Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received from Councillor B Adams. It was reported that, under Regulation 13 of the Local Government Committee and Political Groups) Regulation 1990, Councillor S P Roe was replacing Councillor B Adams, for this meeting only.

Apologies for absence were was also received from Councillor E W Strengiel; Miss A Sayer, Parent - Governor Representative; Councillor B Young, Executive Councillor for Community Safety and People Management; Councillor R Davies, Executive Councillor for Highways, Transport and IT and Councillor C L  Perraton-Williams, Executive Support Councillor for Highways, Transport and IT.

Councillor S P Roe declared an interest in agenda items 9 and 10 on the agenda (Service Revenue and Capital Budget Proposals 2021/22 andCouncil Budget 2021/22) and reported that he would be leaving the meeting for those items and the remainder of the meeting and would not taking part in the discussion on them because of a financial interest.

RESOLVED:

That minutes of the meeting held on 17 December 2020 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman. 

Chairman's Announcements

The Chairman reported that he had attended the meeting of the Executive on the 5^th January and presented the comments from the Board on the final report from the Developer Contributions Scrutiny Review. The Executive had welcomed the report and its recommendations, and concluded that the report had provided the basis for a series of activities on developer contributions. An action plan would now be compiled to indicate which recommendations had been accepted and how the issues raised would be addressed. The Board would be receiving the Executive Response Action Plan at its meeting on the 17^th March 2021.The Chairman reiterated his thanks to Councillor Linda Wootten, Scrutiny Panel A and the Senior Scrutiny Officer for turning this review around so quickly.

An informal briefing session on the Transformation Programme had been arranged for the Board on the 10^th February from 9.30am to 11am. An appointment would be sent out to the Board members after the meeting.

None had been received.

(To consider a Councillor Call for Action request submitted by Councillor R Wootten and received by the Chief Executive in respect of Resolving Obstruction of the Highway / Creation of Parking Spaces on West Street, Barkston)

Consideration was given to a Councillor Call for Action request submitted by Councillor R Wootten and received by the Chief Executive in respect of 'Resolving Obstruction of the Highway / Creation of Parking Spaces on West Street, Barkston'. Under Section 119 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and Section 20 of the Police and Justice Act 2006, councillors could submit a Councillor Call for Action (CCfA).

The report outlined the processes for a Call for Action. Appended to the report was the Call for Action form submitted about the issue from Councillor R Wootten and which summarised the issue.

A farmer and businessman on West Street, Barkston had raised concerns with Councillor R Wootten over the obstruction of the road by parked cars, which in turn were restricting access to his private property. The situation had become worse during the Covid-19 pandemic due to increasing numbers of people following the Government’s advice to exercise, and this location had gained popularity as an area for countryside walking along the River Witham. There were no parking spaces along West Street and the passing point was also being used for parking. Councillor R Wootten had attempted to resolve the matter by contacting the Lincolnshire Police Neighbourhood Team, Lincolnshire County Council officers in Highways and Countryside Services, National Farmers Union, the local MP, and the Barkston and Syston Parish Council. As no satisfactory outcome had been achieved to date the matter was now being brought forward as a Councillor Call for Action.

Councillor R Wootten was invited to outline his reasons for the Councillor Call for Action, and what actions he would like to see taken to address the issue. Councillor R Wootten referred to his Call for Action form which had been appended to the report and requested consideration of a resolution which included the following actions: Provision of parking spaces for up to six vehicles to be created from the grass verge; the relocation of a Section 34 notice on Drift Lane; restricted waiting put in place on this section of West Street – Daytime only; the lawful erection of additional white marker posts; restricting entrance to a section of West Street for access only for residents, visitors and deliveries. Councillor R Wootten also presented a short slide show of five photographs as part of his evidence submission. He reported that since the report had been circulated to the Board he had received messages of support from the Parish Council and six local residents for his submission.

(As the advocate for the Councillor Call for Action and in line with legal advice received, Cllr R Wootten was not able to take part in the debate or vote)

It was noted that the County Council's Traffic and Minor Works Team was currently looking to assist with the parking issues but this only centred on the parking within the two passing places. The Team was not currently looking at parking on any other areas at this  ...  view the full minutes text for item 79.

