Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

Apologies were received from Cllr H Allen, Cllr L Allison, Cllr M Andrews and Cllr M Earl.

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.

Cllr D Kelsey substituted for Cllr H Allen, Cllr Farquhar substituted for Cllr L Allison, Cllr V Slade substituted for Cllr M Andrews and Cllr S Moore substituted for Cllr M Earl.

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.

Cllr S Moore declared for the purpose of transparency that they were currently renting a beach hut in Poole.

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

Due to the late publication of the report for this meeting the deadline for the submission of public questions has been extended to 12.00 Noon Monday 18 July 2022.

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.

All questions and statements should be sent to democratic.services@bcpcouncil.gov.uk

The Democratic Services Officer advised that there had been no petitions received on this occasion but that there had been five public questions received and five public statements. Members of the public were present to ask their questions and Mr McKinstry was present to make his statement, the other statements were read out by the Democratic Services Officer.

Questions received from Mr Lawrence

1.   With millions in Council assets now in opaque SPVs, the BCP is exposed to corruptibility & non-transparency criticisms. While Overview & Scrutiny Committees are undermined by one party domination, its meetings reduced by 75% and diluted into 2 bodies, how can they maintain impartiality, relevance and standards?

Response

The Overview and Scrutiny Committees are required to be appointed in accordance with the political balance requirements. The allocations determined by Council comply with those requirements.

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee arrangements, as established by the Council, shall operate in line with the following six principles:

1.     to contribute to sound decision making in a timely way by holding decision makers to account as a ‘critical friend’;

2.     to be a Councillor led and owned function that seeks to continuously improve through self-reflection and development;

3.     to enable the voice and concerns of the public to be heard and reflected in the Council’s decision-making process;

4.     to engage in decision making and policy development at an appropriate time to be able to have influence;

5.     to contribute to and reflect the vision and priorities of the Council; and

6.     to be agile and be able to respond to changing and emerging priorities at the right time with flexible working methods.

Regardless of political make-up, an effective Overview and Scrutiny function should be capable of operating to these principles. To further support these principles the Constitution is explicit that the use of the Party Whip is incompatible with the role of Overview and Scrutiny and shall not be used.

It is accepted that there has been a reduction in the number of meetings of Overview and Scrutiny, although I would dispute the quoted percentage reduction. However, pre-Cabinet scrutiny is only one way for non-executive councillors to examine and comment on matters scheduled to be considered by Cabinet. Any councillor may request to attend and speak directly to Cabinet on a matter under consideration at one of their meetings.

The Constitution makes further provision for any of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees to commission work on specific matters including the establishment of Working Groups, Sub-Committees and Task and Finish Groups; convening inquiry days; or the appointment of rapporteurs and scrutiny member champions.

2.     If leaders receive substantial directorships and fees, to limit conflicts of interest and restore confidence and integrity, could they be required in councillors’ registers of interests?

Response

The Directorship positions held by councillors on council-owned companies are unpaid positions.

The Council’s adopted Code of Conduct requires the declaration of registerable interests and is divided into two schedules.  The first schedule, referred to as Table 1, requires the disclosure of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

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.