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 18 July 2025 [midday 3 clear working days before the meeting].
The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday on Wednesday 23 July 2025 [midday the working day before the meeting].
The deadline for the submission of a petition is Thursday 10 July 2025 [10 working days before the meeting].
Minutes:
The following public issues were received, with responses to public questions reported by the Chair:
Public Questions:
Agenda Item 13 – To consider and accept a report published by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Question from Philip Gatrell:
SUBJECT: LGSCO (Ombudsman) Report 10th October 2022 regarding the Council’s Maladministration in respect of nursery school top-up fees. Upheld by the High Court judgement 7th February 2025 dismissing the Council’s application for Judicial Review challenging the Ombudsman’s report.
QUESTION: COUNCIL’S COSTS
Although the complainant Mr X must remain anonymous, the Council’s request for the authority’s anonymity in reporting was rejected by Judge Lock in judgment paragraphs 140 - 149.
In any event the following information is not exempt at the Monitoring Officer’s discretion. It does not entail “personal information” or information subject to legal professional privilege.
What is the total expenditure borne by the Council in respect of this matter - excluding recoverable VAT - analysed as -
· Legal fees and costs broken down by named individual legal advisers and advocates including counsel Peter Oldham?
· Court costs?
· Costs awarded to Ombudsman?
· Other costs and disbursements incurred including separately Officers’ travelling etc?
Response:
Unfortunately the Council is currently unable to provide a response to these questions as the costs negotiations are continuing between the respective Parties.
Agenda item 7 – BCP Future Places – Three questions from Ian Redman
Question 1 from Ian Redman:
As part of the FuturePlaces inquiry, will you investigate the £100,000 obtained from the Council's additional restrictions grant fund at the behest of the "BCP City Panel" in November 2021? This was paid to a private company to carry out a "city identity" study known as "the Big Conversation", and seems to have benefited FuturePlaces as well as the local authority - against Paragraphs 9 and 32 of the Government guidance on ARG funds. FuturePlaces stated, in its Poole Civic Centre business case, that the point of "the Big Conversation" was "for BCP Council to consider its brand proposition and to inform FuturePlaces' placemaking focus". What conflicts of interest existed between the BCP City Panel, ARG fund and FuturePlaces, and how did struggling local businesses benefit from this £100,000 spend, if at all?
Response:
The A&G Committee agreed investigation scope will cover the grant payment circumstances. The investigation will consider whether conflict of interest existed.
On a more general note but relevant to the questions posed, Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) monies were not solely directed to ‘struggling local businesses’. As detailed in other replies to Mr Redman and as verified by government officials from the department responsible for the grant, Councils were able to make local decision and certain grant schemes, ARG4 included, could be used for wider business support activities.
The Council determined in ARG4 that ‘Destination marketing and promotion’ and ‘Research and development’ were targeted sectors that would be supported to help wider local hospitality and tourism, and by attracting inward investment into the BCP area.
Question 2 from Ian Redman:
External audit highlighted a number of failings such as no business cases, a lack of robust scrutiny, significant risk of a loan being defaulted. Future Places was even mentioned in Private Eyes Rotten Boroughs. Future Places should have been flagged as very high risk from the outset and brought to the attention of this Committee by Internal Audit. Additionally, any new start-up company with no trading history is at a high risk of failure. The losses were predictable. Who is checking if failures within Internal Audit or this Committee played a role in the Future Places losses?
Response:
The Council identified governance issues associated with BCP FuturePlaces in the 2022/23 Annual Governance Statement and the BCP Council Assurance Review.
Section 6, of the A&G committee agreed investigation scope, is headed ‘Council oversight of BCP FuturePlaces Ltd’. Specifically, section 6.4 reads ‘Consider the adequacy of the role of the Council’s internal audit team’, the following sub questions will be answered in the final investigation report.
· Was Internal Audit paid any fees by FP? How much and for what?
· What were the internal audit team looking for when they audited FuturePlaces? How often were these audits carried out, how detailed were they, to whom did the audit team report back, what were their findings, and how were any failings addressed or proposed to be addressed?
Question 3 from Ian Redman:
External audit said “ The Council did not have a clear business plan for BCP Future Places“ and “any payments to BCP Future Places for Outline Business Cases that the council does not proceed with, will be written off”. At a previous meeting, Councillor Cox said the failure of Future Places was due to the councillors of the last administration, but councillors do not write business cases. Who wrote the original business plan/case for Future Places and did any council officer point out the fundamental flaw with Future Places? i.e. any projects that did not progress would be written off as a cost to the Council.
