Cabinet - Wednesday 16 July 2025, 5:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Cabinet
Wednesday, 16th July 2025 at 5:00pm 

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Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:00
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:02
Everyone, big crowd. 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 members that although we have strong opinions on matters under consideration,
it is important to treat members, officers and public speakers with respect.
Thank you very much.
Welcome everyone.
Ms Jemma West - 0:00:51
If we could start with item number one which is apologies for absence.
Thank you.
We've had apologies from Councillors Mike Blakemore and Polly Blakemore.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:56
Thank you very much.

2 Declarations of Interest

Moving on to item 2, declarations of interest.
Does anyone have any declarations of interest to make?
I don't see any so jolly good.
Thank you very much.
No declarations of interest.
Item 3, the minutes.
Minutes of the meeting held on the 21st May 2025.

3 Minutes

Has anyone got any issues or things to say about the minutes?
If I could have a proposer, that would be helpful.
Oh, Councillor Prater, thank you.
I'd better not second this.
Can I have a seconder?
Oh, Councillor Speakeman to second.
Thank you very much.
Those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Just bear with me.

4 Council Tax Reduction Scheme 2026/27: Consultation

Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you.
So if we could then move with everyone's kind agreement, I am proposing to move Item 10,
opportunity provisional out turn 2024 -25 up the agenda to the first item because Councillor
Rich Holgate has some childcare responsibilities which he has to fulfil.
So if it's okay with everyone we'll take that item first.
Thank you very much.
So we can kick off with you, Rich, if you would.
Of course, thank you, and good evening, councillors,
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:02:41
and also thank you for supporting that.
Lord, I don't miss your items, Tim, in any way.
I just wanted to touch upon the cabinet report, which sets out
the opportunity to draft profit and loss and balance sheet
for the year ending the 31st of March, 2025.
Excuse me.
We're presenting this now as part of the shareholder agreement,
which requires a quarterly financial report into cabinet.
This is effectively the year -end Q4 report
sharing a full year performance versus budget.
It's worth noting these numbers are still subject to audit by bigbies,
so final figures could change slightly.
The key financials are in section 3 of the report, C3 .2 for the main numbers,
but the headlines are as follows.
The loan structure, loan restructure impact.
So the company's balance is stronger than previously forecast
due to changes in interest rates.
When the earlier financial review was done, rates were lower.
With rates now higher, the discount factor applied to the loan restructuring has increased,
pushing the balance from 1 .3 up to 1 .7 million.
Property valuation.
The property portfolio saw a small drop in value, around £70 ,000 across the 75 units
and about 0 .5 % fall.
There's nothing significant behind this, it's just a general levelling off in local property
prices and that drop came from a few specific properties with most seeing no change.
Operating profit, the business delivered an operating profit of £168 ,000 this year before
factoring in property value movements and the loan adjustments.
This came from lower than expected repairs, delayed major works and lower operating costs.
That said, we're still waiting to account for around £15 ,000 of year -end costs which
will slightly reduce their profit once finalised.
Income revenue for the year came in as expected of around $740 ,000,
which includes a four years contribution from Royal Victoria
Hospital.
The unit, sorry, RBH.
Corporation tax position is probably
the main outstanding point.
The main uncertainty is around corp tax.
The one off $1 .7 million gain from the loan restructure
has now cleared the historic losses brought forward.
That raises the question about tax due to this one -off gain,
something not covered in the external financial review.
Officers are working with specialist tax advisors to clarify the position
and we expect a firm answer in the coming weeks.
There are no other issues.
Nothing else of note in the P &L or balance sheet.
Assuming the tax outcome is favourable,
the business should see more stable performance in future years.
Thank you.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:05:15
Thank you very much, Councillor Holgate.
I'm very happy to open it up for questions or any queries that councillors may have.
Councillor Butcher.
Thanks, Chair.
Cllr James Butcher - 0:05:34
It's really great having that nice summary in 3 .2 because that makes it really clear
to see the key things.
I was just going to ask whether we might have in reports the, I think about 3 .4, where it
talks about a cost of accounts of 93k but clearly that's in relation to a cumulative
gain over the years and whether it's worth in these reports just having that cumulative
gain for comparison purposes.
The other question was given what Rich was saying about figures will need to be confirmed
is it worth considering the value of this kind of provisional report where we're going
to be looking at finalised figures in due course and whether we could, whether it's
to have slightly less frequent reporting
once we've got the figures confirmed.
Would you like to respond to that,
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:06:19
which I value support from officers
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:06:23
just to give any relevant detail?
Thank you and thank you cancer butcher.
Jonathan Smith - 0:06:30
Yes, we can certainly look at in terms
of the content of the report to the
cabinet report the cumulative gain
that you've mentioned and with regards
to the sort of finalization of the
It's difficult because obviously we have to balance obviously bringing forward a report
on the provisional outturn.
So this obviously is done post year end and year end was 31st of March and we prepare
the numbers to give members and the board early insight into the numbers but obviously
whilst that's still going on we then submit the accounts for audit by the auditors.
So obviously even at this stage we still haven't confirmed that finalised position but we have
obviously balance the two. Waiting for the audit to complete and finishing all the work
on the audit would mean that we'd have to delay the provisional out term being brought
forward so it's more that's one of the reasons we bring it forward at this stage even in
a provisional state as it is.
Cllr James Butcher - 0:07:31
Would there be a loss to us not having this provisional report and waiting until the figures
are finalized?
Jonathan Smith - 0:07:39
Mr Alan Mitchell - 0:07:41
So through you if I may.
So I think it's important that members get early sight of the figures even though they
are estimates and they are subject to change from an audit.
I think it's really important for members to have early sight of that to raise any issues
or for us to raise issues for yourself.
But then the hope is that the audit is concluded in a reasonable time and then we can come
and confirm the final position.
But I think there is real merit in that early sight of the members,
so they have that opportunity for scrutiny. Thank you.
I also think that it is helpful,
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:08:15
I mean, we're in a... Forgive me for using this word,
but we're in a fairly bland, steady state position at the moment.
If we were in a position that was very different,
i .e. we were plunging into debt,
or it would flag it up for members,
rather than leaving it right to the last minute.
I speak as a non -accountant
and any help we can get with trying to analyse these numbers
and what they actually mean is always helpful.
So I appreciate that.
Councillor Bush.
Cllr James Butcher - 0:08:53
I guess thinking, because if we're in a planned situation,
that's why I'm suggesting the legals are under value
and you could say, I don't know, if the figures are looking wildly out
than what we expect in the business plan, yes, then bring the provisional one.
But I'm just thinking about office of time producing these
when they're going to be producing a fresh set of reports
in due course once the figures are on as well as the terms.
Yeah, all noted, definitely.
And Councillor Proater.
I think this report notes a £1 .7 million technical report.
This is about as rock and roll as a set of accounts get.
I don't even know what that means.
It's within now. Rock and roll.
There's a £1 .7 million technical profit in the account,
which is the biggest number which the opportunity has returned in its lifetime.
So it's a big deal in the loan.
Absolutely. It's exactly about the loan.
But I think that the issue and the reason why I'm happy that there is that early reporting at this stage
and why there may well be different numbers when the audit's gone through it,
is the tax treatment of that £1 .7 million.
And it's a useful thing to have on our radar earlier at this stage,
because otherwise we're going to sit there,
there may well be a substantial £100 ,000 movement in that,
depending on how the tax is treated on that when we've taken that advice.
So actually it's putting something onto our risk register,
our mental risk register at the very least,
that the way that this is treated will make a difference.
So I'm quite comfortable that we're seeing this in the process,
particularly as in some previous years,
waiting for audited accounts has taken us some considerable period of time.
And actually, therefore, as the numbers are actually available
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:10:40
in a really timely way this year, and they're really available really soon,
I think that's great.
I'd like to say thank you for them being here
and the value that we get sight of them, despite the fact that they will then go away and the
auditor will sit on them for a period of time and come back with a slightly changed set
of numbers.
Well, I think that we can see that if there is a significant change there, it's going
to be about that treatment of tax and it's worth us knowing that at this stage.
So I'm comfortable with the frequency but I'm grateful for the report and I'm grateful
it's a report.
Thank you.
Thank you very much Councillor Procter.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:11:15
Yes, I'd like to change my words to comfortable.
Right, so it's a comfortable set of...
And I'm not inferring that I'm remotely unhappy.
I am absolutely cocky, delighted,
because we've had to discuss opportunities
when the numbers have been different in the past.
So I'm very, very happy with that.
So don't infer, you know, a bad choice of words.
Very comfortable set of results.
That 1 .7 million, undoubtedly, once we get the tax treatment
and God knows what else hits it will come down.
But, again, well done to everyone, a brilliant delivery
and a very comfortable place for us to be.
Councillor McConville.
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Connor McConville - 0:11:59
I know in the report that there's been a deferment
of 30 -odd thousand for major external repairs.
And I know historically major repair works have been
sort of re -profiled over the past few years.
So I was just hoping for some assurance, I guess,
of the general quality of the stock,
that there's no sort of...
What sort of major works are expected
and they're not having a detrimental effect
on any part of the stock right now?
Andy, you're okay.
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:12:34
I can confirm it's not going to be.
There's no detriment to the stock.
The stock should be in pretty good condition
as the board keeps a close eye on that.
Some major works were done at Leyburn Road last year
and the rest of the money in there I believe is for Castle Hill Avenue
and a large body of that, because that's such a large high building,
a large body of that amount is actually for the scaffolding.
And I think the work is getting scoped out now pretty much isn't it, by our agents,
so it'll be happening later this year.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:13:06
Okay, if everyone has contributed as they see fit, I've forgotten whether, did you move
the report Councillor Holgate?
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:13:22
I'll remove it just in case but I'll move the report, thank you.
I'm not sure he can.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:13:25
Sorry, you can't move the report apparently.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:13:32
I'm happy to move the report on the advice of Councillor Holgate.
I'm very happy to second under similar circumstances.
So all those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.

