Issue - meetings

This report requests the Strategy and Resources Committee to consider appointments to the Capital Member Group, approve an increase in budget of the Disabled Facilities programme and to agree the capital bidding process for 2019/20 to 2021/22.

The Committee:

(1)          Appointed Councillors Eber Kington, Clive Smitheram, Barry Nash, Omer KoKou-Tchri and Richard Baker to the Capital Member Group;

(2)          Approved the increase in budget of £53,382 for the Disabled Facilities programme, in line with the allocation of central government funding;

(3)          Confirmed the criteria for considering capital bids, as set out in paragraph 9.1 of the report;

(4)          Confirmed the criteria for assessing “spend to save” capital bids as set out in paragraph 9.2.

The Committee received a report regarding appointments to the Capital Member Group that also sought agreement to the capital bidding process for 2019/20 and an increase in the budget for the Disabled Facilities programme and to 2021/22.

To facilitate the scrutiny and selection of capital projects to be included in the 2019/20 capital programme, the appointment of a Capital Member Group was recommended.  The Group would need to be mindful of the finite nature of the Council’s capital resources and it was therefore proposed that the Group should only consider bids for inclusion that were a prioritised service area, were essential to keep services running or which met health and safety requirements. Any other schemes would need to be self- financing, via external contributions or revenue savings within a set timescale. It was hoped that these criteria could be revisited at some point in the future but given the current state of public sector funding and the limited capital resources available, it was considered advisable not to relax this approach at this time.

The 2018/19 budget for the Disabled Facilities programme had been agreed by Council in February 2018 in line with the 2017/18 allocation as the 2018/19 grant allocation had not been determined at that time. The allocation for 2018/19 had subsequently been announced and was some £50,000 more than anticipated. Accordingly, the Committee was asked to approve additional budget for the Disabled Facilities Grant funded scheme in the 2018/19 capital programme to match the grant allocation.  Additional staff resources had been made available to assist in the delivery of this scheme. The grant was ring-fenced for this purpose and funds not allocated to this purpose would have to be returned to central government.

The Committee:

(1)          Appointed Councillors Eber Kington, Clive Smitheram, Barry Nash, Omer KoKou-Tchri and Richard Baker to the Capital Member Group;

(2)          Approved the increase in budget of £53,382 for the Disabled Facilities programme, in line with the allocation of central government funding;

(3)          Confirmed the criteria for considering capital bids, as set out in paragraph 9.1 of the report;

(4)          Confirmed the criteria for assessing “spend to save” capital bids as set out in paragraph 9.2.