Agenda item

To consider the recommendations from the Cabinet meeting held on 24^th July 2024.

The Chairman advised that there were two recommendations from the meeting of the Cabinet held on 24^th July 2024, which were presented for the Council’s consideration.

Councillor K. J. May drew Members’ attention to the Recommendations, and in doing so provided a brief explanation with regards to the reasons for the recommendations; as detailed in the Background Papers.

Cost of Living Proposal - Update

The recommendations were proposed by Councillor May and seconded by Councillor S. Baxter.

In proposing the recommendations, the Leader commented that the proposals had been brought forward after funding had been ring fenced in the budget a few years ago for community use after Members raised concerns about library provision.  No libraries had subsequently been closed.  Therefore, this money was available and could be used instead to help support residents who were suffering due to cost of living challenges.  The funding could be used as seed funding and additional funds would be requested from the National Lottery to help ensure long-term financial support.

Confirmation was provided during consideration of this item that the officer who would be recruited using this funding would be undertaking valuable outreach work.  Efforts would be made as soon as possible to recruit to this position as the value of the role to the community was recognised.

RESOLVED that

1)          from the remaining £150,000 contained within earmarked reserves to support cost of living initiatives, £38,000 be allocated to a Voluntary Sector Money Adviser;

2)          the £62,000 allocation to Citizen’s Advice be amended to fund an Outreach Development Worker through to March 2026.

(Prior to consideration of the recommendations in respect of the Cost of Living, Councillors E. M. S. Gray and S. A. Webb left the room.  They were not present during the debate in respect of this matter nor voted thereon.)

Combined Financial Outturn and Quarter 4 Financial Monitoring Report (Including Update on the Fleet)

At this stage in the meeting, Councillors E. M. S. Gray and S. A. Webb  returned to the meeting room for the consideration of the Combined Financial Outturn and Quarter 4 Monitoring Report 2023/24.

Councillor S. R. Colella then read out the recommendation with regard to the update on the Council’s fleet and provided a brief explanation with regards to the reasons for the recommendation.

During the presentation of the report, Members were advised that in 2021, as part of a review of the Council’s finances, a decision was taken to extend the period in which existing vehicles in the fleet would be used by an extra year before their replacement.  The decision was also taken at that time to invest in maintenance work on the existing vehicle fleet in order to extend the timeframes in which they could be used and therefore minimise the impact on the Council’s capital budget.  It had been envisaged that the savings arising from this approach would enable the authority in the long-term to invest in more energy efficient vehicles, in line with the Council’s aim to reduce carbon emissions in the District. 

However, the potential impact at the operational level, in terms of service delivery when vehicles were unavailable due to ongoing maintenance works, had not been anticipated.  The Council had had to hire other vehicles to use at this time to ensure continuing service delivery and this had created an additional unbudgeted financial pressure.  In addition, the first vehicles to be subject to these maintenance works had taken 12 months to refurbish, due to issues accessing appropriate parts.  Subsequent vehicles had all overrun on planned timescales.  Taking into account the ongoing maintenance works, as well as additional vehicular requirements, such as annual MOTs, the Council had had to continue to use hire vehicles alongside the fleet during this period in order to ensure that service delivery continued as normal.

Based on these issues, together with difficulties recruiting staff into the workshop at the depot, it was proposed that the Council should return to a seven-year cycle of replacing the authority’s vehicle fleet.  As part of this process, Officers would be reviewing the use of vehicles powered by hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO), which had been favoured in order to reduce carbon emissions associated with the waste fleet.

Following the presentation of the report, Members questioned whether the Council would be using the remaining Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) funding, to which the Council was entitled as a former member, as mitigating action to reduce the financial impact of the costs associated with the fleet.  Clarification was provided that the funding arising from the former GBSLEP pooled budget could only be allocated to regeneration projects at the Council.  No decision had been taken yet on how that funding would be used.  Any decision concerning use of the funding would be subject to successful submission of a suitable business case, which would need to be debated through the usual democratic process.  Confirmation was provided that as part of this process, the Overview and Scrutiny Board would have an opportunity to review the proposals, should members of the Board wish to do so.

Concerns were raised about the extent to which Officers had undertaken a robust review when originally assessing the appropriate options for the replacement of the vehicle fleet and questions were raised about the extent to which Officers should have been able to anticipate the difficulties that had arisen.  However, Members commented that there was a need to move forward to ensure continuing service delivery.

Clarification was requested in respect of the table that had been included in the report which covered a three-year period and the reasons why this did not correspond with the seven-year period that was being proposed for the vehicle replacement programme.  Members also questioned why savings were anticipated from 2026/27 onwards when the cost of replacement vehicles was anticipated as due to increase from circa £200,000 to £437,000 in that year and then to £450,000 the following year onwards.  It was suggested that these figures appeared instead to indicate that costs were likely to increase.  In response, Council was advised that parts for vehicles, particularly Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs), were in scarce supply in the country.  In addition, the financial costs associated with using HVO had increased since the Council had initially considered investment in HGVs powered by HVO.  The figures included in the report reflected the costs anticipated for investment in electric vehicles at a later date, although Members were asked to note that unfortunately the market for electric HGV vehicles had not progressed as far as the authority had hoped by the date of the meeting.  In this context, for the time being, the Council would be investing in cleaner diesel vehicles, which were more efficient at present than electric vehicles.

The recommendation was proposed by Councillor Colella and seconded by Councillor P. Whittaker.

RESOLVED that the reprofiling of the Capital Fleet Replacement budget, relating to the Domestic Waste Collection Service, be approved.