5 General Fund Revenue 2024/25 Provisional Outturn

Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:13:48
And we're very happy to release you from your obligations, Councillor Algo.
Much as well, thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:13:53
So going back to the original running list, Item 4, Council Tax Reduction Scheme 26 -27,

4 Council Tax Reduction Scheme 2026/27: Consultation

which Councillor Prater will lead us through.
Thank you, Leader.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:14:10
I know that at 15 minutes per item we should be clear from here by about 9 o 'clock, which
is great.
So this is a long -standing hobby horse of mine, and a number of us on this council,
is that the council tax reduction scheme which we have in place means that for those on the lowest income,
but of working age, the maximum discount that we can currently give them is a 75 % discount on that council tax.
and even under the circumstances whereby it is absolutely clear
that they do not have the income to pay anything, we still charge a lot.
What we do have in place through our award -winning revenue and welfare team
is that there are financial support payments in place,
there are mechanisms whereby people can apply for additional money
in order to pay for that 25%,
but it becomes a process, it becomes a task
that they have to make an additional application, prove through a different mechanism, that
they can't afford to do the thing which it was quite clearly they couldn't afford to
begin with.
So you have a process on a process for people who are in a really difficult financial position
already.
And what this paper is seeking to do is not to make the decision on, but to go to consultation
on, making that process easier.
And under the circumstances that we would currently offer the maximum possible discount
on their council tax, that we can actually make that maximum possible discount on their
council tax 100%.
So that we are not trying to charge a few hundred pounds to people without a few hundred
pounds and then going through the process of making them apply for a grant to pay for
it or chasing them through the courts for a small amount of money that they can't afford
anyway.
Let's just understand that that's not fair and reasonable.
It's also, in my mind, discriminatory at this moment, because if you are of pensionable
age, the discount is 100 % now anyway.
So depending on your age, you have a different threshold.
Quite how we're allowed to do that, I don't know, but we are.
It is legal, it's just immoral.
And I'm seeking that this council does something, that we go out to consultation on making ourselves
more moral, and to taking the moral high ground...
I'm taking the moral high ground on this...
I don't think, I'd like to hope that there are a few people in here who would disagree
with the principle of this, but as ever people are going to say, but what's the cost?
The costs are in the paper in front of you,
and broadly we think that
it reports in 4 .3 that the additional cost is £210 ,000 a year,
but it isn't quite that.
And it's not quite that because of those financial support payments I was referring to previously.
So those people who are, those people who we are on 75 % discount at the moment,
have got a process to apply for grant funding through financial support payments.
And we do therefore pay a number of those.
And it's probably about half of that £210 ,000 figure that we are paying through those financial support payments.
So the total cost to this council netting off those is probably going to be about between
£100 ,000 and £140 ,000 is the actual impact cost of this council.
Normally when somebody turns around to me and says, can I have £140 ,000 please, I'd
stare at them for a while and say where is it coming from.
In this particular instance you'll recall that last year we went to a 100 % premium on
homes because that supported a policy decision that we had is that we would
prefer that everybody in this district have a first home and that by trying to
encourage those who have second homes to either pay more for that second home or
to release to sell it so that other people could have first homes and other
people could live in them. There has been a little movement in terms of that but
not a great deal but it does increase it does give us an additional income from
those people who retain the second home they are paying more for it and that
additional income, additional benefit to us is currently higher than the cost of this
scheme. So it would mean that those who are second home and paying a premium on those
are actually directly contributing towards supporting those in our area and have the
greatest need of it. And I can't think of a better use of that money in terms of trying
to earn moving this forward. As I said, this is not a decision paper. This is a paper to
to consultation on this scheme. So we are asking you to note the reports, to agree the
options that are going to be put to the public consultation and to agree that it will go
out to consultation and then that we will be reporting back to Council and cabinet and
Council on those consultation results and then make recommendations for the scheme based
on that consultation. Can promise in terms of those, probably the appendix, the questions
that we will ask in those.
Gary will permanently ask,
can we have an easy read version of these things?
And I can say that although those questions,
although the questions which are there,
which are the short bits of those,
I think were relatively easy read.
Steve, weekly and the team have been through
the descriptors of those and have effectively
easy read them.
So they are a considerably easier form
to read and understand at this stage because they were quite wordy as they started there
and were relatively technical. They've tried to make them as easy to understand as you
can despite the fact that you're asking some relatively technical questions. But that has
been a process which has been through. So I've moved the report on that basis. I hope
it has got support within the cabinet and that we can go to the consultation and we
then see what the results of that consultation are and I hope we can bring back a paper later
in the year which actually moves us to a position of doing the right thing by our knows paid
residents.
Thank you very much Councillor Prater.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:20:31
Councillors would anyone like to comment or ask questions?
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:20:36
I have a seconder.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 0:20:42
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:20:42
Okay we do have a seconder.
Councillor Bruchner I think you first.
Yes, it definitely supports the principle of it.
I think that's fantastic.
Cllr James Butcher - 0:20:51
It was just to pick up on where you ended, Tim, with the consultation.
And yet I think the questions read very simply,
but I don't think the background does.
I think if I got this, I don't know, I'd get to the second page of the explanation.
So I don't know if that's meant to be an easy read.
The background is being read -in.
Oh, that's the bit that's being read -in.
Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about the actual questions.
Any other questions?
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:21:20
I just have one.
How does this compare with our neighbours, other councils?
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:21:31
I can feel to that one because I was there with you.
At this moment across Kent, the 75 % disregard is in place.
This is a conversation which is being had in councils across Kent, not least due to
changes in funding which Kent made last year. They were previously supporting our, effectively
our staff and our team to do the financial support payments. They were effectively paying
towards councils in order to do that work. They have withdrawn that funding from councils
this year, which is insane, but that happens a lot at County Hall these days. The reaction
of a number of councils and almost all of the ones in East Kent is to look at doing
the same things that we're doing. So actually, Council, I think I'm right in saying that
Ashford and Dover and Fannock at the very least are also looking at going through this
consultation process on that. Andrew is still nodding and hasn't gone,
A brief, yeah.
So I think those.
So we are, with East Kent, we would be in line with the majority, depending on the results
of the consultation in each of those areas, of course.
Sorry, that's super.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:22:47
Okay, if there are no further questions, Councillor Praetor proposed.
Councillor Fuller seconded.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.
That's unanimous.