(To consider a report from Jasmine Sodhi, Performance and Equalities Manager, Commercial Services Projects and Performance, on the Performance Reporting against the Corporate Plan Performance Framework 2020-2021 – Quarter 2. The views of the Board will be reported to the Executive as part of its consideration of this item)

Consideration was given to a report from the Performance and Equalities Manager, Commercial Services Projects and Performance, on the Performance Reporting against the Corporate Plan Performance Framework 2020-2021 – Quarter 2. The views of the Board would be reported to the Executive as part of its consideration of this item. The recommendation to the Executive was that Quarter 2 performance for 2020/21 be considered and noted.

There was good performance overall and three of the four ambitions were on plan and the other ahead of plan. 89% of activities were either on plan or ahead of plan and 71% of Performance Indicators had met or exceeded the target. The integrated finance and people management (Business World) system go-live date would now be November 2021. This had been in part as a result of the impact which Covid-19 had had on the early stages of the project.

Members discussed the report, and during the discussion the following points were noted:

1.    Paragraph 1.4.4 - Promoting of the SHERMAN initiative and implementation of the hoarding protocol (A57) – The SHERMAN initiative was behind plan due to the ceasing of a significant amount of preventative activities at the start of the first lockdown to concentrate on supporting vulnerable communities. The SHERMAN initiative required Fire and Rescue staff to go into people's homes to conduct a safe and well check which had been hindered due to Covid-19 restrictions. There was an opportunity to undertake a safe and well check when entering someone's home for other reasons and for high risk circumstances.

·         Paragraph 1.4.9 - In relation to the 59% of contacts where the customer considers their concerns have been fully addressed through achieving early resolution (exclusive of statutory complaints), it was questioned whether the other 41% were dissatisfied or they just took longer to resolve. Officers confirmed that they would investigate this further.

·         Appendix A – Ambition: Create Thriving Environments – in relation to both of these objectives, the milestones were for Quarter 2, which had been achieved. There would be further milestones for Quarters 3 and 4 for the two objectives. It was suggested that it would helpful to see planned milestones included in future reports to inform members of the next steps for achieving the objectives.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the Board support the recommendations to the Executive, as set out in the report and outlined above;

2.      That a summary of the comments made be passed on to the Executive in relation to this item.

(To consider an update report from Michelle Andrews, Assistant Director – Corporate Recovery, on Covid-19)

Consideration was given to an update report from the Assistant Director –   Corporate Recovery, on Covid-19. The report provided an overview of the work by the Local Resilience Forum (LRF), partners and Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) to manage Lincolnshire's response to the Covid-19 pandemic since the last report presented to the Board on the 17^th December 2020.

As reported in the paper to the Board on the 17^th December, from the 2^nd December  2020 Lincolnshire had been placed in Tier 3 following the end of the national lockdown during November. The Covid-19 Winter Plan arrangements set out how the Government intended to allow the mixing of households in England for the Christmas period from the 23^rd December to 27^th December 2020; these were known as "Christmas Bubbles". However, due to the rising number of cases across the country and the identification of a new variant of the virus, these arrangements were revoked and replaced with new arrangements that were announced on the 19^th December. The new arrangements allowed the mixing of two households for Christmas Day only, with no overnight stays unless these were part of a support bubble. In addition, people were advised to only travel from home to a place which was accessible for a return trip during that 24 hour period. Following this, the existing Tier system was enforced once again and would remain in place until the next review period on the 30^th December 2020. As of the 30^th December, Tier 4 restrictions were announced with many parts of the country including Lincolnshire placed in this Tier from midnight that day. This had placed even greater restrictions on residents; this was in response to the rate of infections increasing at a national level. As the New Year began, there were rising calls for schools to return to online learning from the start of term. Although schools reopened on the 4^th January 2021, in line with Government advice, as of the 5^th January it was confirmed that schools would close to all children except for those of key workers and those children who were vulnerable. On the 6^th January a further period of national lockdown began in England which was expected to remain in place until at least mid-February.

The report highlighted the key data as of 24 January in relation to tests carried out, details of the testing programme, the number of cases, deaths and vaccinations carried out (by age group) and the public health measures introduced to mitigate the transmission of Covid-19.

Lincolnshire had commenced its vaccination programme from the 8^th December 2020 with the priority groups as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) as follows:- Over 80 year olds; Health and care staff; those who were clinically extremely vulnerable and those between the ages of 70-79 years. A report to the Board in February would be able to give further details of the progress to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 81.

