Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the minutes from the previous meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Adeleke, Gale, S Hobson and Santamaria.

To receive any declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)           may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct For Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

There were no declarations of interest. 

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements or ask questions in accordance with the rules as to public participation

There was no public participation.

None.

N Howcutt provided a response to the following action point from the meeting in March:

Question: Cllr Weston asked N Howcutt to provide figures for any debts written off and the reasons.

Response: There was £112k of write off in 2023/24, of which 75% of that was related to five commercial tenants that gone bankrupt or had no means of repaying. Those debts had been accrued over several years.

The residual debt of circa 30,000 is across a turnover of approx. £50million across the council, so is small in terms of the level of write offs. In terms of the commercial rent, although we did write off £74,000 of debt which is from multiple years, that still only equates to 1.2% of the annual commercial rental income collected.

The write offs are incredibly small and they all follow due process which requires sign off, and any value over £50,000 requires Portfolio Holder sign off as well. So there is a thorough process there.  

The action point from June had been completed and circulated to members.

C Silva Donayre introduced the report and advised it provided a progress update on the Strategic Asset Review (SAR) programme since Cabinet approved proposals in June 2023.

Please refer to the video minutes for full discussion.

Outcome

The committee noted the progress on the Council’s Strategic Asset Review programme.

There were no changes to the work programme.

N Howcutt provided details of the 2023-24 provisional financial outturn for the General Fund, Housing Revenue Account and the Capital Programme.

Please refer to the video minutes for full discussion.

Outcome

1.    The committee noted the provisional 2023-24 financial outturn position and associated reserve movements for the General Fund, Housing Revenue Account and Capital Programme.

2.    The committee noted the proposed reserve movements, virements and supplementary budgets highlighted in the report.

Action

Cllr Elliot requested a breakdown of expenditure for the waste service. He also asked for a comparison of expenditure against the previous year. (N Howcutt)