5 General Fund Revenue 2024/25 Provisional Outturn

Moving on to item five, general fund revenue 2024 -25, provisional out -turn.
And I think Councillor Plater, you're going to lead us through this one.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:23:15
I'm going to do the fast, easy read version of this.
When people want the details of the data, then Alan and Jonathan are going to take care,
are going to do the in -depth background for us.
The first easy read version of the General Fund revenue provision route term is that
this is really good news.
The bottom line of it shows that we have a £193 ,000 spend, which would get rolled forward
into our General Reserve.
And given the fact that we set ourselves a predicted zero percent, we set ourselves a
balanced budget, £193 ,000 and the spend at that stage shows that not only did we meet
our budget for the year, we beat it.
Within that £193 ,000 is additional good news as well and I think it is unreasonable, it
would be wrong not to reflect on that, so you'll see some above the line changes there
where we have effectively put money into reserves above that line
for future expenditure.
This is where both Amma and I get these numbers slightly different every time.
So you will see that there is an allocation of £1 .6 million,
which is made against the business rate reserve.
It made to a business rate reserve.
That is because we can see changes coming to the way that we are paid for business rates
over the course of the next year, but we do not know what they are going to be yet.
Theoretically, the government has said that they're going to do a business rate reset,
which if they entirely started from zero and kept all of the cash,
I think would impact us by something like £3 million a year,
somewhere between £2 and £3 million a year.
Jonathan is also not giving me the... no, that's completely wrong,
so I'm going to keep going at this moment.
Obviously putting aside a hedge against that of £1 .6 million is making an
allocation assuming that government are not going to immediately turn round to
every council and say that we are going to do a full reset and take the money
from day one because that will bankrupt many authorities. So we're assuming that
they would bring it in on some variety taper over two or three years and
therefore £1 .6 million gives us some support in the first year, maybe
that position. But we don't know what that out -turn is on business rate, which that's
at the moment, because the government hasn't told us. Which is also a phrase that you'll
hear a lot more. There is also an allocation made in there of £1 million to a local government
reorganisation reserve, which starts to develop us a fund to mean that we have got something
in place to allow us if local government reorganisation goes ahead, and if it goes
ahead on the type of basis that we see at the moment, that apparently, again, it is
existing local authorities that get to pick up the tab for that reorganisation, not the
new one or government, because obviously that's fair. But we are putting some money aside
at this moment in order to start to develop the ability to be able to reflect that and
make sure that our staff and our team and our officers are treated fairly and
reasonably within that process. A million pounds is not enough to do this.
Quite why we are going through a process which is costing us a fortune in order to save
very little money. I don't know.
But I think the leader and myself are on the same page on this.
This is happening but it is being done to us and on some very curious basis.
but again there is some money put aside there.
And there is a third allocation to reserves,
which is on homelessness, which is £350 ,000.
I think I've paid all three of the numbers.
I'm so proud of myself.
Practice does make perfect.
£350 ,000 towards the homelessness pressure
that we can see already in this year.
The number of households in temporary accommodation,
which do cost discounts on considerable amount of money because the government underfund
massively our costs on that.
We can see the number of homelessness in temporary accommodation is I think doubled from last
year and is above what we had projected and therefore we can see a pressure in terms of
those costs and therefore we've allocated already some money forward for that to fund
that next year.
That doesn't mean that we can delay taking urgent action to increase our temporary accommodation
because this bubble keeps growing and this is not enough action to fix that,
but it is an action which helps mitigate the motive.
So there are the bits of good news hidden in there,
aside from hidden in that budget.
The additional piece of news was the appendix 3 or 4,
which was issued late to do the papers,
which came out after the papers had gone to the finance and scrutiny sub -committee.
I apologise to the finances and scrutiny sub -committee.
The papers under the draft out term which went to them were written prior to Aspiel
to fully close the accounts or do the final close down and final adjustments.
and those final close downs and final adjustments have an
incy -vincey little variance of another £1 .4 million in our favour.
And that £1 .4 million is again around the treatment of business rates.
Over a period of time we had taken a cautious estimate of the business rates
and the business rates that we pooled with other authorities and what our income
would have been from that.
I think as a cumulative change, because three sets of accounts have been closed down in the last year,
and because the estimate had therefore been cautious all the way through those three years,
they totaled up to being three smallish variances turned out into being quite the big one
by the time one could actually do the full close down at that stage,
and that is the entirety of that £1 .4 million.
It's not that they come from a series of different changes as the accounts are shut down.
That's what it is.
That is money which, as you will see in the appendix, what we were proposing at that stage is that
that will roll into a number of reserves, supporting various potential of the leisure strategy
when it comes forward. Again, potential towards supporting our homelessness work.
again, potential to put some more money away to that local government reorganisation reserve
to give us some more cover there.
And we've had some discussions previously about whether the environmental, the climate
area reserve has, we have taken a considerable amount of that.
There are four areas there that we think that we should look at those reserves and we should
discuss where that £1 .4 million goes back to.
given the fact that the Chief Executive is currently in Australia,
scuba diving, I'm told,
we thought it was reasonable before we actually write down exactly where,
how that's going to be apportioned and how much goes into that,
the Chief Executive will have a view, I am pretty confident,
and none of us is brave enough to make that decision
without her actually being involved in it,
because that would add some excitement to Jim and my life that we can live without.
So, in terms of that, if people could give us a little leeway in terms of that,
we will come back with some proposals to do exactly in what percentages they go into what things,
in terms of being spent.
But essentially the news, I think, is as good as a set of accounts could be,
an out -term could be for authority,
given what the Needian Term Financial Strategy said in 22 -23
when we inherited it, our position would have been that we were going to lose £18 million
after over three years and when we were £63 ,000 down in the first year, we were flat even
in the second year, we are a long way up. You'll see increasing reserves by the end
of this process this year. We're actually at significantly better position than we would
be. We are many millions of pounds inside what that medium term financial strategy said.
That is due to the work of every officer and member of staff of this organisation, but
it has been crystallised by the work of the finance team and I can only thank Jonathan,
Alan and everybody else who is part of that for their work in Convenient.
Now if you have any difficult questions please feel free to direct them to either Alan or
Jonathan if you love this stuff, but I'm happy to move the paper.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:32:25
Thank you very much Councillor Prater and I am equally delighted to second this report.
My experience in local government is that you don't often get such good news all in
one package and just to reiterate my grateful thanks to every single person who works for
this council.
I know that the glory comes to the accounts team for preparing the good news, but effectively
it's a lot of hard work by a lot of people across all the different sectors that we touch
and it's really just I think delivery of the vision that we came in with.
So I'm really, really pleased to second the second.
Councillor Praetor moving the report and happy to open it up for questions or further discussion.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:33:27
Councillor Speakman.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:33:33
It's just a very technical thing which I, that's why I don't understand it really.
because it is technical.
6 .2, you talk about £226 ,000, which seems quite a lot of money.
Even for us, fabled their interest
driven by an allocation of RSG income
against an unmapped code on the system.
I just wasn't sure what an unmapped...
Is that the equivalent of down the back of the sofa
or is that actually something...
Is that just a bit of happenstance, is it?
Who's going to take that one?
Well done Jonathan.
Thank you leader.
Jonathan Smith - 0:34:11
Thank you Councillor Speakman.
So yes, the unmapped is effectively where it would be where, for example, you have your
out turn, the mapping of all the sort of the chart of accounts.
So you would have heard probably in our audit findings and the audit work that we've done,
we've talked about sort of the code mappings that we have and we've done a lot of work
to ensure that all codes are appropriately mapped.
This was just a sort of allocated code on the outturn.
So on the outturn report it just didn't appear on the outturn report as a line item.
So that's why we talk about this unmapped code.
Obviously it would have appeared in the total council accounts, the statement of accounts,
as we would expect, as all codes have to be mapped and they're audited.
However, just for the outturn purposes and the outturn reporting, this item didn't appear previously.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:35:00
I mean it looks like it's just spare cash but I'm reading it wrong are we?
Yeah it's not necessarily new or spare cash as I said it would have appeared in the total
Council's accounts so the ones we published are full statement of accounts however just
purely for the reporting of the out -turn it hadn't been mapped into the out -turn report
which has now been corrected.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:35:21
Jonathan Smith - 0:35:24
Sorry does that mean it will be mapped or it will remain unmapped?
It has now been mapped and will be mapped, yes.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:35:30
A kind of work in progress. Sorry, Councillor Prager.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:35:37
Yes, it's a discovered country. It has now been mapped and will remain mapped.
One thing I should just make clear, that is where I discussed the appendix and the VAT change in those figures.
Anybody who is watching who has already reviewed the councils of council which have been published on the website
and which are open to question at this moment.
Those numbers are within those published accounts.
It is not new money on top of that.
It is money that was discovered after the report went to the Finance and Scrutiny Subcommittee
and that the accounts were then closed and published after that as well.
So just in case our viewer suddenly thinks that we have found additional money and the
accounts which have been published are incomplete.
They are not.
They are complete.
They include that.
But it wasn't flagged very clearly and the intention of that appendix is to flag it clearly
so that those in this room and our viewer understand where that money came from.
Okay, thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:36:38
We have a proposer.
We have a seconder.
If there are no further questions, all those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much, that's unanimous.

6 General Fund Capital programme provisional outturn 2024/25

Moving on to Item 6, General Fund Capital Program Provisional Out -term.
Councillor Prater.
We'll see if we can do this one quicker.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:37:02
The recommendation is to receive a note of the report.
You'll see that from the conclusions that broadly there was an underspend of £3 .474
£4 million, almost all of which, as with every capital report, is in phasing and it's
not projects which aren't happening, it's just projects which haven't happened yet or
are billed yet and will happen, are being rolled over to next year. The detail is in
the report. I don't think there are any substantial changes. You'll see that the levelling up
fund money is going out of the door at speed. The number of invoices and traffic cones must
be broadly equal I would have thought within the town at the moment. So the report is there
and again thanks to the team who have put this together and I'm looking forward to them
answering your difficult question or any line I'd happy to move.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:37:59
Thank you very much I'm very happy to second. Any questions or queries on the report?
So we have a proposal, we have a seconder.
All those in favour please indicate.
Thank you very much, that's unanimous.

7 Housing Revenue Account Revenue and Capital Provisional Outturn 2024/25

Moving on to item 7, the housing revenue account, revenue and capital provisional out 24 -25
and it's Councillor Shrewb who's going to lead us through this.
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:38:29
Thank you.
So this report presents both the
provisional revenue and capital
out -term positions for 24 -25,
and in effect this is the Q4 or
full year budget monitoring position.
These are subject to external audit
and therefore the numbers in these
reports are subject to revision.
However, we do not expect
any material changes.
So it's helpful to go through the capital
first before moving on to the revenue.
The reason being that the biggest driver in most years
for movements in the HRA revenue budget is the HRA capital programme
and any contributions the revenue budget is making towards capital expenditure.
The capital programme has an underspend of around 7 .2 million
at 9 .3 million, rather than the budgeted 16 .5 million.
So there are several good reasons for this which are summarised in section 2 .2 of the
report.
The single biggest item is a reprofiled £4 .8 million relating to new builds.
This relates to HRA new builds which completed just after the year end in May 2025 and therefore
we needed to carry the near £5 million budget forward and it will be spent in this financial
There are some other big movements, for example, the telecare digital upgrades,
which experienced some technical issues that have now been resolved,
as well as some movements on the decarbonisation programme,
which are largely due to the team having reached capacity for the work that could be undertaken last year,
and therefore there's some carry forward to this year.
Most of the capital underspend is a reprofiling of work for various reasons set out in section
2 .2 of the report.
I would, however, draw your attention to paragraph 2 .2 .9 of the report.
The majority of the carry -forwards relate either to specific projects, i .e. telecare
and decarbonisation or to new builds.
Taking these specific items aside, the routine planned maintenance has very limited carry forward or slippages
across the whole HRA capital programme when you look at individual budget lines.
So there is a high level of capital work being completed as planned.
So given the decrease in the capital programme spend, this has changed how the expenditure has been financed.
So we've not financed any capital work with revenue contribution to capital outlay.
That's the revenue contribution budget line for the previous year, 24 -25.
So this will automatically create a £3 .6 million unspent on the revenue budget.
All other factors remaining the same.
So just under £5 million of loan will also be carried forward to fund new builds which
were completed in early 25 -26.
So turning now to the revenue out turn and how the capital programme and its financing
impact on this.
First, in terms of service expenditure, income is largely in line with budget.
However, expenditure is down by 750 ,000.
A large proportion of this relates to
repairs and maintenance, bad debt provision,
supervision and management
recharges and depreciation.
This is explained at section 2 .1 of the report.
And there's also an increase in
interest payable mostly due to
higher interest rates.
For pensions, members should take both
pension interest cost and the share of the reserve movement into account.
Whilst they are presented on split budget lines, the net overspend versus budget is a modest 16 ,000.
Taking the underspend in the revenue expenditure budget and coupling it to the revenue contribution to capital outlay
that I mentioned earlier,
this gives an overall under spend of 4 .3 million
on the revenue budget.
Therefore, rather than a net decrease in the HRA reserves
of around a million as per budget,
there is in fact an increase of 3 .3 million
to the HRA general reserves.
So I'd like to move the recommendations
and I know that Jonathan would be very happy
to take any questions.
Thank you.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:43:26
Thank you very much Councillor Shrewb. I'm very happy to second the report and open it
up for discussion or questions.
Everyone see, oh Councillor Fuller.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 0:43:45
Just one quick question. We obviously always get all the sort of figures on repairs and
and capital expenditure.
What I guess we don't get is an idea of the reporting from residents and things like that
so that we can look at what percentage of repairs that have been reported we've actually
managed to achieve and how many are in.
So I just wonder if, I know this is meant to be more a financial focus report but it
feels like it might be useful to get that alongside it so that we know we get a better
if there is an underspend, whether that's because there just wasn't a lot to do,
or whether that's because we've reached capacity,
as Councillor Shug mentioned, or for other reasons as well.
It's just a suggestion. I'm not sure it necessarily perfectly fits in this,
but I'll put it out there.
Councillor Shug.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:44:38
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:44:38
I think the underspend I mentioned on repairs and maintenance
is the responsive repairs.
so there weren't that many as forecast.
I think we can certainly look at KPI's measurements separately.
I don't know if Jill wants to say anything further on that.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:44:59
In fact, we're going to have a contribution from Jonathan Hicks,
Mr Jonathan Hicks - 0:45:04
whose contributions are always valued.
Thank you, Chair.
Probably what Jill was going to say anyway.
but you'll note perhaps from one of the other reports we've got in the pack tonight
we're presenting a suite of new KPIs and amongst that will be several on repairs and maintenance
which won't be financial but they will give an indication of numbers of repairs in the current year.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:45:34
Jill were you going to add something to that?
Just to add to that, we did have a changeover with our central, our main contractor, Mears.
So the contract ended at the end of March and then we took on the new contract from
first.
So there was some lag time with some repairs that weren't completed at the end of the financial
year that will carry it over to the new year.
This is a bit of an odd year in that respect as well, just to clarify.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:46:08
I think, however, Councillor Fuller's suggestion is quite good.
Even if we just had a couple of lines,
members should consider this against the backdrop of 98 %
gas servicing carried out.
The way the summary of KPIs, as it were,
it just gives us a feel for performance
against, you know, active performance against financial performance.
So, maybe it's something we can think about,
because I think it would be a helpful illustration, I think.
Good, okay.
So, we have a proposer, we have a seconder.
If there are no further questions or queries,
all those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.