(To consider a report from Keith Noyland, Head of Finance – Communities, which outlines the budget proposals for the next financial year 2021/22, specifically looking at the budget implications for the Council's Commercial, Resources and Corporate serviceswithin the remit of the Board. The Board are invited to scrutinise and comment on the proposals, prior to the Executive meeting on 2 February 2021 when it will make its final budget proposals)

Consideration was given to a report from the Head of Finance – Communities, which outlined the budget proposals for the next financial year 2021/22, specifically looking at the budget implications for the Council's Commercial, Resources and Corporate Services within the remit of the Board. The Board was invited to scrutinise and comment on the proposals, prior to the Executive meeting on 2 February 2021 when it would make its final budget proposals.

The coronavirus pandemic had had a significant impact in the 2020/21 financial year, on both Council services and the local economy, and central Government had provided grant funding to cover the Council's costs and losses arising directly from the pandemic. It was assumed that where direct impacts carried on into 2021/22 these would continue to be funded by Government grant. The SR2020 announcement confirmed that there would be funding in 2021/22 to cover continuing coronavirus costs and losses. The Final Local Government Finance Settlement was expected to be published in February 2021. The budget proposals reflected the level of government funding expected to be available to the Council and a proposal to increase general Council Tax in 2021/22 by 1.99%. A thorough review of the Council's services was carried out during the budget process which had identified unavoidable cost pressures, some savings with minimal or no impact on the level of service provided and the capital programme had been reviewed. The budget proposals therefore aimed to reflect the Council's priorities whilst operating within the resources available to it.

Members discussed the report, and during the discussion the following points were noted:

• Legal Services – The £1.099m underspend referred to the chargeable income anticipated to be received by the service, and was not expected savings. There were proposals to expand Legal Services in the future which would bring in additional chargeable income. The amount included in the budget proposals reflected guaranteed income rather than speculated income.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the Board support the Service Revenue and Capital Budget Proposals 2021/22, as set out in the report;     

2.    That a summary of the comments made be passed on to the Executive in relation to this item. 

(To consider a report from Michelle Grady, Assistant Director – Strategic Finance, which invites the Board to consider and comment on the Council's budget proposals 2021/22, which were approved for consultation by the Executive at its meeting on the 5 January 2021. The views of the Board will be reported to the Executive when it makes its final budget proposals on 2 February 2021 as part of its consideration of this item)

Consideration was given to a report from the Assistant Director – Strategic Finance, which invited the Board to consider and comment on the Council's budget proposals 2021/22, which were approved for consultation by the Executive at its meeting on the 5 January 2021. The views of the Board would be reported to the Executive when it made its final budget proposals on 2 February 2021 as part of its consideration of this item.

The report outlined budget proposals for the next financial year 2021/22. The Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2021/22 had been issued on 17 December 2020, and was expected to be in line with the Final Settlement, which was due to be published in February 2021. Further budgetary information from the Lincolnshire District Councils was awaited so the budget proposals for 2021/22 were therefore estimated at this stage. The Executive was asked to approve the proposals for the Council's budget for 2021/22, set out in this report and based on those estimates, for internal and external consultation.

The recommended option took into account the anticipated levels of Government grant and Business Rates funding to the Council and allowed for an increase in Council Tax of 1.99%. The budget included unavoidable cost pressures which would support the delivery of Council services, and a number of savings which did not impact negatively on services. The recommendation was for a one year budget for the financial year 2021/22, which took into account the expected reforms to local authority funding from April 2022. The recommended option currently presented a surplus budget of £1.921M, although this may become a deficit budget once all budgetary information had been received by the end of January 2021. If the final position was a deficit budget, then a contribution from reserves would be used to balance the budget for 2021/22.

The budget proposals reflected the level of government funding available to the Council in 2021/22. Service areas had been reviewed and the budget proposals aimed to support the Council's priorities within the financial resources available.

Members discussed the report, and during the discussion the following points were noted:

·         Adults Extra Care Housing Schemes – the Capital Programme attached at Appendix C of the report included the Dewint Court and Linelands Extra Care Housing Schemes. Including the proposed Hoplands, Sleaford Extra Care Housing Scheme in the Capital Programme would be considered by the Executive on 2 February 2021. It was confirmed that the financial allocation for the Scheme was in place.

·         A 1% increase in council tax would generate just over £3m of additional income to the Council. The Adult Care Precept of up to 3% would not be raised by the Council for 2021/22. 

·         The additional income raised by the council tax increase would enable the Council to address cost pressures, especially in relation to the Adult Social Care and Children's Services proposals, which were key services valued by residents. The costs for these services increased each year and the council tax increase helped to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 83.

(To receive a report which enables the Board to note the content of its work programme for the coming year)

Members were advised that this item was for information only.

RESOLVED: That the work programme be noted.