Agenda and minutes

To confirm and sign the minutes of the meeting of 7 December 2020.

The minutes of the meeting of 7 December 2020 were confirmed and signed.

Members to receive an update on the previous meeting’s Action Plan.

Members considered the update on previous actions and made the following comments:

1.    Councillor Mason said that there are several outstanding queries awaiting response from Anglian Water (AW) which Anna Goodall will follow up and she will circulate the responses once received.

2.    Councillor Miscandlon said it should be noted that following the recent wet weather, more prudent questions into the answers that AW need to give us are appropriate.

3.    Councillor Wicks said he has two formal complaints outstanding with AW due to the events prior to Christmas which impacted two of the villages he represents. Namely a lack of response on two occasions one of which left elderly residents without sanitary provision for five days over the Christmas period as they were unable to contact AW.

4.    Councillor Booth said to follow up on Councillor Miscandlon’s point, we need to be engaging with the County Council as they are the statutory local flood authority. There are a lot of partners involved in the issue of flooding; we need to take a holistic view and County should be coordinating that.

5.    Councillor Count agreed that the County Council has a duty to investigate and coordinate but one of the issues is that there were over 200 flood incidents this Christmas, so the matter is complicated. There are 78 bodies across Cambridgeshire that have various responsibilities for flooding issues. Officers at County are currently coordinating the task of gathering responses together and analysing them one by one. He has asked for added focus as this is becoming a recurring occurrence; having met with various bodies everybody seems to think things are fine, but the flooding then occurs again. It is not possible to keep every building safe when flooding occurs but what is not acceptable is the failure of equipment or when duties are not kept up to date. He is intent on looking into these in some detail and so is working with the District and County councils, Middle Level, drainage boards and AW so that we can get to the bottom of all these individual incidents.

6.    Councillor Miscandlon said a lot of the equipment used by AW is very old and it may be prudent to obtain data saying how old it is and how long it is likely to last, then investment must be made in new equipment.

7.    Councillor Wicks said we should also audit the infrastructure. What assets there are for sewerage and water supply need to be looked at because they are failing on a too regular basis.

8.      Councillor Yeulett said that AW have been out to an incident in his ward and have said they will rectify it, so they have been proactive since the floods.

To consider and make any appropriate recommendations to Cabinet on the Draft Medium Term Financial Strategy, Draft General Fund Budget 2021/22 and Draft Capital Programme 2021-2024 for consultation.

Members considered the Draft Budget 2021/22 report presented by Councillor Boden. 

Councillor Boden added that Peter Catchpole, Mark Saunders, Neil Krajewski and the finance team have done a tremendous job to produce this report and he thanked them for they work they have done. They have done the best that they can given the level of uncertainty due to the current situation.

Councillor Mason thanked Councillor Boden and acknowledged the hard work that had gone into the budget. He was sure the Panel members would all agree that it is a very difficult task for anyone currently to project a budget or business plan.

Members made comments, asked questions and received responses as follows:

1.    Councillor Miscandlon said that Freedom Leisure have several contracts with other local authorities and the panel would be interested to know how these authorities are responding to the continued impact of COVID-19 on the provider and would like to understand their proposed plans as an approach to influence FDC’s response.

2.    Councillor Boden said this is one of the largest areas of uncertainty that we have in the budget. He believes Freedom has contracts with 22 local authorities, managing just under 100 leisure centres. We are mindful of Freedom’s financial viability and most authorities have adopted the position that we led on in April where we reached agreement with Freedom that we will provide the contractual support that they are entitled to, but that support is overwhelmingly in the form of a loan which is potentially recoverable by better profit share when times return to normal. We have many years left on the contract to do that. We checked carefully our contractual obligations to support Freedom and it was clearly advantageous to FDC to continue this support; the alternative would have found us in breach of contract and resulting in financial loss through court action; also potentially one or more of our leisure centres would not have reopened, or not under our ownership or control. That decision was followed by the other authorities dealing with Freedom and we continue to be in touch with them, so we have knowledge of what is going on. We also contacted our auditor to consider the contractual state of Freedom before we put any financial support in place.  We have an open book policy so far as the costs it is incurring and lost income due to COVID-19. We have been receiving from Government 75% of 95% of the monies we would have been receiving under the contract, and this is in place currently until June 2021 but we have not been receiving any significant support in respect of the additional costs incurred to keep Freedom Leisure above water. We are currently applying for £210,000 to cover some of those costs from December 2020 to March 2021. No monies have been allocated to us for additional costs from April 2021 to November 2021 and therefore he has been in contact with Stephen Barclay MP for him to take this  ...  view the full minutes text for item OSC35/20

For Overview and Scrutiny to comment on the Draft Business Plan 2021-2022

Members considered the Draft Business Plan 2021/22 presented by Councillor Boden. 

