Issue - meetings

A Committee member highlighted that there was no report available for consideration.  There was therefore little which could be discussed around this issue. The Committee member moved that the meeting be adjourned. The motion was duly seconded.

The motion was debated, and a number of points were raised including:

·     The proposed date to reconvene the meeting was 2 September. This was prior to the September Cabinet meeting which was expected to consider this matter.

·     Concerns were raised that no report had been made available for this meeting and the reasons for this had not been made clear.

·     There had been confusing communications regarding the meeting taking place both for Councillors and the general public.

·     Councillors sought assurance that the advice received on this issue including the reports from KPMG would be made available to the Committee and also that this information be made available for beach hut owners.

·     The suggestion that the meeting should be cancelled or should be made inquorate were not appropriate.

·     Committee members also sought assurance that a report would be available in time for the 2 September meeting including meeting the timeline for publication of the agenda with reports.

·     A Committee members suggested that they would like to put a proposal to ask the leader to prepare an emergency budget.

·     There were concerns raised regarding the cost implications of the proposal if it would not be going ahead.

Following discussions, the motion was voted on and it was:

RESOLVED: That the meeting be adjourned until the report is available.

Voting: For 6, Against 5

Cllr G Farquhar, Cllr M Iyengar, Cllr S Moore, Cllr V Slade requested to be recorded as voting against the motion.

The meeting adjourned at 6.53pm on 20 July 2022 and reconvened on 2 September 2022 at 6.00pm.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the reconvened meeting. An apology for absence for the reconvened meeting had been received from Cllr J Edwards. The Chairman explained that he would invite questions and comments from committee members first followed by other councillors. He asked that members avoid repeating points previously raised at the July meeting.

The Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Transformation presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to the Committee and which appears as Appendix A to these minutes in the Minute Book. The Leader explained that following clarification from the new Secretary of State on guidance on the Flexible Use of Capital Receipts (FUCR) the Council was no longer pursuing the use of the SPV. The change in guidance prevented the capital received from the sale of beach hut assets to the SPV to be used for transformation purposes.  As a consequence, a Finance Update report was being brought forward to Cabinet on 7 September and to this Committee, setting out new plans to fund transformation.

The Leeder and officers responded to questions and comments, including:

• Questions about 20 July meeting, including why the Leader had not attended, why the latest updates could not have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24