Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies received at the meeting.

To approve the summary of recommendations and decisions of the Cabinet meeting held on 15 November 2018, copy attached.

Councillor Game proposed, Councillor Ashbee seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the meeting that was held on 15 November 2018.

Cabinet noted that during the quarter under review, there was continued improvement with 17 measures at or exceeding their target. Members further noted that the Council had exceeded targets to the levels of detritus and graffiti on Thanet streets. This was due to targeted work by the Cleansing and Enforcement teams.

However there was still more to be done to tackle the levels of litter and public perception around this issue and the Council would be working more with the public on shared responsibility to address this through targeted campaigns. Enforcement continued to be focused in this area and over a 12 month period, the Council had issued 1,874 litter fixed penalty notices and carried out 1,310 street scene enforcement actions to reinforce the message that dropping litter was never acceptable.

Members were advised that electric pavement sweepers would soon be trialled as these were reputed to cover a larger area in shorter time periods. Staff sickness levels had gone down. Although the Legal Department was facing staffing shortages, there was some improvement in the performance target for processing Freedom of Inquiry requests (FOIs).

Work continued at pace to address the levels of homelessness in the district. Since the start of the year, the Housing team had prevented more than 300 cases and at the time of publication, Thanet had no families housed in hotel accommodation. The new duties through the Homelessness Reduction Act have made a positive impact and the Council was targeting more resources to support some of the most vulnerable people in the district. For the next Quarter, Cabinet expected to receive improved performance results as a result of the other measures taken to improve performance in this area.

It was also worth noting that recommendations from the Finance, Budget and Performance Scrutiny Panel had been taken on-board since the last meeting and that new targets would be added to the contextual measures as part of the Corporate Plan refresh next year.

Councillor Gregory proposed, Councillor Savage seconded and Cabinet noted the performance and agreed the action in relation to the Panel’s recommendations as outlined in the Cabinet report.

Cabinet was advised that the General Fund projected an overspend of £680k compared to £750k at Quarter 1. The reasons for the variations were outlined in Section 2 of the Cabinet report. The services projecting an overspend were striving to minimise or eliminate the overspend before the end of the year.

Housing Revenue Account was currently forecast to have a deficit of £107k in 2018-19. This represented a £185k decrease against the planned deficit of £292k.

The latest projection for the General Fund Capital Programme was that spend in 2018-19 would reduce by £3.8m and the revised Capital Programme of £13.5m was all planned to be spent without significant variation.

With regards to the HRA Capital Programme, of the £20.9m of budget allocated to HRA capital schemes, it was currently anticipated that £13.5m would be unspent at year end. This was mainly due to re-profiling of Thanet’s schemes.

Councillor Gregory proposed, Councillor Savage seconded and Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  To note the 2018-19 Quarter 2 forecast position for:

(i)  The General Fund;

(ii)  The Housing Revenue Account;

(iii)  The General Fund and Housing Revenue Account Capital Programmes.

2.  The updated General Fund and Housing Revenue Account capital programmes as set out in Annex 1 and Annex 2 to the Cabinet report.