8 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Service Charge 'De-pooling' for Council Housing - Update

Cllr Jim Martin - 0:46:57
to that. Now we move on to Housing Revenue Account Service Charge Depooling for Council
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:47:13
Housing. An update. This is item 8 and we will be led through by Councillor Shrew. Thank
you. So this paper provides an update on the work done since cabinet agreed to depool service
charges in January 2024 so that these charges can be fairly and accurately apportioned and
so that the HRA can move towards full cost recovery.
This is in line with good practice and guidance by the regulator for social housing and in
fact we are one of the few councils not to have moved to this model of passing on service
charges.
Tenants will be able to see a full breakdown of the cost of services provided for their
block or a state.
And this should make it clearer about the service
that they can expect and better able to hold us to account
for delivering that service.
So officers have carried out extensive work on this project.
This has included updating the tenancy agreement,
implementing the module on the IT system that manages service
charges, upgrading some of the communal utility meters,
and formalising a service level agreement with the grounds maintenance department.
The rest of the project time will be spent on final cost calculations
and crucially extensive consultation.
So you'll see from the report that the cost of services varies greatly depending on the building
with the independent living schemes and some particular blocks generally being more costly
due to supplementary services such as lifts.
You also see that this year the service charges on the flat rate basis
were just under £320 ,000.
The estimate for next year's charges on a full cost recovery basis
would be around £1 .2 million.
So there's a difference of £937 ,000 currently not being collected.
So in essence, these services are currently being subsidized by all tenants, the majority
of whom do not live in properties that have communal facilities and so not liable for
service charges.
This is income that could be used to improve the overall stock, for example through energy
efficiency measures, to meet decent homes and compliance standards and obviously to
build and acquire much needed additional social homes.
These are all key priorities for this council's housing service.
So all tenants currently paying a service charge will be affected by the decoupled service
charges.
Some may see a very minimal increase and some whose service charge is covered by housing
benefit or universal credit will have the increase covered by that benefit.
However, in some cases, tenants will see a large increase in a weekly service charge
and the impact, particularly on those paying their own rent in full, will be significant.
Whilst we can't say at the moment what the service charge and impact will be for any
particular tenant, with approximately 60 % of tenants in general needs or age -designated
accommodation and approximately 30 % in independent living who may be responsible for paying their
own rent in full, we recognise that some people will be significantly impacted.
So with this in mind, an incremental approach to passing on the increases is recommended.
If we went for passing on the full increase from day one next year, some people would
be hit with some very steep and immediate increases.
However, if we cap the annual increases,
the impact would be staggered for those
facing the largest increases.
The paper outlines options based on a cap of 10, 15,
and 20 pounds a week, with 15 pounds being unbalanced
the recommended option as balancing
the impact on individuals and the length of time
for full cost recovery to be achieved,
which in this case would be around three years.
So you'll see the paper sets out the pros and cons
of taking an incremental approach as opposed
to a full cost recovery from day one.
The main advantage being to try to ease the impact on tenants
who are paying for their own rent and service
charges in full.
The disadvantage being that it would take a number of years
for the HRA to achieve full recovery.
I want to stress that this is not a decision or a commitment to this level of CAP or indeed to any
particular way forward but rather a steer for officers to undertake more detailed work. The
paper outlines the extensive formal and informal consultation that would be undertaken as part of
the program. The strategic tenants advisory panels already had briefings on the project
and broadly supportive of the need to work towards full cost recovery,
whilst recognising that this will impact on individuals
and that there needs to be support for anyone who might face difficulty as a result.
Over the next nine months, the housing team has a communication and consultation plan
that will help tenants understand why the council needs to de -pool the service charges
and how we can help lessen the financial impact.
This will also provide an opportunity to identify any other issues that may arise through the revised charges,
particularly in regard to taking a proactive approach to tenants who might be at risk of falling into rent arrears.
Other options and approaches have been explored by the team,
including whether to put the whole thing on hold in light of local government reorganisation.
However, this would just delay what needs to be done to get us to a point where we have
fairness and transparency in our service charges in line with guidance by the regulator of
social housing, as well as making sure that the HRA collects all the money due to it for
the benefit of all its tenants.
I want to stress again that this is not a course of action undertaken lightly.
it's fully recognized that there will be significant impacts for a number of people.
However, I also want to stress that the decision we're taking today is not a final decision
and a further report providing a detailed breakdown of the service charges payable for
each block and scheme and an update on the consultation plans will be brought back to
for final approval later this year ahead of the 26 -27 HRI budget setting.
So noting that we're not taking a final decision on the course of action, I hope that you will
support the recommendations so that officers can bring us back a more detailed report for
consideration and I'd like to move the report.
Thank you.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:54:25
Thank you very much, Councillor Shrove.
I'm very happy to second the report and if you will bear with me.
This is a piece of work that we have all known has to be undertaken and I think it's been
a nettle that people have been concerned about grasping but we don't really have any option,
we have to do this.
And deep pooling has been an issue in housing for some time
and I'm very pleased at the approach that we've taken towards it.
I'd like to thank the officers for all of their hard work on this.
We had an excellent presentation at Informal Cabinet
where clearly it's a work in progress.
There's a lot yet to do.
But I think in order to feed back to the officers,
I think all of the members understand this.
I don't think you have to convince many people about the need to de -pool.
It's just actually how we do it.
That's really it.
So the principles are all, I feel, are agreed.
is something that has to be done.
It's just how fast we do it
and what safeguards and provisions.
I think that's the feedback that I've had.
I've had a very helpful summary
from Councillor Lockwood, who's with us this evening.
And I'll pass these points on to the officers
so they can incorporate them in their thinking.
Thank you very much, Councillor Lockwood, much appreciated.
And it's going to be a rocky road,
but it is something that we absolutely have to do.
And I'm hugely confident that our officers are steering us.
Even a sound course, even last night there were in the room,
were we going too fast, were we going too slow?
Full cost recovery is attractive.
So, it's, you know, there will be lots to debate
and lots to think about in this de -pooling process.
So, thank you very much for the work
that you've done thus far.
Thank you very much, Councillor Shrew,
for leading us through all of this very difficult subject.
And very happy to open it up to all other Councillors
for questions, queries, comments.
Councillor Fuller.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 0:57:17
Thank you chair. I think everyone agrees that at some point we are going to have to de -pool
this. As you mentioned in formal I just want to raise again that my main concern about
this, about this whole process is that we don't appear to have a way of predicting the
effect that this is going to have, the number of people it's going to affect, in what way
it's going to affect them, what percentage of their income are they going to reduce their
lose to paying this charge and so on.
And also because that, I mean we've got the equality impact assessment
where it said neutral, neutral, neutral on all of the various protected characteristics.
I don't see how we can know that if we can't
profile the people that are going to be affected.
So that's my real concern. I think it's going to happen.
It has to happen over a sensible period. It may be that
£15 a week is the sensible amount and therefore the resulting sensible period.
But I can't see any evidence that proves to me why this is the right amount
on the basis of the people that are being affected.
So having studied the people that are being affected,
you could in theory pluck any number out of the air
and argue that it's a sensible number
if you haven't got the research.
I appreciate that these figures may not be generally available.
It may not be easy to find out who's going to be affected,
how they're going to be affected,
how much £15 a week is on average to the average person in our housing.
But without knowing that, it does feel like we're clutching at straws.
Maybe some of this will come out of the consultation, and hopefully it will.
Hopefully tenants will turn around and say,
this is X percentage of my income.
Or they'll say, actually it's nothing really, I'm quite happy.
That's great if that does come out,
but it's still something I'm quite concerned about.
And this is not a criticism of officers, to be honest.
There should be a way for officers to be able to do this kind of thing
without having to invent some kind of new research discipline or something
or break every aspect of GDPR or whatever to find out the information.
It should be possible.
I'm not trying to be critical of officers here,
but I am concerned.
Effectively, we don't know if we're going to be putting
a proportion of our tenants in the part of poverty.
And we can't, unfortunately.
Thank you very much, Councillor Varro.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:59:52
You're absolutely right.
Looking down the road,
it's almost impossible to profile this accurately.
The officers have done a great deal of work in terms of prospective groups,
but we don't know how many people fall within those particular groups,
general profiles as it were.
I think a lot of discussion has got to be had around any hardship fund
that we create in order to ease the pain for some people.
Just taking it to an extreme, we could go for full cost recovery from year one
and have a jolly big hardship fund in order to help the people that need help.
Or the officers, I think quite rightly, have gone for a middle road,
have gone for the £15 cap, which should be relatively manageable
for the majority of people,
but we won't know until we get there.
That is a frustration in the process.
Jill, do you want to add anything to that?
Sorry, I'm answering. You're the expert.
Thank you for that question, Councillor Willard.
We know quite a lot about a lot of our tenants,
but I would just say that protected characteristics
don't correlate really to the impact.
It's really people on low incomes.
That's the long and short of it.
If somebody is on full housing benefit and universal credit,
then they will be okay,
because obviously this will be paid through their benefits.
It's those that are in and out of low income work,
and that changes.
So sometimes, by month by month,
some people will be on benefits for a certain number of months
and then perhaps in the summer get a summer job
and work for the summer and their benefits change.
So it's very difficult for us to actually give you actual numbers.
But that is part of the consultation and what we will be doing,
we will be going through those known people that we know fall into rent arrears.
We've got a system that we use on NEC, which is called account analytics.
And it does start to pattern people that fall in and out of rent arrears.
And those will be people that we target, we try and speak to at an early stage.
Our income team will work with them.
We're also recruiting a new welfare benefits officer.
And that person will work really closely to make sure that people do actually get the benefits
that they are entitled to.
So, whilst I can't give you actual numbers,
we're going to be working over the next nine months
to try to look at that.
And as the leader said,
we can consider a hardship fund, a welfare fund.
At the moment we don't know what size,
what amount of money that might look like,
but because we're going to be looking at recouping
half a million potentially,
if we go for the £15 per week cap,
then we do have the capacity to put hardship run together.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Spayton.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:03:26
Thank you. I'm not quite sure where to start.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 1:03:29
I kind of feel like my hands are being tied.
I think the interesting point you make
taking Councillor Fuller's points,
how do we know on your impact assessment
all those areas, particularly around disability,
I know for sure whether that's completely neutral
but I'm not taking a word for it.
But again, you seem to be saying,
but actually we don't really know.
But then you can make a categorical statement
that it is neutral.
But you do accept that for people on low incomes,
the project may result in some tenant service charges
increasing, which could have a negative impact on those
on low incomes.
Now, I think the discussions and briefings we've had,
I don't think there was any maybe about it.
I think there was a general acceptance that as yet
an unknown number which concerns me or people would be adversely affected by this.
Not me but would be adversely affected by this.
So we're kind of going into this with our hands tied that yes we will do a £15 cap on this
which by my reckoning if you, I think we talked about this, if you had somebody on average
rent of around about £100 then they've got a rent increase.
If they've got the cap on top of that, on top of what they're already paying, maybe they're paying about £6.
