Meeting documents

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Clare Aparicio Paul and Henry Hobhouse.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (as amended 26 February 2015), 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.

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. 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. 

There were no declarations of interest made. 

There were no members of the public present.

There were no announcements from the Chairman.

The Chairman introduced the report and advised that the new Council Plan focused on the Council’s priority projects.  He suggested that following the Members Workshop, that the words ‘and income generation’ be added to Priority 1 on the second page of the plan.  He also noted that following discussion at the Scrutiny Committee, that Priorities 5 and 6 were broadly similar and it was suggested that Priority 6 be deleted.

Members discussed the merits of removing Priority 6 and adding additional wording to Priority 5 to cover the local housing element.  It was proposed and seconded to add ‘local housing and infrastructure’ to Priority 5, however, on being put to the vote, the proposal was lost (voting: 3 in favour, 5 against).

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee provided a precis of the discussion which had taken place at their meeting earlier and the Chairman clarified the following points:-

·         Area Working was likely to change under Transformation but it would not disappear.

·         Although Yeovil and Chard regeneration was a priority in the Council Plan, the remaining market towns would not be overlooked.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members agreed to recommend that the Annual Action Plan 2017-18 be adopted by Full Council, with the removal of Priority 6 and the additional wording ‘and income generation’ to Priority 1

The Chief Executive introduced the report and advised that the three main parts to note were the revised business case, structure and technology supplier.  He drew members attention to a projection of the headline and revised business cases costs profiles comparison (graph circulated at the meeting) which demonstrated a faster return under the revised business case which should realise the required £4.7m savings.

In response to questions from the Scrutiny Committee, the Chief Executive and Chairman advised:-

·         The funding allocated to redundancies was a reserve and not a budget.  There were a number of staff over the age of 55 and the Council needed to plan for this risk as it would trigger the pension strain for them. 

·         The Transformation Programme was now more refined and there was more certainty that the contingencies detailed were a prudent provision.

·         The proposed change to the management structure was driven by a late notification of an additional lump sum pension cost, and to preserve strategic capacity it was proposed to remove the post of Assistant Chief Executive and replace it with one Director

·         There was currently a review of SSDC property being undertaken and some may be sold.  SSDC had consistently produced budget underspends however, it was time to look at utilising reserves.  

·         The Transformation team were committed to providing quarterly reports to the Executive and a monthly report to Councillors.

·         The base line for counting the number of employees was June 2016 and there were a number of vacant posts being held which would reduce the overall number of redundancies.  However, because of the commercial income generation invest to earn, some areas of the Council would grow. 

The Technology Implementation Manager advised that the proposed technology supplier, Civica, were operating live in Eastbourne, however, there had been some mobile connectivity issues in South Hams and West Devon where staff had to work off-line if there was a low broadband signal.  It was likely that this could also occur in parts of South Somerset. 

At the conclusion of the debate, Members agreed to propose the recommendations be adopted by Full Council.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services introduced the report and noted that the Capital Programme detailed the strategy to finance the projects detailed in the appendices.  He noted that some of the figures in table 12 of the report were incorrect and an amended report would be circulated.  One project: access for all footpaths within various open spaces had been removed but each individual proposal could come as a local priority scheme to an Area Committee.

In response to a question from the Scrutiny Committee, the Chief Executive confirmed that although £21.2 million of capital schemes had been identified over the following 5 years, they would need to go through a prioritising process on whether they would produce a community return rather than a commercial return.

At the conclusion of a short debate, Members confirmed the recommendations for approval by Full Council. 

The next scheduled meeting of the District Executive will take place on Thursday, 11^th May 2017 in the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Brympton Way, Yeovil commencing at 9.30 a.m. (one week later than usual due to the County Elections).

Members noted that the next scheduled meeting of the District Executive would take place on Thursday, 11^th May 2017 in the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Brympton Way, Yeovil commencing at 9.30 a.m. (one week later than usual due to the County Elections).

(It was subsequently agreed to cancel this meeting due to the low number of reports to be discussed, therefore, the next meeting of the District Executive will take place on Thursday, 1^st June 2017 at the Westland Entertainment Venue, Westbourne Close, Yeovil commencing at 1.00 p.m.)