Response:
A combination of Cabinet, from 29 May 2021 to 22 June 2022, and an Officer Decision Record (ODR), which was delegated by Cabinet, approved the fundamental business case for the creation of the Urban Regeneration Company (URC) that became BCP FuturePlaces. Reports were written by interim and permanent Directors of Delivery – Regeneration.
During this period Cabinet also agreed the Council Commissoning Plan and the Company business plan.
It is relevant to the question that up until 22 June 2022, the funding for the company was from the agreed base revenue budget, i.e. all costs incurred budgeted for and charged to revenue. In the report agreed by Cabinet on 22 June 2022 the funding model changed to one where costs would be financed from a working capital loan of up to £8m. This report at paragraphs 25, 26 (proposed charging mechanism section), paragraphs 40 to 49 (summary financial implications section) and paragraph 69 sets out extensively the risks. Paragraphs 69 is particularly clear and relevant, and reads:
69. iii)
a) Aborted Business case risks, - if the Council does not subsequently agree the business cases brough forward by the company initially this remains a FuturePlaces liability however ultimately this will be a risk borne by the Council as the shareholder.
b) Should any business case approved by BCP Council but then be subsequently aborted at a later date, the previously agreed capitalised costs would need to be written off to the revenue account.
A revised Council Commissioning Plan and the Company Business Plan were produced to take the change of funding approach into account.
Agenda item 6 – Carters Quay update – Three questions from Alex McKinstrey
Question 1 from Alex McKinstry:
Has Internal Audit seen any correspondence from 2020-1 in which concerns were raised about the financial resilience of Inland Partnerships Limited and/or Inland Homes PLC; and if so, how grave were those concerns - was the insolvency of either company seen as a real possibility, for instance? Also, if concerns were raised, what was the response of the relevant officers and portfolio-holders?
Response:
Internal Audit have not conducted any material investigation into Carters Quay at this point in time. Consequently Internal Audit do not know whether correspondence exist, or not, which might include the financial resilience of Inland Partnerships Limited or Inland Homes PLC.
Background, Reports and presentations to A&G Committee to date have been led by Amena Matin the Director of Investment & Development. This initial review identified financial due diligence was undertaken on three companies as at October 2021: Inland Partnerships Ltd, Inland Homes 2013 Ltd (Parent company) and Inland Homes PLC (Ultimate parent company)
Question 2 from Alex McKinstry:
The report for Item 6 states that, apropos Carter's Quay, "all decisions were taken in line with the Council's Constitution and the Standing Orders at the time". Yet this appears to overlook an email sent by an Inland Homes planning manager to this authority on 24 August 2021, seeking a meeting with the Head of Planning "to ensure we are all on track for implementing in November - as the agreement it will be built for BCP has now been confirmed." In fact, no such agreement had officially been reached and Cabinet would not ratify the agreement for another seven days; full Council, not for another 21 days. Has the email traffic between the Inland companies and this authority been examined for 24 August 2021 and the days immediately prior, to determine whether a clandestine assurance or tacit deal had been entered into by some party or other?
Response:
The email was from a third party and so we are unable to speculate why the e-mail was drafted in those terms. The Local Planning Authority complied with the statutory requirements for planning applications when considering the application which related to a variation to the existed consent.
Question 3 from Alex McKinstry:
Land Registry records for "land east of Jefferson Avenue" show that Inland Partnerships Limited purchased this site on 4 November 2021 for £9,900,000. The same day, a charge was secured against the site in favour of this authority. Does this charge cover the value of the land in full? The reason I'm asking is that, in the Overview and Scrutiny Board papers for 13 October 2023, there were said to be three stages of payment for the Carter's Quay project:
i) deposit;
ii) advance payment;
iii) construction works;
and that the combined cost of (i) and (ii) would be £8,250,000. If this was the value of the charge, there was clearly a massive shortfall between it and the value of the land. If there was indeed a shortfall, why was this deemed acceptable and were any reservations expressed?
Response:
The legal charge is in a form which does not specify a fixed figure but instead secures present and future monies, obligations and liabilities owed by the Seller to the Buyer/Lender and that prevents future dealings without the Lender’s consent.
Agenda item 7 – BCP Future Places – Two questions from Alex McKinstry
Question 1 from Alex McKinstry:
Can you confirm how many people have been in touch providing information, documents, etc relating to FuturePlaces and the FuturePlaces investigation?
