Agenda and draft minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

Apologies were received from Cllr S Bartlett and Lindy Jansen-VanVuuren.

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications.

There were none

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

There were none.

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the additional meeting held on 24 September 2025.

The minutes of the meeting held on 24 September 2025 were confirmed as accurate record for the Chair to sign.

Voting: Agreed with no dissent

To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution. Further information on the requirements for submitting these is available to view at the following link:-

https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1

The deadline for the submission of public questions is midday on Friday 31 October 2025 [midday 3 clear working days before the meeting].

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday on Wednesday 5 November 2025 [midday the working day before the meeting].

The deadline for the submission of a petition is Thursday 23 October 2025 [10 working days before the meeting].

The following public issues were received in relation to the draft - Internal Audit - BCP FuturePlaces (FPL) Investigation Report (Scope items 1 to 8):

Public Questions from Mr Ian Redman:

Question 1.

BEIS said the council had discretion on how to award Additional Restrictions Grants but that these funds were to be used "to support businesses severely impacted by coronavirus restrictions and the rise of the omicron variant" - which Future Places, as a new company, was definitely not! Future Places were urged to apply for a £100,000 ARG grant by "the BCP City Panel".  Who were members of the "city panel" and which council officers approved the grant?  

Response:

The criteria for latter elements of the ARG grant (schemes 3 and 4) could fit wider criteria as set out in government guidance

Point 1 on page 4: This guidance is intended to support Local Authorities in administering the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) to provide direct business grants and wider business support.

Point 21 on page 5: With the exception of the third top-up payment, Local Authorities can use ARG funding for business support activities. This may primarily take the form of discretionary grants, but Local Authorities could also use this funding for wider business support activities.

And Point 34 on Page 8: Previous guidance for the Additional Restrictions Grant indicated that businesses must have been trading before relevant restrictions were introduced in order to be eligible. This is no longer the case. All businesses that are trading and meet other eligibility criteria may apply to receive funding under this scheme. There is no starting date from which businesses must have been trading in order to qualify for grant funding.

This was all set out in the Council’s published schemes, which were all approved by Corporate Management Board. 

Entities who were involved in the City Panel are shown in the snip at 5.10.2 of the report.  The BCP Council Leader and Deputy Leader were also invited.

Officers who approved the grant on the Council’s award panel were the Director of Development and Director of Destination and Culture, supported by two officers from Economic Development who were advisors to the panel.

Question 2.

Once awarded to Future Places, the £100,000 grant was transferred to a separate company, 1HQ Limited, so that it could carry out a "city identity study". The resulting report by 1HQ Limited is available online, and consists of 35 pages, 15 of which are photographs of Bournemouth or full-sized page numbers. The observations in the report aren't particularly striking either. Whose job was it, at Future Places or BCP Council, to ensure quality control and value for money, especially in this scenario, where £100,000's worth of work had supposedly been undertaken?

Response:

As with all the ARG grants, the responsibility for delivering the outcomes and outputs stipulated in application forms was with the applicant, in this case, Future Places.  Future Places were also required to provide a monitoring report detailing how the outcomes  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59.

This draft investigation report - BCP FuturePlaces Ltd (FPL) covers scope areas 1 to 8 (all scope areas).

This A&G Committee meeting will be the second meeting on this matter. The Committee has previously reviewed an initial part A which covered scope areas 1 to 4 at a meeting on 24 September 2025. The meeting only managed to review scope areas 1-3.

To allow the Committee sufficient time to digest and review the findings to determine next steps there may be a need for a least one further meeting.

At the conclusion of this investigation there may still be gaps in understanding, and the Committee may or may not decide that further investigation through other means is required.

NOTE:

In relation to the confidential Appendix (Section F of the report), should the Committee wish to discuss the content, it is asked to consider the following resolution: -

‘That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraphs 1 and 2 in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Act and that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs such interest in disclosing the information.’

The Committee considered the report of the Head of Audit and Management Assurance (HAMA), a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

This was the second committee meeting to consider the draft Internal Audit investigation report on BCP FuturePlaces Ltd (FPL). This report covered scope areas 1 to 8 (all scope areas). The Committee had previously reviewed an initial part A which covered scope areas 1 to 4 at a meeting on 24 September 2025. It was noted that there may be a need for a least one further meeting to allow the Committee sufficient time to digest and review the findings to determine next steps. At the conclusion of the investigation there may still be gaps in understanding, and the Committee may or may not decide that further investigation through other means was required.

The Chair explained that the Committee would pick up where it left off on 24 September at the end of Scope Area 3, continuing to make comments and identify areas where clarification was needed and/or where further consideration may be required. She also suggested that members send any further questions to her and the HAMA, she would then compile these into a list to aid discussion at the next meeting.

The Chair and members thanked the HAMA for the amount of work taken to produce a report of such depth and breadth.

Scope 4. Detailed expenditure incurred by BCP FuturePlaces Ltd

4.1 Provide details of where the money went / what expenditure did BCP FuturePlaces Ltd incur. (a schedule).

• The HAMA’s recommendation at 4.1.2 regarding Council Teckal companies filing Profit and Loss (P&L) accounts was noted

4.1.6 Drilldown A – Consultancy Fees (Outsourced - cost of sales) £3,146,410:

• Members commented that ‘where the money went’ was now very clear, with consultancy fees accounting for over 40% of FPL total expenditure.
• A member suggested that the list of consultants seemed very long and commercial in nature. It was noted that this may be what one would expect in the private sector. It may be useful to seek examples of comparative fees for regeneration work.
• A member commented that the wide range of consultants could indicate a scattergun approach and a lack of focus. Also it seemed that some consultants appeared to provide similar expertise to FPL.
• Members queried tendering procedures and whether value for money (VFM) was achieved. Members were referred to Section 4.2 of the report which set out the arrangement for procuring suppliers.
• The HAMA was unable to locate any working paper to account for the manual adjustment of £8,467, despite best endeavours.
• The potential link between some consultants and the Stewardship Initiative was flagged – see also 5.3 below.

Areas for consideration:

• Whether to undertake a benchmarking exercise on consultancy fees for regeneration work
• Whether more information is required on the approach taken to appointing consultants and whether VFM was provided

4.1.7 Drilldown B  ...  view the full minutes text for item 60.