Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from the following Members:

Councillor Dennis;

Councillor Dixon;

Councillor Falcon;

Councillor Curran, substituted by Councillor Keith Coleman-Cooke.

To approve the Minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 21 November 2017, copy attached.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Connor seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the meeting that was held on 21 November 2017.

Mr Matt Gough, Director of Customer Services (East Kent Housing) introduced the item and made the following points:

·  The proposals for improving the engagement of residents were developed through the participation of tenants’ representatives in workshops that were facilitated by an independent tenant advisor;

·  The Internal EK Housing Improvement Board considered and agreed the proposals;

·  Residents wanted a cohesive approach for engaging them;

·  The proposed Residents Panel will have a strategic overview of processing views from residents and communicating these to management;

·  The would be a new method of escalation of issues through the organisational structure;

·  Once agreed there will be a need to make minor amendments to the current agreement with TDC.

In response to the presentation Members made comments and raised questions as follows:

·  The process used by East Kent Housing was transparent;

·  How was EK Housing going the monitor the new system;

·  How was the organisation going to manage the influence of dominant individuals who sit on the Panel;

·  Could the quorum of eight members of the Panel include at least one representative from each of the areas?

Responding to Member comments and questions Mr Gough said that:

·  The selection criteria for individuals to sit on the Panel would include among other attributes; the ability to represent the views of residents at Panel meetings;

·  EK Housing will provide skills training to the new Panel membership;

·  Each area will select its own representative to sit on the main Panel;

·  EK Housing would consider the suggestion from the Overview & Scrutiny Panel that ‘the quorum of eight members of the Panel should include at least one representative from each of the areas.’

The Panel agreed the following:

1.  To endorse the recommendation to invite an appropriate Councillor(s) to attend local group meetings to participate and observe, in relation to local council services;

2.  To note the proposed implementation timescales.

Councillor Townend gave the opening remarks to the agenda item and made the following comments:

• The proposals in the draft budget report for 2018/19 were initially agreed for recommending to Council at Cabinet on 16 January;
• Members briefing sessions on the draft budget proposals were held;
• Cabinet had identified £300,000 savings in the proposals;
• It was worth noting that council tax for a Band D property was increased by £6.57 per year to £226.44;
• The budget proposals were being considered in a macro economic environment marked by significant uncertainties that included the still to be decided local government funding settlement and the fair funding review;

Tim Willis, Director of Corporate Resources then advised the meeting of a correction to Table 5 in para 4.13 as follows:

  Total for 2019/20 should be £586,000 and not £712,000;

  Total for 2020/21 should be £101,000 and not £338,000.

Members of the Panel then made comments and asked questions about the proposals in the budget report as follows:

• What percentage of the council resources in the budget was to be spent on street cleansing in Cliftonville?
• Was this allocation not having a detrimental effect on street cleaning work in other areas of the district?
• Business rates retention scheme – Would the council be better or worse off if it did not take part in the pilot scheme?
• Will there be a proportionate formula to the allocation of benefits to be derived from the pilot: - do the less affluent areas get more?
• Will TDC be able to scrutinise the scheme?
• Would Members be able to look at the scheme to ascertain whether Thanet would be as better off as the other Councils participating in the scheme?
• Is the extra revenue to be generated from the pilot going to be ring fenced or allocated to the general fund? If it is to be ring fenced, what would be the percentage allocated to economic growth?
• Business incentives – What Business incentives are offered to investors to attract inward investment into the district?
• Why was it the case that the extra income to be derived from council tax was only due to be allocated amongst the major preceptors and not to all other preceptors? Council tax discount from government used to be passed on to Parish Councils, but this had now been stopped. The Parish/Town Councils were now worse off. Therefore in future TDC should consider including minor preceptors;
• Could officers provide more information on business incentives;
• If Town/Parish councils could show evidence that as a result of some of the actions they had taken to attract investment (including additional street cleansing work), could they be allocated some of the revenue from the pilot scheme?

Tim Willis and Tim Howes (Director of Corporate Governance) gave the following responses to Member comments and questions:

• The issue regarding street cleansing was not directly related to the draft budget report before the Panel;
• Business rates retention pilot scheme – There was a ‘no detriment’ clause in the pilot agreement;
• Council will  ...  view the full minutes text for item 151.

A Member noted the lower than usual attendance at recent Panel meetings. Another Member requested that the electoral registration working group be re-constituted to consider the voter registration progress as part of the preparation for the 2019 Local Government Elections. This would enable the Panel to determine the effectiveness of the voter registration exercise. The Chairman agreed to discuss that request and feedback to the Panel.

The Panel agreed the following:

a)  To reduce the size of sub groups from seven to six members, the UKIP group losing a seat. The proportionality of sub groups then being:

3 UKIP;

2 Conservatives;

1 Labour.

b)  To note the report.

A request was made by Members and officers agreed that in future the Panel received progress updates reports regarding the asset disposal programme.

Members noted the report.