Members made comments, asked questions, and received responses as follows:

1.         Councillor Cornwell referenced page 62 Economy saying a large section of that relates to businesses. He asked if we could have some performance    indicators developed in relation to this, i.e. jobs, new businesses created. Councillor Boden said performance indicators are used for us to measure what we are doing and to try to control it, however in terms of jobs it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of what we do. So much of in relation to jobs is influenced by external factors therefore it is difficult to create a true PI on something like employment. He would ask that members consider and suggest any meaningful PI to him going forward. Councillor Cornwell said he appreciated some of the difficulties outlined but there must be some way of judging the success or otherwise of our team. It could be the amount of time taken to work with new businesses for example, we need to be creative. Councillor Boden agreed there are a number of indicators that can be used in replacement to direct indicators of output, but he finds these to be too indirect. Many of these do not measure output but rather measure activity. For a PI to be meaningful it should be a measure of success in outcome, hence he would welcome suggestions from all FDC members for ideas for robust, meaningful and fair performance indicators for economic growth relating to our officers’ achievements.

2.         Councillor Booth said he had made an observation repeatedly over the years that our performance indicators do not match our priorities. We have a lot of priorities and no real way of measuring these and as he has said in the past, we need to come up with a system with quite specific measurable priorities to help us determine how successful we are. We have some 37 priorities with no decent indicator that we can measure against so how can we say we are a successful council? Councillor Boden thanked Councillor Booth for many of his points that were valid, but it is not appropriate for us to look for different priorities so we can have indictors to measure them. Our priorities should be there regardless of whether they can be measured or not. The problem we have is that many of our priorities are difficult to measure the outcome of objectively but need more subjective assessment and not everything can be measured in percentages.

3.         Councillor Miscandlon said performance indicators are difficult to quantify but suggested engaging a consultant to correlate and create some meaningful indicators, as happened with the PAS review for Planning. Councillor Boden responded that it is possible but transactional events are more meaningful than percentages. We have already looked for better alternatives.

4.         Councillor Yeulett asked if we measure job creation. Councillor Boden said we do attempt to measure the effect we have on job creation  ...  view the full minutes text for item OSC36/20

To review the Council’s Fees and Charges for 2021/22, in line with the Budget Strategy considered by Cabinet on 14 December 2020.

Members considered the Fees and Charges 2021/22 report presented by Councillor Boden.

Members made comments, asked questions, and received responses as follows:

1.    Councillor Booth referred to fees and charges for the traveller pitches and asked how many of those pitches are occupied and maintained at this time. Councillor Clark said there are 69 plots, and all are occupied. Councillor Booth asked if his included the Turf Fen site; Councillor Clark said she would have to get back to him on this. Councillor Booth said going past the site it seems there are empty pitches, and he thanked Councillor Clark for agreeing to investigate this.

2.    Councillor Booth addressed Councillor Boden saying he would recall a commercial working party started two years ago reviewing the markets and the port. He said the outcome of the review for the port was that although the income covers the running costs, the issue was the capital investment required and he believed the recommendation was for the new administration to look at how this could be made sustainable. There was also concern about the sustainability of the markets given the low number of pitches. He asked what steps have been taken in relation to that because they have been highlighted as areas where we are losing income or might have to spend money to keep these services provided.

3.    Councillor Murphy responded that we actually now have more market stalls at Whittlesey, Chatteris and March than we have had for some time. We are now trying to encourage a wider variety of stalls, but the situation is vastly better than two years ago.

4.    Councillor Boden said the port has been a long-standing issue but the biggest change we can make is at looking at more commercial opportunities within the port through Fenland Future Limited. However, there are some confidential contractual issues which need to be resolved before we can move forwards in our management of the port. There are some interesting new opportunities being pursued currently in respect of businesses at the port, but there are also practical difficulties in terms of the number of ships that can get to the port due to tides. However, it is not the case that we have to have a position where the port makes a profit for the Council. The fact it operates produces business which helps economic growth take place within Fenland.

5.    Councillor Booth asked why we are not proposing to increase the fees for fairs to increase our income. Councillor Murphy responded that these fees were raised in 2020, unfortunately though the fairs have been unable to attend the area due to COVID. It is not likely they will return this year either and the amount of income is so small from it anyway.

6.    Councillor Mason asked why Wisbech Port collects berth fees on behalf of Sutton Bridge. Councillor Boden said that FDC collects money for leisure mooring fees at Sutton Bridge on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council as a convenience  ...  view the full minutes text for item OSC37/20

To consider the Draft Work Programme for Overview & Scrutiny Panel 2020/21.

Members agreed the Future Work Programme subject to the following comments:

1.    Councillor Yeulett wondered if there would be any material changes or information on the budget that could be delivered to the panel for comment.

2.    Councillor Miscandlon asked if it would be appropriate to invite Anglian Water back early this year so they can update us on their work programme to alleviate the flooding issues that have been experienced. Councillor Mason pointed out that Anglian Water are under no obligation to attend an Overview and Scrutiny meeting, but that Anna Goodall could contact them to see if they would be willing to make representation again.

3.    Councillor Booth said he thought he had previously asked if the work programme could be a rolling twelve-month programme so the panel can see what is coming up in the future rather than end in May. Councillor Mason thanked Councillor Booth for the reminder.