Cabinet - Wednesday 28 February 2024, 5:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Cabinet
Wednesday, 28th February 2024 at 5:00pm 

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  1. Cllr Jim Martin
  2. Slide 1Slide 1
  3. Ms Jemma West
  4. Cllr Jim Martin
  5. Cllr Tim Prater
  6. Cllr Rebecca Shoob
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  1. Cllr Jim Martin
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  1. Cllr Jim Martin
  2. Cllr Rebecca Shoob
  3. Cllr Jim Martin
  4. Cllr Polly Blakemore
  5. Cllr Jim Martin
  6. Cllr Rebecca Shoob
  7. Cllr Jim Martin
  8. Cllr Jim Martin
Slide selection

my apologies again.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:02
so a good evening and welcome to the meeting of the Cabinet. This meeting will be webcast live to the internet. For those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed, you will need to leave the Chamber for members officers and others speaking at the meeting. It is important that the microphones are used, so viewers on the webcast and others in the room may hear you would anyone with a mobile phone, please switch it to silent mode as they can be distracting. I would like to remind the members that, although we all have strong opinions on the matters under consideration, it is important to treat members officers and public speakers with respect thanks very much everyone
Jordan could.
so if we can.
do the minutes first?

1 Apologies for Absence

0sorry apologies, I've not received any apologies this evening leader,
Ms Jemma West - 0:01:03
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:01:07
thank you very much, and just to say, Councillor Fuller is on his way but reliant on buses, at which the Leader will know are not as good as they used to be.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:01:12
Councillor Holbrook is also on his way.
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:01:19
okay, declarations.

2 Declarations of Interest

Cllr Jim Martin - 0:01:24
of interest, anyone got any declarations to make.

3 Minutes

no, thank you very much and then we move on to the minutes, so these are the minutes of the meeting on the
31st January, any problems or amendments.
I don't see anyone, so I kind of have a proposal to accept those minutes.
Councillor Blake, now thank you and a seconder.
Councillor Speakman and all those in favour, please indicate.
thank you very much.
apologies again.

4 Housing Compliance Policies - Asbestos and Electrical Safety

Cllr Jim Martin - 0:02:51
so moving on to Item 4.
housing, compliance policies, asbestos and electrical safety.
who is going to lead us through Rebecca Stroot, thank you very much,
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:03:08
Councillor Shaw, if you would thank you so further to the housing compliance that we had the gas and fire safety policies which were approved by cabinet in January, we now have two further policies, health and safety policies relating to the housing landlords service and these cover asbestos and electric safety so as with the previous policies, these were originally approved by Cabinet in 2021 and they are due for renewal this year.
so the policies have been reviewed internally by officers and specialists in asbestos and electric safety to ensure that they reflect current legislation and best practice, aside from changes noted at 1.00.3 of the report identifying new powers by the social housing regulator to proactively intervene where councils are underperforming and at Section 1.4 of the report in relation to our controlled access procedure.
no other significant changes have been made to the policies and there are no changes to the legal framework that underpins either policy.
however, a summary of minor changes is included in the report and these are also highlighted as track changes in the appended policies.
cabinet needs to be aware of these changes and the policies updated for Council to remain compliant under regulation therefore recommend that Council approve the proposed changes to the Council's housing compliance, asbestos and electric safety policies, as outlined in this report, and I'm happy to move it.
thank you very much, Councillor Shore, but
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:04:48
I am very happy to second.
and just to make the comment that I think this is a very professional document and
right now, thanks must be given to the officers who continue to develop this document, thank you, Members.
a Councillor Blankney.
I just want to point out.
Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:05:11
slight ambiguity at 6.00.1 9 which I think appears in both.
both policies as attract change, because the wording is that I think one, I'll read it out, where a controlled entry is required, a locksmith appointed by the Council or gain entry to the property and change the lock.
where it will be completed with or without the tenants' presence, and the tenant will be re recharged for the work, so I'm assuming the work that the tenants being recharged for is the locksmiths work rather than the contractor contractors work, so it was just to him.
clarify that issue really, I think it probably applied to the policies we saw in him last month as well.
Councillor Shone, that is why certainly my understanding, but I'm not
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:05:58
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:06:00
sure if any officers can confirm that that it's the we charge for the the locksmiths work.
missed the sanction would be the culmination of a number of letters, a
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:06:11
number, and if access isn't freely given then.
and and the the locksmith has to be has to be engaged, then I think it's only right and proper that the the resident has to bear the cost, if, however, it's a piece of emergency work where someone might be on holiday and their boiler explodes or something then,
access wouldn't be recharged, it eats on the eternally back access is being denied, I think it applies.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:06:54
I don't see any other comments ready to be made, so we have a proposer councillors, should we have a seconder myself all those in favour, please indicate, thank you very much, Members, that's unanimous.

