Agenda and minutes

Purpose: to approve the minutes of the meeting on 23 April 2013.

Minutes circulated separately.

RESOLVED: to approve the minutes of the meeting held on 23 April 2013 as a correct record and to agree that the Chairman sign them as such.

Board report showing performance to the end of March 2013 (attached).

Purpose: to discuss the council’s performance and make any recommendations for improvement.

If committee members have specific questions, these should be submitted to democratic services in advance to ensure that answers can be given at the meeting.

The committee considered the Board Report to the end of March 2013, on which committee members raised questions. 

Ms P Fox, Planning Manager, Mr I Matten, Shared Waste and Parks Manager, Mr M Prosser, Strategic Director, responded to comments and questions as follows.

Planning: major applications

Ms P Fox responded to a question on the continuing usefulness of time targets for major planning applications, given the use of Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs).  Ms Fox advised that it was relevant to refer to the 13-week target for major applications as this measure continued to be used by Government.  The main advantage of using PPAs was that they allowed the council and applicant to negotiate outside the constraints of the 13-week period. They could therefore help to achieve a positive result without the application being recorded as failing to meet the target.  However PPAs were currently optional and the take-up rate was relatively low, only four of 15 current major applications were the subject of a PPA.  The figures in the board report were therefore meaningful, particularly as Government had indicated that it intended to use the 13-week target as a key measure of performance. Hence it was still important to have this information.

Ms Fox agreed to review the wording supporting the information in the board report to include the number of major planning applications so the take-up rate could be seen in context.  Owing to the timescales for production of the board report this would probably appear in the September board report.

Planning appeals

Ms Fox advised that officers had not been able to identify a particular reason for the downturn in planning appeals performance in November and December 2012.  Officers closely monitored the Inspectorate’s decisions for trends and had noted that more appeals for housing schemes had been allowed recently.  Councillors could expect to see comment about the emerging trend in the May board report.

Planning: new homes

Mr Prosser explained that the criteria for arriving at the total target figure of 519 net additional homes had been taken from the April 2012 housing trajectory.  This represented the projected number of homes being built in the district between April 2012 and March 2013.  In acknowledgement of Mr Bell’s comment that the council was behind target when taking into account historic targets since 2006 Mr Prosser emphasised that the council was not the builder of homes so the decisions of developers to build and the correct economic conditions were necessary to achieve the target.

Mr Prosser advised that he would confirm whether or not the target included rural exception sites.

Car parks

Mr Prosser advised that he did not think that the offer of free parking on a Saturday had had an impact on the budget at South.

Fly tipping

Mr Prosser responded to a question on publicity relating to fly-tipping, advising that historically, the Environmental Protection Team had issued a press release following each successful prosecution of a fly-tipper.  This approach had resulted in a limited take  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

Reports proposed for consideration by the committee in 2013/14 are listed below.

The committee is asked to consider this list, the Cabinet work programme, and suggestions from members of the committee, and agree a provisional work programme until April 2014.

Meeting date: 3 September 2013

Regular items:

·        Performance review of GLL (leisure contract)

·        Financial out-turn 2012/13

Items proposed by officers:

·        Annual review of corporate plan

·        Performance against customer service standards

·        Annual equalities update

·        Annual update on the energy reduction programme

Meeting date: 5 November 2013

Regular items:

·        Performance review of Capita

·        Community safety annual review

Items proposed by officers:

·        Council tax reduction scheme for 2014/15

Meeting date: 17 December 2013

Regular items:

·        Revenue budget 2014/15 and capital programme update

Meeting date: 18 February 2014

Regular items:

·        Revenue budget 2014/15 and capital programme – scrutiny of Cabinet’s proposed budget before the Council meeting

Meeting date: 22 April 2014

Regular items:

·        Performance review of Biffa Limited

·        Performance review of Sodexo Limited

Items proposed by the committee for consideration in 2012/13 not yet allocated:

·        Review of shared services

·        Report on customer satisfaction

·        Report on good practice in the neighbourhood planning process.

The committee considered the draft work programme set out in the agenda and asked to include the following items.

·        An update on flooding in April 2014.

·        The use of funding by organisations receiving revenue and capital grants: the Strategic Director would agree the scheduling of the report with the Chairman.

Mr Prosser agreed to arrange an update on flooding schemes in the Weekly Information Sheet so that councillors could see which projects had been undertaken.

To consider whether to exclude members of the press and public from the meeting for the following item of business under Part 1 of Schedule 12A Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 and as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006 on the grounds that:

(i)   it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, and

(ii)   (ii) the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

RESOLVED: to exclude members of the press and public from the meeting for the following item of business under Part 1 of Schedule 12A Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 and as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006 on the grounds that:

(i) it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, and

(ii) the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information

Purpose: to consider the report of the head of corporate strategy.

The committee considered the report of the Head of Corporate Strategy that asked the committee to make recommendations to the Cabinet member for waste and street cleansing to enable him to make a final decision on the extension of the waste contract. This was a joint contract with Vale of White Horse District Council.  When the contract was let a clause was included to allow extension of the contract for up to seven years by mutual agreement.  The current waste contract was due to end in June 2017 and the report sought extension beyond that date.

The report had set out that the existing contract was delivering well at both councils with high levels of customer satisfaction and the councils were ranked first and second nationally according to DEFRA league tables.  There were benefits in re-negotiating the contract now because some financial and value-added benefits would emerge.

In considering the report and responses to the questions posed the committee was reassured at the proposals to extend the contract.