Suddenly their housing costs could go up by 15 to 20%.
I think when we talked about this you didn't dispute that.
That seems to be... I don't feel that I came on this council
and I'm in the business to make people poorer.
So I'm not...
I absolutely totally take on board that this is an anomaly
that needs to be addressed.
But I think there's a danger we take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
We do it fast in order to recoup these monies
and some people may well suffer.
I think until we have...
I'm just wondering whether we could just do this in a bit more slow time.
Don't commit ourselves to the cap at this stage
because I think that ties our hands.
But instead say we are committed to consider this
and the number of serious options that we need to consider.
But at the moment I think we have been forced out of a way
where we could make people significantly poorer
I personally am not in this council to do that.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:05:44
Thanks very much, Councillor Speakeman.
This is a work in progress.
The cap is what is being recommended,
but there's a range of options in the report.
It could be a £10 cap, it could be a £20 cap.
You're exactly right in terms of...
If this becomes a primary concern,
and the people who are affected,
they have to have recourse to a hardship fund
that we can ease that pain.
So there will be a balance to strike
between how much cost recovery we go for
against the size of the hardship fund.
If we go for a lower cost recovery,
then we won't need too much in the hardship fund.
If we go for a much higher cost recovery,
then we'll need a lot more in the hardship fund.
But that is all to be agreed.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 1:06:37
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:06:41
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 1:06:41
So your hands aren't quite tied yet, don't worry.
The recommendation clearly says to agree to a £15 cap.
The recommendation is clearly saying
we should be asked to agree to a £15 cap.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:06:53
In order to work forward,
we've got a range of options in that report.
We're only going out for publication,
sorry, for consultation on that basis.
Everything's very flexible still at the moment,
but we have to have some numbers in there somewhere
in order to work things through.
You may be able to voice your opinion when it comes to it
and convince us that the cap needs to be lower
or there may be others that want the cap to be higher.
And I think there's scope for that to be done.
This really isn't about making people poorer.
You're quite right.
It is only the low -waged that will...
People who are in receipt of benefits won't be impacted.
It is the low -wage that will feel this impact.
And we've just got to find a way of reducing that impact on that specific group.
Councillor Proitor.
Sorry, can I go to Councillor Follery?
He has been waiting.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 1:08:10
Yeah, sorry, I wanted to come back on the point about the equality impact assessment.
Just that, so yes, we potentially can suggest that there won't be a negative impact on people
based on disability or age, but I would also appreciate knowing whether or not there is
there is a higher proportion of people who are disabled and elderly
in this group that are affected.
You can argue that they're not having a negative effect
we're not having a negative effect on them
but if they are disproportionately affected by the change
that still feels like something that's worth noting
in an equality impact assessment
even if there's nothing we can do about it
and even if it's... that would be useful.
Now the answer might be, well actually,
the proportion of disabled and elderly people that are affected by this
is exactly the same as the proportion on the general population as a whole.
In which case I would put that in there as well.
But that would have been useful, I think, to have.
Also, on the point of putting...
What Councillor Spillane was saying about putting out to consultation £15,
even if we were putting it out to consultation,
if we put out to consultation one option,
or even an... we do this or nothing,
then it's not really a truly open consultation.
So, in my head, or certainly I would assume,
that if we're going to put this out to consultation,
we should be putting out all of the options we considered
and asking people to come back and say,
well, what would be your preferred option?
How would this affect you?
And if it does affect you, what would you like us to do about it?
If it's truly open, yes, we should put everything we've considered in there,
not just what we think is the best option.
But that's my view.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:10:06
I will come to you, Jill, don't worry.
I think there's certainly some analytics that we can do,
but we won't be able to get too specific on the numbers
for a whole range of other protections that people have got.
With regard to giving people a range of options,
they will pick the lowest.
So we would create, you know, would be a non -consultation effectively.
The consultation will be framed in such a way that we will take people's comments with
regard to the cap.
So we will take them, we're not, the cap isn't nailed on, as it were, this is our proposal,
This is what we're putting out for consultation and we're happy to receive feedback.
If we said £10, £15 or £20, people will go for £10.
If we said tick the one you want, we would have 100 % ticks which would really be a non -consultation.
But I'm very happy to bring Gillian to try and answer some, maybe on that profiling question.
Thanks for that. A couple of things. With regards to the Equality Impact, we're quite
happy to take that feedback and we have a look at that Equality Impact Assessment. When
we bring back the paper in October, which will be our recommendation paper for the way
forward for implementing for April 2026, we can have a whole look at whether there are
any impacts to disabled people, for instance, whether they're adversely affected.
So I'm quite happy to do that.
In terms of the CAP, as you say, leader, it is very much the consultation, this first
part, is informal consultation.
Between now and October, we need to get people's opinions generally about how we actually go
about implementing this.
I would say that the formal consultation, which we have to carry out, is once the decision
has been made and we have to then write to every single tenant and inform them of exactly
what the cost is going to be.
That is a legal requirement for us to do and that will happen after October between October
and February when the budget setting,
when the HOA budget comes to cabinet and to council.
So it's a long process for us
and there's quite a lot of work to do.
This is just the start of this
and I take all of your comments on board
that the hardship fund is really,
really an important key to this.
The contacting and identifying those talents
that we feel are going to be impacted by this
is the little key as well for us.
So we're taking all that on board. Thank you very much for your comments.
Councillor Fuller.
Just very briefly on that, I appreciate what you're saying about
if you put £10 on there, you're effectively writing what's called a leading question.
But if your question is, it's £15 or we're just going to take whatever we want,
that's a leading question too.
You're going to go for £15.
If your best case scenario is £15, that's what you go for.
If your best case scenario is ten good a week, that's what you go for.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 1:13:36
So, that doesn't feel like a conversation.
It feels like we're either going to do this or it's going to be worse.
Would you like the thing that's quite bad or the thing that's worse?
It's kind of... The answer's obvious.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:13:54
Yeah, I don't think the consultation will be a tick box, as it were.
I think there'll be plenty of opportunity for people to express
what they think about the cap.
It won't be a black and white situation.
We would prefer not to increase anybody's service charge.
But bear in mind that what is happening in the HRA
is that one part of the HRA is subsidising the other part of the HRA.
So what we've got is a very, very unfair situation at the moment
where some people are paying a lot less than they should be paying,
whereas others are actually subsidising that loss.
So we are trying to regularise a problem that's existed in the HRA
for many, many years.
This isn't unique to us.
It's happened across practically every stockholder in the country.
We're fairly late to the party in terms of sorting it out,
But this will be a rocky road, but it's one that we do have to travel.
Councillor Speakeman.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 1:15:05
Last point. OK.
Right, we've heard quite a lot about a hardship fund.
I guess if we were going to go down this road,
would there be a commitment from the council
that no person, not one of our tenants as a result of this change,
would be significantly, and okay that's a loose term,
but should we say what is reasonable, fair, and equitable
in terms of significantly be adversely affected
by this change.
In other words that there would be some kind of
hardship fund or some sort of offsetting
or whatever it might be that they would not be hit
by suddenly anything approaching what could be,
I think we agreed, a 20 % or so increase
in their housing costs.
If we were able to provide that reassurance,
then I would feel more confident in going down this road, personally.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:16:07
I think we would set out in generalised terms with that as an objective.
But we're going to be asking people to pay more.
So they will be adversely affected from that point of view.
Absolutely. I take your point.
A lot is in the wording and I don't want to commit you guys, don't worry,
but I think that would be a general objective
that we would be comfortable with.
How that actually is written down
in terms of an obligation that people can hold us to
is something that we have to resolve.
But I think your sentiment is held by everybody, Jeremy.
You're not out on a limb here.
I think everyone would agree with you in terms of your sentiment.
It's just getting through this process.
It's going to be difficult and we'll have to have many discussions similar to this.
Would you like to make a concluding statement or concluding remark Rebecca?
Oh sorry, I've got a queue of people here, sorry.
So I've got Councillor Butcher from my list that Ewan has provided me with, Councillor
Butcher first then Councillor Prater and if there's no one else.
And then we've got, who have we got over here?
Okay, so James and then Tim and then we'll see where we go.
Cllr James Butcher - 1:17:45
Could we clarify just what we're agreeing if we accept recommendation two?
Is that to commit ourselves to £15 or when it comes to October,
could we change our minds about that?
Are we committing to what goes into the consultation?
Depending on what comes back, we could say in October,
but actually we don't agree with the £15 now.
We want to do something different.
So at the moment all we're agreeing is some provisional things
and then in October we can try.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:18:15
We have to have something to consult on.
And that's the middle ground.
So £15 seems to be a reasonable figure to use.
I don't know if you can add anything to that, Rebecca,
but it just seemed, it was the middle figure,
so that seemed to be a good figure to use.
Cllr James Butcher - 1:18:38
I'm not arguing about whether that's the right figure or not,
I just want to be clear what we're agreeing tonight
and what we can then agree in October.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:18:50
What we're agreeing tonight is that £15 is the figure in the consultation.
If we as a council agree that we would prefer a lower cap
or indeed a higher cap, we can.
We're completely open to that.
That will depend on the consultation, officers' recommendations, etc.
Cllr James Butcher - 1:19:14
Just one other point, because you talked about this as being there are people ahead of us,
so do we have any feedback from where people try to what the impact has been on people
on low incomes?
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:19:25
I'm expecting an ask, but I'm not sure we get that.
I don't know, we had some very clever officers here.
Jill, are you able to give us some views on that?
Yes, of course.
The difficulty is that everybody that's de -poured their service charges have done it differently
and they've implemented it in a different way.
While some may have gone for cost recovery and in different circumstances as well, it's
It's very difficult for us to categorically say this is the way that it's worked somewhere
else.
We know all of our local Kent authorities have already done some form of de -pooling,
but there are various ways of doing it.
And even down to what you actually include in your service charges, you don't necessarily
have to include everything that we've included, or you could include more than we've currently
So, unfortunately, I can't answer that question
because it's also different for each local authority.
OK. Councillor Prater.
Yep.
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:20:33
Thank you.
I instinctively feel very much where Jeremy is sitting at the section
and I think that's because we all do
and we all understand the issues we have.
There are a number of points which the paper points out and that we should say out loud
because it's important to do so.
This only impacts those residents in our property that currently pay a service charge of a variety.
Over half of our tenants do not pay a service charge, they're not impacted by this.
So, for those people that they're going,
oh my God, this is going to mean this for all tenants across the authority,
it does not mean that.
It means that to 1 ,500 out of about 3 ,500.
And of that 1 ,500 tenants, it's very much on a sliding scale,
depending on the amount of service that you are getting in.
Some people, it will just be cutting the grass around an area each week.
Some people, it will be that and the lift servicing
and the heating and the lighting in communal areas and all sorts of stuff.
There'll be significant charges to make, but it's different.
Where we may be framing this discussion on
is actually the impact of this doesn't necessarily hit
those on the lowest incomes most.
Because if you are on the lowest incomes
and you're getting poor housing benefits and you're getting universal credit,
this will be set off by that.
It's those on the struggling middle that are going to struggle most with this.
Those who are not getting those benefits etc.
And therefore the cash impact is all out of their pocket, all out of their wallet.
