Meeting documents

Details of Cabinet Member interests in District, Town and Parish Councils will be displayed in the meeting room. The Statutory Register of Member’s Interests can be inspected via the Community Governance team.

To follow.

The Chair will allow members of the public to present a petition on any matter within the Cabinet’s remit. Questions or statements about any matter on the agenda for this meeting may be taken at the time when each matter is considered.

In accordance with the Local Authority Code of Publicity and the current pre-election period the proposed decision report will be published on Friday 13^th December 2019.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabinet

1. Endorsed the draft Climate Emergency Framework document for consultation and the approach to its delivery through the workstreams

2. Endorsed the timeline for development of the full Climate Emergency Strategy

3. Endorsed the proposed consultation activities 4. Notes the risks in item 7 below and the challenges to delivery in section 6 of the Framework document.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabinet recommended to Full Council:

1. that the Council agrees to implement a  transformation and improvements to its scrutiny arrangements by March 2021, including the provision of additional resources in the Democratic Services Team and members training budgets to deliver the enhanced scrutiny arrangements;

2. the approval of 10 of the 11 recommendations within the Centre for Public Scrutiny’s ‘Supporting governance, scrutiny and member support in Somerset County Council’ report as detailed on pages 9 and 10 of Appendix A and for these to be implemented by March 2021. In line with Scrutiny recommendations, the Cabinet is asked to endorse an alteration to Recommendation 6 within the CfPS report and recommend that the number of agenda items is limited to an absolute maximum of 4, rather than the 2 as currently recommended;

3. approval to the 11 recommendations within the Centre for Public Scrutiny’s ‘Supporting governance, scrutiny and member support in Somerset County Council’ report as detailed on pages 9 and 10 of Appendix A and for these to be implemented by March 2021;

4. that it receives a progress report on the improvements and review of scrutiny arrangements by November 2020.

In accordance with the Local Authority Code of Publicity and the current pre-election period the proposed decision report will be published on Friday 13^th December 2019.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabinet:

1. Recognised the strengths of this financial strategy for Improving the Lives of Residents in Somerset.

2. Approved the Medium-Term Financial Strategy as a basis for developing the revenue and capital budgets for the next three years (2020-23) for consultation with businesses and Scrutiny Committees in January / February 2020 ahead of consideration by Cabinet and Full Council in February 2020.

3. Endorsed the proposed improvement to long term financial resilience and sustainability achieved through this strategy.

4. Recognised that more could be done if Government allocated more funding on a fairer basis according to rising needs, and therefore endorse further lobbying of Government for:

a. the new Social Care Grant funding (£1bn nationally) to become permanent; 

b. delivering a multi-year Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) that recognises rising service needs and removes the currently uncertainty for Government funding beyond 2020/21, and;

c. the necessary additional resources and flexibilities that are likely to be required to support the delivery of Somerset’s Climate Emergency Strategy priorities in due course.

In accordance with the Local Authority Code of Publicity and the current pre-election period the proposed decision report will be published on Friday 13^th December 2019.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabined endorsed and recommended that Full Council agrees to:

 1. Build on its current Treasury Management investment activities to generate higher returns, protect against inflationary risks, sustaining a prudent balance of risk and reward.

2. Pro-actively consider options for further investing in existing Council owned property to optimise the value from these assets.

3. Consider other investment opportunities that may arise from time to time subject to appropriate due diligence and governance arrangements being in place.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabined endorsed and recommended that Full Council agrees to:

 1. Build on its current Treasury Management investment activities to generate higher returns, protect against inflationary risks, sustaining a prudent balance of risk and reward.

2. Pro-actively consider options for further investing in existing Council owned property to optimise the value from these assets.

3. Consider other investment opportunities that may arise from time to time subject to appropriate due diligence and governance arrangements being in place.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabinet endorsed the Management of Risk Pathway documents and recommend approval and adoption as part of the Council’s Governance arrangements.

Following consideration of the officer report and discussion the Cabinet:

1. Noted the forecast balanced position for the Council for the end of 2019/20.

2. Noted that £6.399m of the corporate contingency remains unallocated.

3. Noted the forecast favourable position of -£0.792m for Accountable Bodies (LEP/SRA) for the end of 2019/20. 

4. Noted the delivery of £18.093m savings by Month 7 and the forecast delivery of £21.314m by the year end of the total target of £21.547m.

The Chair may raise any items of urgent business.