Issue - meetings

Members received a number of updates during consideration of this item.

a)        Finance and Budget Working Group – Chairman, Councillor L. C. R. Mallett

Councillor Mallett explained that the Working Group had been holding frequent meetings during which a range of budgetary issues had been discussed.  This included consideration of the Council’s borrowing costs and the asset register which had revealed that the Council had an interest in over 100 properties.  The Working Group had discovered that the Council had a 30 per cent investment in some affordable housing with occupiers having mortgages on the remaining 70 per cent.  Limited benefits to the Council had been identified from ownership of these assets and Officers had therefore been asked to investigate this matter further.

At future meetings of the Working Group Members would consider financial regulations and proposals from Heads of Service in respect of the Capital Programme.  The Working Group would also be monitoring the outcomes of the Efficiency Statement. 

At the following meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Board a report detailing the Working Group’s recommendations to date and the evidence basis for these recommendations would be presented for Members’ consideration.

b)        Measures Dashboard Working Group – Chairman, Councillor S. A. Webb

Councillor Webb advised that Members of the Working Group did not yet have access to the dashboard on their iPads.  This was causing delays for the Working Group.  Officers in the ICT Team had been contacted about this problem and had adviser that providers of the Good Software to the Council’s iPads were working to resolve this issue.  However, no estimate had been provided for the timeframes involved in completing this work.  Consequently the Board agreed that the Working Group’s meetings should be postponed until Members could access the dashboard on their iPads.  The Board requested that Members’ concerns about the delays and limited access to the dashboard should be conveyed to the Head of Business Transformation and Organisational Development.

c)         Overview and Scrutiny Board - Work Programme

Members were advised that pre-scrutiny of the Review of CCTV in the District would be the main item on the agenda for the Board’s consideration in November.  An agreement was reached that the Planning delegations item, discussed earlier in the meeting, should be scheduled for consideration at the meeting of the Board in December.