And as Jeremy says, I know we deal with rents on a weekly basis,
but I deal with my household bills on a monthly basis
and 60 quid a month ain't nothing.
60 quid a month will hurt.
and if you're somebody who's just about making it at the moment,
just about dealing with it through dealing with your costs,
£60 is going to be a significant impact.
But I also understand that because of that additional £60 of cost, etc,
some of those people might actually be hit a threshold
whereby universal credit and housing benefit actually applies to them
where they currently doesn't,
and there might be some mitigation there that we don't know yet.
So, actually, although we will have, should have, absolutely would fight for,
a hardship fund at that stage,
there will be a lot of people who will not be in significant hardship from this
because they will have those costs mitigated by our housing benefit and universal credit.
So, there is a lot of mitigation in that.
What I worry about in terms of the consultation,
I totally get Jim's comment that you need to have a figure to consult on
and if you offer them £10, £15 or £20,
of course you are just going to pick the lowest box.
Even if it doesn't do it to you,
because as the paper makes clear at this stage,
even with a £10 ten -man figure,
512 of those 1 ,500 people will be paying less than £10,
up to £10 cap,
so it might be somewhere between £1 and £10.
that the full impact, it doesn't matter to them
whether they take the £10, £15 or £20,
it actually will have the same impact in the year one
whichever of those they pick.
But what this paper and the consultation I don't think has a lean into
is the benefit to the pay of this.
Why are we doing this?
It's because at this moment those costs are being borne across the HRA
and if that cost is being recovered from those people,
some of it from housing benefit, some of it from universal credit,
some of it from the people that they're at war with.
If we do this thing, then there is significantly more money
going... significantly more money in, what, a million quid a year,
somewhere at that stage,
for spending on housing in folks on high.
So there are new houses to be built.
there will be more refurbishment of properties done,
there will be more things fixed,
there will be better service to the tenants that live in our properties
because we can afford better services for the tenants that live in our properties
because we're getting more money towards those properties.
So in terms of the consultation, what are we telling people? The benefit.
They can see the cost, they can see up to the cost that it's going to cost them,
But actually, if you tell them what the benefit of that is as well,
and what the different benefits are in terms of getting some artificial money
over one year or two years or three years,
and actually your consultation in terms of asking them
whether it's 10 or 15 or 20, is less sterile.
Because you're actually saying,
there are rewards of doing this quickly as well as this benefit.
Is there not an advantage to doing this at more speed?
Because we'll be able to fix more houses in year one, we'll be able to do your windows
in year one, we'll be able to improve this communal area in year one, whereas otherwise
you're going to have to wait for year two or three because the money comes in over a
different period.
If you're going to have a consultation, why are we not selling some of the benefit of
this as well as the disadvantage of this, because the disadvantage is clear, that's
what the consultation actually talks about, it's the disadvantage to people, and that's
what we want to protect them from.
And I think that nobody's saying it out loud
because you can't work those numbers until you know those numbers,
until you know those people who are close to a trigger threshold,
whether they will be able to claim some of those costs
or whether they won't be able to claim some of those costs.
But actually I think the hardship fund probably could cover,
by the time you've washed this out,
a significant percentage on a taping basis,
a significant basis for the cost of those people
who have to meet those costs themselves.
but you can't say that completely clearly
until you know exactly what those numbers and that impact is.
But I do wonder whether there is an option in here,
whether actually having the consultation which talks about
why going faster is a benefit to the tenants,
and why going slower is...
The various benefits of getting to those different points quicker,
and whether actually asking the question of 10, 15 or 20 isn't ridiculous,
because there are advantages in each case.
The paper sets out some of those advantages in each case.
And yes, of course, you're going to expect that the answer is going to come back,
saying, well, let's go for the least.
That would be the received wisdom.
I'm pretty confident I'd place money on it.
But actually, if you're going to consult on something, consult properly.
Actually ask the honest question.
The honest question is, I think at this stage,
to ask on those three cap limits,
and picking the middle one ain't science,
because we picked three different numbers out of the hat
and then went for that middle number,
went for the middle number on that.
We could have picked five numbers out of the hat
or we could have picked five pounds as one of those,
and fifteen pounds,
and we'd have ended up consulting on a different number.
Just going for the middle one ain't science.
But actually if we went to consultation
with those three options,
but with the benefits and disbenefits of it as well.
At least we get some feedback
on whether people saw those benefits as worth having
and over what timeframe,
and whether people would use some of that.
Some of those people will write back
and give us some more feedback under those circumstances
about what the impact of the different price rises
would mean to them personally,
whether they are paying it
or whether somebody else is paying it and have that as well.
So I'm more minded and I'm yet entirely convinced to say why aren't we consulting honestly on
this.
It's a difficult question.
We know what our target is, we know what the outcome is, we know where we're going, which
is the full cost recovery.
We're going there not because that money is going to be spent on anything other than new
better houses for our existing tenants, improving the housing that we've currently got for tenants.
So there is a reasonable question to be answered here about what speed we can get there and do that
and what stuff that buys you. How many windows? How many new carpets? How many lift -free furnishments?
How much do we improve things for that money? And if we were consulting with the three different members in there
and giving the benefits broadly, roughly, pick a couple of examples of you that have this many units,
of that thing for that, does that not give us a better response in terms of consultation
than an otherwise binary, are you happy to put up your service fee or not? So I don't
know why we can't, why we can't remove the line about agreeing the recommended option
of £15 a week and why we can't instead consult on all three of them but with the benefits
and dispenetrate the fact, because it's an informal consultation.
It's a soft consultation at this stage. We're looking for answers,
we're looking for feedback, we're looking to be honest with those tenets.
Let's do that rather than pick a number.
Okay, so just to summarise where we're at,
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:30:17
then we seem to be seeking some reassurance
with regard to a hardship fund and what we can actually say about tenants not being put
into hardship.
So we need to amplify that sentiment, shall we say.
We are also looking to give the respondent to the consultation some greater opportunity
to think about the amount of money that they want to pay in terms of the cap, even though
as Councillor Prater has pointed out,
this is only going to affect a relatively...
Well, not relatively small,
but it's going to affect a minority of our residents.
So would it be wise to do away with the figure entirely?
Because generally I can't get away from the fact that if we say...
we could say five, 10, 15, they'll go for the lowest one.
So if we put a number in,
are we effectively shooting ourselves in the foot?
So I'm keen, I can't move away from the fact
that if you say, do you wanna pay five pound,
10 pound, 15 pound, they'll pick the lowest number.
That is human nature.
So I hear what everyone has said.
Everybody shares those sentiments.
It's really the best way to do this.
I'm going to have to come back to you, Jill, on your thoughts
with regard to everything that you've heard
and what you might be able to do.
Thank you. Firstly, on the hardship fund side,
and answering Councillor Speedman's request for us
to make that very clear to people,
or give assurances to people.
We do just have to do a piece of work on the hardship fund
that is the practicalities of offering and administering it.
And we haven't done that yet,
because it literally only came up
as a possibility last night.
So if we need to go away,
somebody's got to administer it,
there'd have to be some sort of means test for people.
We'd have to have some sort of admin
and some sort of process in place.
So we need to go away and think about how we would do that.
So I think it's a little bit early for us
to be able to guarantee that we can offer a hardship fund,
especially as we don't know exactly how much that would be.
I would like to be able to offer one,
but I need to do that piece of work.
So if I could be allowed to take that away and come back to members
with the hardship fund side of things, that would be useful.
In terms of the consultation,
essentially, I do actually take your point, Councillor Projic,
it would be good to get people's opinions across the board on this.
But as you say, without offering figures,
So it is about how we word it,
and also how we actually put through why we're doing it.
I think that's the crucial thing on the consultation,
saying to people, if we put this through,
it'll take three years,
and you will have increases over three years,
or five years possibly,
so people understand that it's not just,
they do have their options.
So I'm quite happy to take that back,
and to start wording some questions
on how we actually consult.
It doesn't have to be on an actual figure.
Sorry, so just looking then at the recommendations,
if we could just take them one at a time and just...
Councillor Prager.
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:34:46
Yeah, I think I was just going to build where Gill was going to on that.
I think that that's really helped.
if we can consult on the options, as you say, at that stage,
because, as you say, there are benefits to do it.
For some tenants, the answer will be do it immediately,
because then that's one change, one thing, it's all in my...
It'll all be dealt with through housing benefit
or universal credit anyway, and therefore it's one and done.
I think that we should also talk...
Other benefits of doing it quickly is that
the hardship fund would be significantly bigger
if one did it in one go, because you're getting more money in one go
and therefore you've got more ability to offset those costs for some people at that stage.
I think in terms of a technical recommendation change at that stage, then all we would be
doing at that stage is, in recommendation 2, after the words appendices 1 and 2, just
delete the back end of that line, which still allows, so just removing that recommended
option cost there, that allows officers to do that slightly more flexible consultation.
and I said I really do think that building in the pay,
understanding, giving people an understanding of what they get for this,
what they actually see, what they physically see from it,
not just in their wallet but in their block,
you're not going to sell them they can have this,
but what it means in terms of the improvements we can make to the housing revenue estate
by doing and at what speeds we can do it.
So I think I'll move the removal of the words and agree the recommended option of £15 per week cap on service charge increases from April 2026 at this moment.
Okay and Councillor Fuller to second.
So that's great, that's terrific.
So just so everyone's clear, item 1 stays the same, item 3, 4 and 5 are all as written.
Item 2.
Yeah, for sure.
So just in terms of the amendment is to recommendation 2
and it's to delete all of the words after the figure 2 in the second line.
So, and agree the recommended option of a £15 per week cap
on service charge increase from April 2026.
That's a deletion and that's what the amendment is.
We all okay on that?
You okay Gemma?
Yes.
Okay so, oh sorry.
I was glad that we will consult on a range of prices.
Yeah.
So we need to build that in and we also need to build a keep in the date of April 26 for
when this commences.
So that date refers to when the increase would apply as April 26.
Sorry, Councillor Macompill.
Just in terms of a date, obviously there's a paper going to come back in October with
all the information from the consultation,
couldn't we firm up the April date then,
once we had more of that information?
We need the date of April in because it's built into the business plan
and it's built into all the other finances of DHRO.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:38:16
I get that, but I'll say...
Councillor Shroop.
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 1:38:23
I think as well it would be good to let people know
that this is coming in April rather than...
The April 2026 date is in point three, explicitly.
OK. Very enough.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:38:51
Sorry.
And so, but implicitly, what we're asking for here,
within this amendment is really for officers to hear what we've said
and come back with a further provision with regard to this piece of work.
So what we're doing is kind of filling gaps here
in terms of the hardship fund and in terms of a greater range
or amplification of the options.
That's essentially what we're seeking to do at the moment.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:39:32
So good. So just as long as I'm clear, I may be the last one to the party.
So our first vote will be for the amendment.
So it's Councillor Prater's amendment to make that deletion.
Councillor Fuller has seconded it.
All those in favour of the amendment, please indicate.
unanimous so the the amendment is carried so now to to vote on the
amended recommendations so that is one three four and five all is written and
the amendment that we've just noted yeah so Councillor Shrew move the report
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 1:40:18
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:40:20
originally are you happy to to move move those amended recommendations I'm very
happy to second. All those in favor please indicate. Terrific well thank you

