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 ordinarily 4 clear working days before the meeting. However, due to the late publication of the report relating to item 5, the deadline for the submission of questions has been extended to Tuesday 30 August 2022.
The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.
Minutes:
The Chairman reported that no public statements or petitions had been received on this occasion. Four public questions had been submitted by a member of the public, Mr Alex McKinstry, who was present to read out his questions as follows:
Question 1 from Mr Alex McKinstry:
The report for this meeting was published belatedly - the day after the deadline for public questions. This meant I had to submit questions for the meeting based on guesswork, then withdraw those - and submit the present batch - on 26 August, when the report appeared and the deadline for questions was extended. (This also wasted officers' time.) The explanation, which can still be seen on the agenda frontsheet, was that the leader had been 'unavailable' to sign off the report. Why was he unavailable, and why couldn't he have arranged for the report to be signed off by his deputy?
Response from Cllr D Mellor, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Transformation:
I’m really delighted you've been able to submit your questions, so that was resolved.
You've asked me why I was unavailable. I was on holiday, effectively I had a long term booked holiday that actually was back-to-back with our Director of Finance’s holiday and we needed to look at the papers collectively which we did as soon as I returned from holiday and then released it.
Why was it not been arranged for the report to be signed off by the Deputy? I'm the Portfolio Holder for Finance, so effectively that report is the responsibility of the Section 151 Officer and myself, so it would have been inappropriate to have asked anybody else to sign it off. I'd also just bring to your attention the fact that this report was originally expected in the back end the late September Cabinet meeting. So what we've actually done is bring it forward. That created significant pressure on our Finance team to get this report ready in time and effectively four weeks early. So in answering your question, I'd like to thank our finance team who have delivered this report early for us. And hope that those two comments I've answered your questions.
Question 2 from Mr Alex McKinstry:
The agenda stated that the report had been delayed 'at the leader's specific request', because of his unavailability. The leader should have no say in the matter, however - reports are required to be published five working days before these meetings under S100B LGA 1972. There is a get-out under sub-section 3 - where a report hasn't yet been seen by members - but to release the KPMG reports five weeks after public questions is beyond belief. Why are these reports being published so late in the day, and why was the leader allowed to hold this one back at his 'specific request'?
Response from Cllr D Mellor, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Transformation:
As we have discussed in the previous meeting, I was of the view that we needed to wait until we had more full information in terms of that report and which we've now been able to produce and then discussed at the completion of the previous meeting. So and at no point, and we've had a significant discussion in the previous meeting, and at no point have I specifically delayed any of these reports. The KPMG reports were not able to be published until KPMG had confirmed that they were OK and have in fact been lightly redacted. So they have changed the reports that we would have seen. Thank you.
Question 3 from Mr Alex McKinstry:
The report, when released, was extremely lucid - it chronicles the demise of the beach-hut scheme in all its appalling detail. The only thing that isn't made clear is how the scheme originated; paragraph 3 doesn't really touch on it. For the historical record, therefore, who first came up with the idea of commercialising the beach-huts, and when?
Response from Cllr D Mellor, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Transformation:
Thank you very much for your question. So this workstream started with my Administration, in terms of our desire to not sell assets and to deliver extra efficiencies through the transformation programme. We've looked at how we could do that and rewind the policy for the previous Administration in terms of sale of assets and use of reserves. And those workstreams were originally internal. Then we engaged our transformation partners. So this scheme originated from the work with KPMG. Following the production of the first initial draft KPMG report in September 2021, a meeting took place between the Leader of the Council, Officers of the Council and BCP Future Places and representatives of KPMG at their offices in London on the 13 October 2021. The outcome was the evaluation of the beach huts as an example, as part of the second report.
Question 4 from Mr Alex McKinstry:
I'm sure the committee will examine how the SPV project failed, and how we got to where we are today. But there is one final thing that puzzles me, and it's the letter from Kemi Badenoch, dated 16 June: she made it clear that 'flexibilities ... are not intended to address budget pressures'. Why, then, did the leader tell the audit and governance committee on 28 July that 'DLUHC have confirmed ... [the scheme] falls absolutely within the current regulations,' when the minister had told him six weeks previously that flexibilities couldn't be used for the purposes he was seeking?
Response from Cllr D Mellor, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Transformation:
It was not a budget pressure, it was a transformation pressure that the Beach Hut piece of work was trying to rectify so via the securitization of the Beach Hut proposal the Council could use capital receipts generated to fund the revenue elements of its transformation programme using the government flexibility known as the Flexible Use of Capital Receipts. Capital receipts normally can only be used to fund capital expenditure or repay borrowing, not revenue expenditure. The letter from Kemi Badenoch confirmed the Council’s proposal was not explicitly disallowed by the direction as worded at the time.
The Chairman thanked Mr McKinstry for his questions.