5 Folkestone and Hythe District Council Budget 2024/25

moving on to item 5, the council budget and handover, not for the first time or not, for the last time, I should say this evening to a Councillor brighter.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:07:23
thank you, I'm genuinely not going to take us through every item of this, because we, as Cabinet, have seen this in its various iterations more times than anyone wants to count, including me, but there are, there are a couple of changes, one recommendation for the budget from the budget that we saw,
at the end of January I, I just want to step through what those that those changes are and the impact, and indeed make a a proposed amendment to one of those.
so, as we know as we got to the
beginning or end of January we had most of the movement in the budget had been altered by them, but there have been a that, but since then there are a number of changes in your report, they are detailed at 4.00 point.
should not scrolled away from it.
yeah, it was it.
the problem with doing things, not on a piece of paper for point 5, thank you very much, but then I can't find it.
so that the the changes since we last described that Budget and discussed it at 4.00.5
come on.
H 88
there is gone it.
the majority of that change is around pay, will a pay award provision we had made some provision in the budget for a 3% pay award across the Council.
but clearly, with inflation et cetera being what it has been over the course of the last year that was unlikely to be sufficient, we came to the personnel committee discussed, has, I've put forward a proposal which has gone to staff and the consultation and ballot on that pay proposal closed a couple of days ago, I am delighted to say that the huge majority of our staff about the pay proposal and therefore we needed to adjust the budget in order to include the full cost of that pay proposal within this
it is broadly 5%, but actually with bottom loaded so that those at the bottom in the budget say at least 1,500 pounds, I believe.
on that, I'm looking for Susan to nod at me, fitted in amendment number 5% across each 1,800 or 5% so decided the lower grade to get a bigger lump drink.
so what these amendments do is that they fully fund VAT, so not not only have we got a a balanced budget, we've got one that fully funds the pay rise that has literally just been agreed at this stage, it deals with a couple of Statement or Statement issues that we had within the previous budget so a couple of things in that it deals with the amendment that we made in order to reinstate the 15,000 pounds to the ward grants budget.
funded by Jim and myself, no longer taking the special responsibility allowances for Leader and Deputy Leader.
and all of those all of those changes are laid out with a map it still leaves us with a balanced budget, there is no call on the general reserve in order to fund this budget in the last year we've
had a 1.8 million pounds deficit effectively on the budget was the forecast this year, it will be 0 and it remains a row even even funding in a a decent pay rise for staff. One other item which is detailed at 4.00.5 2 is annual member allowances we haven't budgeted in any an increase in annual member allowances, in fact it was worse than that is that the annual member allowances budget
was lower than one would that are lower than we knew was going to be used literally. It didn't account for the level of basic councillor allowances, times 30 in order to fund that it was 15,000 pounds for quite how last year's budget was 15,000 pounds short on a figure that you could absolutely guarantee, I don't know, but it was so there is a 15,000 pounds within a figure that stated that there was a 15,000 pound fix of last year's budget in order to make sure that that's funded, but also within the figure which suggests there is that the constitution says that the allowances should be adjusted
by CPI, across the budget.
and if you do that on September's figures, that would be 6.7% as approached by Conor on behalf of the Labour Group saying that in their view, and it's a view I support, I think they thought it was unsustainable that councillors on our Bedford clouds took a larger increase than we were offering to staff in terms of their pay rise and therefore that the
reduction should be as therefore that the they felt that the Allowance increase on the allowance should be 5% the same as staff I think now is.
absolutely, absolutely correct thing to do, we shouldn't be giving ourselves a larger pay rise than we're giving to our staff.
that second point was that, given that we all reach it, we are not going to the last year of the cabinet system and we are literally in the process of the independent remuneration panel, looking through setting how essays et cetera work for different for the different parts of the organisation different roles that we will have when we get to that stage.
that an increase in the ESA allowance also seems to be disproportionately in favour of those who are already committee chairs or cabinet members. Et cetera, everybody gets the basic allowance increase and everybody. A 5% increase in the basic allowance in place would be equally valuable to every councillor. Clearly, on the other hand, if you now apply that across essays, those of us who have got essays, including those committee chairs, including those cabinet members, benefit by Mo Amat, felt unreasonable. So the proposal is that we would amend
that to change the budget, so instead of, instead of it being 6.7% across the board, it would be 5% on basic allowances, payable to all members, and that the ESA re allowance for 24 25 of the frozen at this year's level that says it's about 13,200 pounds a year, they're not totally small change that would go
to add, the reserve of that goes to.