Response:
Three members of the public have been in touch with the Head of Audit & Management Assurance (HAMA) and have provided information they have obtained through Freedom of Information requests which they believe will assist with the investigation.
Two former employees of BCP FuturePlaces have been in touch and have queried confidentiality matters with the Chair of the A&G Committee and the HAMA. A response was provided. To date, one former employee has provided information and it is understood further information is being prepared.
For the avoidance of doubt, the HAMA has also proactively asked for information and documents from a number of BCP Council staff colleagues and from Councillors. In total this is about 20 individuals.*
*The Chair clarified that this was as of the morning of 24 July 2025.
Question 2 from Alex McKinstry:
In the papers for this Committee on 29 May 2025, it was stated that "the HAMA will immediately inform the Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee, the external auditor, and professional body, if any individual seeks to influence or instruct the HAMA in any way that impacts the independence of objectivity of this investigation." Has there been any attempt to influence or instruct in this manner and if so, can we have as much detail as possible, including details of any actions subsequently taken? (There may of course have been no such attempts to influence.)
Response:
There have been no attempts to influence or instruct the HAMA in a way that impacts the independence or objectivity of the investigation. A variety of people have been asked for, and have given, specific evidence or their opinion on matters and it is the role of the HAMA to interpret and then report on these matters.
Public Statements:
Agenda item 8 – Information Governance update
Statement from Philip Gatrell:
The Information Governance performance annual update shows:
· Increasing information requests over four years to 2024/25.
· Continuing response rate shortfalls compared with the Commissioner’s minimum 90% target for 2024/25. For example -
· All Service Units 83% average
· Legal & Democratic and Finance 64% each
A case emphasising required top down training is the straightforward Finance request sent 4th September 2023, not concluded until I obtained a judicial decision 22nd April 2025 following the hearing 22nd January 2025.
This judgment against a council is rare because it also involves the Commissioner’s likewise incorrect complaint decision.
Although I notified obvious response omissions at that stage, the internal review failed to comprehend the cautionary indications. It required two further requests to obtain all the information.
After that late stage Council Officers and Commissioner expressed puzzlement by this clear 2000 Act contravention regarding not fulfilling the original request in time. As the Judge said - “merely a question of semantics” in their reaction.
Agenda item 19 – Annual Governance Statement
Statement from Philip Gatrell:
This statutory Statement records “significant issues” requiring remedial actions to ensure the Council’s effective governance.
This regulatory Committee is required to consider and approve the draft Statement subject to possible later revisions before finalisation of the external audit.
It is imperative to address an “elephant in the room” travelling unbridled through Administrations since 1 April 2019.
Namely, that decision making is only as good as the information received but the Committee has not benefitted from awareness of all MATERIAL issues. Because the Constitution incorrectly continues to state that only likely but not actual contraventions of law are reported by the Monitoring Officer to each Member under the primal “1989 Act”.
Limited to 150 words, my 22 July 2025 public issue for Council provides a determining fact regarding Monitoring Officer correct practice together with illustrative reportable contraventions.
The Statement must accordingly disclose this major defect warranting prompt amendment in the Constitution.
Agenda item 6 – Carters Quay
Statement from Alex McKinstry:
Paragraph 7 to the Carter's Quay report asks: "Was there too much reliance on ... restricted knowledge of the developer ...?" Yet information on the Inland companies' financial plight was freely available while this deal was being negotiated. On 9 March 2021, Inland Partnerships Limited published accounts for year ending 30 September 2020, showing a £1,500,000 loss. On 29 April 2021, Inland Homes PLC published accounts for the same period, showing a reduction in pre-tax profits from £25,000,000 to £3,700,000; moreover, page 44 of the accounts described the risk of a "liquidity crisis" in the company as "high", along with "inability to meet ongoing operational costs and other commitments". This was the company chosen to be guarantor of the Carter's Quay agreement. It is extraordinary therefore that "no additional credit checks" were carried out on these companies, as revealed at full Council on 11 July 2023.
The Chair wished to clarify that although one public statement on FuturePlaces had been rejected, she was sure the topic raised (additional revenue grant) would form part of the committee’s future discussions. She referred to the number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and the volume of information available and how this could become more easily accessible. The Head of Audit and Management suggested the creation of a landing page on the Council’s website for interim and final reports on the FuturePlaces investigation, including appendices and all FOI information received.