from quarter 3.

The Chairman noted the recent rise in the number of abandoned vehicles which he said should be monitored as there was a cost to the Council to dispose of them.

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee thanked the Performance Officer for attending their meeting and answering their questions relating to Planning Appeals and telephone calls to the Contact Centre.

The following addition to the Executive Forward Plan was noted:

• Homeless Strategy – November 2016

Members noted that the next scheduled meeting of the District Executive would take place on Thursday 6^th October 2016 in the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Brympton Way, Yeovil commencing at 9.30 a.m.