9 Housing Fair Access Policy

very much excellent debate really good. Okay moving on to item 9 which is
housing fair access policy and again it's Councillor Shrew.
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 1:40:59
Thank you.
So this report sets out the housing fair access policy for approval.
Under the regulator of social housing's transparency influence and accountability standard introduced
last year, the council as a landlord is required to ensure that its landlord services are accessible
and that tenants have equitable and fair access to our services.
The policy sets out our commitment to ensuring that all tenants can access our services fairly
and that they receive any support they need in order to do so.
So the principles that are set out are already embedded in the way that the team works
but having this policy in place will demonstrate our compliance with the regulators consumer standards
as well as giving clarity to tenants.
The policy has been subject wide internal
consultation with the Housing and Landlord
Service as well as with the Strategic Tenants
Advisory Panel who welcomed its introduction.
If approved by cabinet it will be circulated to all
the housing staff as well as being promoted to all
tenants in the October issue of the Tenants
Bulletin and on social media and on our website.
and I'd like to move the report.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:42:17
Thank you very much, Councillor Shrew.
I am very, very happy to second the report.
And Councillor Fuller, try again.
I know exactly what I'm going to say.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 1:42:29
Easy read version, please.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:42:33
Your request is noted.
Do we have any queries or questions for Councillor Shrew?
No.
Okay, Julie good.
Well we've got a proposer.
I was very happy to second.
All those in favour please indicate.

10 Oportunitas Provisional Outturn 2024/25 - to 31 March 2025

Thank you very much everyone.
That's great.