why do I always forget the name of this corporate initiative reserve, which gives us a little bit which is effectively gives it, it's our ability in year to have a little bit of flexibility and than things imagine you know, suddenly bits of the district started falling onto the road of remembrance or other bits of the district stop flooding that it gives you just a little bit of flexibility in terms of being able to deal with things like that or events.
so that is and proposed, an amendment that I'm going to move to the Budget here is that we would, instead of instead of just taking what is set within the constitution, that we will amend that to amend down the increase in basic allowances to 5% and that we would freeze the special responsibility allowance as I said, the interim independent renewable ration panel will be making recommendations for what happens as we change out of the current system.
what we've asked them to do is to stay within the totality of what we're currently paying in terms of Councillor allowances, but to split the cake differently.
it also therefore, does have the benefit of making that cakes slightly smaller when they start splitting it as we go forward.
so that's that's the amendment I've got, which is on your your desk in front of you, but aside from that, the budget is broadly the same, the council tax would a band D equivalent council tax will be 250 pounds and 2 pence and 8 pence.
from for next year the figures are in the pack in front of you and I'm delighted of where we got to, and I'd like to thank every cabinet member, indeed every Councillor, for their work and support in terms of helping us get to this place because it has it was not somewhere I thought we were going to get to in May or June to this level of balance.
we have done something which needed to be done by this Council. We set ourselves a base place whereby we can now look at our Corporate Plan and our corporate priorities with some confidence and set this organisation as direction, based on knowing that our finances are sound and knowing that we can start to develop again for the future as opposed to worrying about whether they well it was empty. The wallet is going to be OK on this budget. I commend the budget. I ask you to support it, but I also ask you to support the amendment
to allowances which are on the table in front of us. I think that would show that we are listening and that we are taking our part of the sacrifice and all councillors taken that are part of the sacrifice across the Council as well. I would make the final point on essays is that there are the fact that the Labour Group came to us and proposed that and proposed the ESA a freeze, I think, is very honourable of them because there are more Labour committee chairs receiving essays than there are cabinet members in this room, so Labour more Labour members are taking the pain on this than the rest of us.
so I
I think it's fair to share, share the thanks for that and for their and for their sacrifice as well, and I'm
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:17:31
thank you very much, Councillor Procter, I would like to add my thanks to not only you Tim for the a remarkable amount of work that you put into this, but also to the officers, not only because you know, you've you've done an enormous amount of excellent work but of course you've also had to suffer Councillor Bryter outgoing going over everything at least twice in his extraordinary thorough way.
so Hannah J, just Nina Fisher, but just just to say that?
this this budget, the on my the first afternoon that I met.
our Chief Executive and Head of Finance as the leader.
the literally the first conversation was about the budget, so the planning for this budget started on whatever day in May, that was last year with the single focus of tackling the deficit, and I don't think a day has passed.
that there hasn't been some discussion.
with someone about tackling the deficit, to say that this was a momentous problem.
is an understatement, so all are all I can say is thank you to the people who have done that.
climbed, the mountain and.
really achieved so much and, and that includes everyone from you know.
all of the officers or all of the members, because you know will all have read the national and local press, not everyone is in the same position as us.
and yeah, through a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice from a lot of people, we've we've got into a favourable position and this will allow us to do more, it will allow us to to to to to take on more challenges to tackle more of the things that we want to tackle.
but without this we couldn't do anything, we just would have been chasing our tails, so I'm very very happy to second both the amendment and the paper and open it for a discussion members.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:20:14
you've clearly convinced everyone Tim, that's what one of us House.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:20:17
Thank you just just for detail on recommendations effectively. Taking this amendment adds add a recommendation, 5 as I understand it, to the bottom of this recommendation. 5 is broadly that the that the proposed budget would only include a radical reduction of the basic allowance increase of up to 5% from 6.7% and that, despite that, special responsibility, allowance would be frozen at 23.24 and that that has the impact as detailed on that piece of paper is slightly increasing levels of reserve so that that's the technical thing. If we agree that now, that will then roll into Council at 7.00 this evening as our recommendation to them
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:21:07
OK, that's jolly good, there are no Members who wish to speak, we have a proposer Councillor Procter, we have a seconder myself all those in favour, please indicate.
OK.
thank you very much, members, I think that is the end of our business,
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:21:26
so I will see you all later, thank you.