Issue - meetings

In September 2024, all O&S Committees established budget working groups to contribute to the development of the 2025/26 Council budget. This report contains the findings of the working groups.

Note: Due to the scheduling of the working group meetings, appendices A-D of the report, the findings from each of the working groups, are to follow and will be circulated prior to the meeting.

The Scrutiny Specialist presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Scrutiny Specialist advised that each of the four Overview and Scrutiny Committees established working groups at their meetings in September to undertake scrutiny work into the 2025/26 budget. Each Committee selected a particular area of budget development in which they wanted to take a deep dive within the working group. All of the groups were now reporting back into the O&S Board. Any recommendations from the working groups for Cabinet would be considered by the Board, in some instances the groups had also made recommendations to the individual O&S Committees, and these would therefore need to be recommended to the different Committees as appropriate. The Chair invited the Lead member for each of the working groups to outline the work that they had undertaken and outline the recommendations which would be made to Cabinet or to the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Each lead member outlined the work undertaken by their respective groups. The Committee had an opportunity to discuss all of the motions put forward from the working group recommendations and suggested minor amendments to some of the recommendations. The Chair thanked working group lead members for presenting their findings and the working groups and officers supporting them for the work undertaken.

RESOLVED that

O&S Board – Car parking

The O&S Board recommend to Cabinet:

1. That the principle of an inflationary increase across all parking charges be endorsed for the 2025/26 budget.

2. That it requests Officers to take into account the suggestion that an assessment be made on using a proportion of surplus income to accelerate the parking charging machine replacement programme prioritising the best value machines in order to reduce future costs (subject to the necessary procurement processes).

3. That it requests that Officers evaluate the retention and recruitment of Civil Enforcement Officers to ensure a robust and resilient workforce to provide an appropriate level of resource and promote safe and appropriate parking.

4. That Officers be requested to explore options to reduce costs for the Council and make the process easier for the public to pay for car parking, in particular an option to be able to pay in advance/on Council website.

5. That Officers be requested to ensure adequate resourcing of parking enforcement to reduce inappropriate parking around schools.

Voting:10 in favour; 2 against; 0 abstentions

OS Board - Residents Card

The O&S Board recommend to Cabinet:

1.     That any Resident Card offering is made fully accessible to all those who are not digitally enabled.

2.     That there should be an application process for the card with a small financial contribution for the cost of processing and that the card should be a valuable offer that residents are willing to pay a small cost for, so that it can be sustainable in terms of administrative costs.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69