11 Annual Performance Report 2024-25, Quarter 4 Performance and End of Year Outturn

So item 10 has been done.
So we move on to item 11.
Annual performance report 24 -25, quarter 4, performance and end of year out term.
Councillor Prater.
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:43:12
This is our report of marking our homework for the last year and I'm not going to add
to the report because it is one of the clearest reports I think that this council gets in
a year and the work of Gavin and Jonathan on the team on it is excellent.
So the report itself, as you go through, you'll see that this is marking our homework,
it is honestly marking our homework, it makes it clear that many of our targets have been hit in some areas, all of them.
Where we haven't hit them, it honestly explains why not, and by how much is clear on that.
It gives you a summary of performance with the map
and I think that as it has evolved over time and gone through various levels of scrutiny
and various different meetings of scrutiny, the report has evolved and changed
and I think it is a really clear example of reporting within this council.
It's a shame we're about to change it but I'm sure the child of this report will learn a lot from this
It's really excellent, we will come to that in the next item.
But it's genuinely, I think, a very clear report in terms of what we are doing and how
we have done over the course of the last year and I'm very happy to move the recommendations
along with a side recommendation of thanking Gavini and the team for this report and getting
it to this stage.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:44:53
Very happy to second it, Councillor Prater, and very happy to extend my thanks and congratulations to Gavin and the team,
because I think everything you've said is absolutely right, very clear and crystal.
So, are there any questions or queries on the report?
Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 1:45:22
A couple of ones. This has come up before but about my account.
There are KPIs that take up but we don't have a KPI on how well the system is working.
We've had some correspondence about this but I'd just like to understand whether that is something we can do
or whether there are practical reasons why we couldn't have this many my accountings were closed off in this amount of time and so on.
because otherwise I think we're encouraging people to take up a service
without quite knowing actually they're doing a job
and some ain't total evidence that that's only experience
where I haven't actually had a response when I put something through.
Councillor Fuller.
Yeah, just to come back on that, that is obviously this,
that particular target was our previous target,
you know, for the previous year, KPI, sorry.
So there will be changes to that
and all the sort of categories around the Suncast,
Cllr Gary Fuller - 1:46:18
there's my team and so on, are being reviewed
by the senior members and teams and so on anyway,
but I'm sure Jonathan and Evan can find more detail on that.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:46:29
So do you want to come back on that?
Gavin Edwards - 1:46:33
So thank you for your comments, obviously,
Councillor Butcher and Councillor Fuller,
over regards to that.
Obviously, with the point that you made,
probably with my account there as well,
We do obviously hold some figures and there'll be some analysis and stats behind that.
Obviously I can go obviously into the specifics and I'd need to speak to Steve Week for you more detailed in the team.
With regards to that, obviously there's another item on the agenda tonight as well about what we're looking at in terms of proposed KPIs as well,
but what you have posted has been noted and I'll take that away.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:47:01
Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 1:47:06
Just to understand, there's a couple of other fixed penalty notices issued for low -levelling bar and crime.
has dropped substantially as has the number of recorded C -ademythirid interventions
and just wanted to understand what was behind those substantial reductions.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:47:23
Gavin are you able to offer an answer?
Gavin Edwards - 1:47:27
I don't have the exact specifics at hand but in terms of obviously some of the slightly lower numbers there
obviously the team as I've done in your previous you said before
and we'll always try and do some more,
for more intervention work first
before actually going on to escalate things around,
you know, fixed penalty notices and things like that.
They'll do that initial, you know,
education prevention work first.
So obviously there was positions
where we had spoken about previously
about sometimes lower numbers were actually
necessarily slightly better in that respect.
Cllr James Butcher - 1:47:58
Yes, I can get that and there's gonna be a variation.
You just looked at the, it's significant
because we're gonna come on to talk about
the dog control orders and it says in there
about six times the notice one way and enforce that.
But when we look at that,
it just finishes a third of what it was the year before.
So that's not just a slight up and down,
that almost sounds like a shift in either policy or resourcing
or something very, very different.
And it would be good just to understand what that difference is.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:48:30
Oh, Andrew.
There's not been a shift in policy.
Andrew Rush - 1:48:37
We have had some shortages in the team, we've had some absences due to illness and we've
had some absences due to the vaccination of recruitment but the team is now up to five
again which is the number that we normally operate so that probably explains the shortage.
So no change in policy.
Gavin makes a good point that we do try and use informal escalations particularly with
a restriction is new in an area, but generally speaking,
those changes are down to the size of the team.
If anyone can understand.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:49:16
On your earlier point, Councillor Bush,
there's correspondence with all of the senior officers
about how my account has become embedded
A lot of people are using it, a lot of people see it as the entrance point to the council.
But there's certainly a shortage of feedback.
So there's no argument, we're just looking at a way, the best way to provide that feedback.
It's a tricky one as far as the IT system's concerned.
but the point that you've made has been well taken on board.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:49:57
Councillor Prater.
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:50:02
Yeah, I think to be fair, this is a point that we can get to in the next paper in terms
of the corporate, in terms of those as well, because we fully agree that customer service
performance monitoring etc is important and that's why it appears in the report going
so there will be KPIs around directorate scorecards and stuff like that.
I've lost the target of this.
So customer satisfaction is in there, customer support is in there,
and there are going to be KPIs about that,
and that can include not just the number of people who are on my account,
but the number of inquiries logged, the number of inquiries answered, etc.
and things like that.
So yeah, you are well ahead of the curve,
specifically one item ahead of the curve in this one,
because that's where we go to in the next items.
This is the report of last year against the KPIs
in that, that have been set to that stage.
We have, I think, agreed that there's a weakness there
that those KPIs aren't part of that,
which is why in the next paper, we're gonna put them in.
So yes, we accept it as a weakness,
and yes, we fix it in the next item at the end.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:51:16
Okay, Julie, good.
So I think Councillor Prater proposed.
Did I second?
I think I second, yeah.
So all those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.
That's great.

12 Performance Management Framework

So moving on to the next instalment of the TIM show, item 12, performance management
framework.
Councillor Proctor.
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:51:43
Yeah, this is how we're going to do what we did in the last item next year,
and in subsequent years taking on behalf of the new corporate plan,
but then making sure that, A, we float, you know,
the changes which a revised corporate plan would require of our reporting
and our strategic framework at that stage,
but also take that opportunity, I think, to refresh the framework as well.
It has taken that opportunity to look at some of those areas
and as you say, some of those KPIs and areas that we haven't been monitoring
or haven't been reporting, have been monitoring,
not been reporting in quite the same way to people about how we are responding.
because one of our key things with our corporate plan
is that we want to be a responsive listening council.
How do we know that we're being responsive and listening
without being able to tell people that when they ask us a question,
how well we respond to it?
That's the kind of corner response in terms of KPIs there,
and it's specifically noted within the report,
there's a section within that and new KPIs will flow out of that.
Also, the one recommendation there that I've just flagged there as well is that previously
we have had a very fixed KPI agenda in terms of this, and actually recommendation four
gives us a bit of lassitude in order to keep looking at this, and as things come forward
from scrutiny committees now, things come forward from cabinet, and as things come forward
from staff and officers saying, well, we've got this data, would that be useful in this?
we can add them in.
So it gives us some flexibility to, in -year, add those things in.
So if what's said on the paper isn't quite where you're going at the moment,
Councillor Butcher, we can actually have a conversation,
we can add new things and we can have a discussion about,
well, this is the data that's available from these sources,
this is what we can get out into the report,
is that valuable or is that too much number?
What stage we do?
Because the amount of data that you can have in a report
and the amount of data you should have in the report may be different things.
Certainly the amount of data you should have in the report which you give to Gary,
there is no such thing as enough data at that stage,
but then the report becomes quite heavy.
So this gives us a refreshed framework, a refreshed opportunity,
and again thank you very much to Jonathan and the team for getting us there.
It's been a significant process and I thank them for it.
but B, it gives us some flexibility that as we get this in place,
it won't be perfect, it will have missed a few things that we can come to it
and it gives us the flexibility to make sure that we get that right
over the course of the coming months.
So I am happy to move.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:54:29
Thank you very much, Councillor Prater.
I'm very happy to second the report and take on board all of your comments
and again thank the team for their excellent work on this.
I'm happy to open it up for... Oh, Chancellor Speakman.
Sorry, are you opening up for questions?
Open it up for questions, yeah.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 1:54:48
I very much welcome this, I think it's an excellent piece of work.
So, just looking at the... I love detail, sorry about that.
The KPIs, I'm sure we've all experienced death by KPI,
they can proliferate, so it's kind of how you keep control of them,
how you keep them relevant. What is the actual process?
I think it's great, we're building a little more flexibility into the KPI process.
So what's the nuts and bolts of it?
Will that come before finance and performance or over -the -earn scrutiny
or presumably there's got to be some kind of process that filters it
and says, but that's not impractical, that's only too costly to do.
That's it.
Thank you, Councillor. Sorry.
Mr Jonathan Hicks - 1:55:36
I was wondering who was going to answer. Sorry Jonathan.
Thank you, Leland, thank you Councillor Speakeman.
You're quite correct that we do need to have a process for approving and agreeing with you.
I also appreciate that this is the first time that you've seen these.
We're already in July and this is an approved or to be approved set of KPIs for this financial year.
So a lot of this data is performance information
that we're already reporting.
So on the back of that,
and what Councillor Preiss has already said,
these are shaped around measures
that we know we need to report,
either through regulation
or we feel that we ought to be reporting to members.
And for us to provide meaningful intelligence
and insight for the questions that we might get,
we need to have a robust set of measures.
So it's a case of working up a clear definition
and where there are industry standards for KPIs,
we can use those, but as best practice, we'll use those.
So it hadn't been a case of plucking things out of the air.
We started with the set of KPIs that we reported last year,
but one of the reasons we've had to separate it out
is that that's tied to the last corporate plan.
And so we're shaping these now around the structure of the business.
And a lot of these are measures that we either have to record and report either through portfolio holders
or else we have to submit annual returns.
For example, with the set of housing indicators we need to report to the regulator of social housing,
the purpose of this is to pull them all together.
so we've shaped this based on what we feel covers the whole business and what we should be reporting in on
naturally we record this anyway
so the object here is to then present it to members and we get that flexibility to tweak them and shape them
and suggest other ones that might support the corporate plan
However, because it's late in the day and it's July,
what we've presented with you is a kind of starter set.
So once we've kind of agreed these, hopefully,
this approved set of indicators would go to Finance and Performance
to be reviewed, courted and then come back to Cabinet.
But the plan is that we would begin a review process
for Performance Indicators and Targets annually
following the budget setting,
and then service planning process,
which happens internally.
So we'd be looking between January and March
to be getting member input
into a set of KPRs for the new year.
Best practice is not to keep changing them
throughout the year,
because you won't have a consistent set of data.
If you start measuring something halfway through the year,
you can't get a year's worth of data on it.
So where we have data,
and we can make changes, we will do.
The reason we've been specific on that recommendation at the beginning
is that we don't just want to have new indicators each month.
We want to really agree a set with minor changes,
but we recognise that we might not have captured everything.
So there is that option built in to discuss those
and agree them with the appropriate director and the deputy leader in Europe.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:59:09
Thanks very much.
Councillor Fuller.
Just very briefly on that as well.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 1:59:15
Kevin will correct me if I'm wrong,
but I vaguely recall that we didn't used to report
the statistics on data breaches
and I think I requested it in overview in scrutiny
and then that started to happen.
So I think what this does is it almost makes it clearer
that there is an opportunity to do that
I effectively asked for this because I didn't know any better at the time.
But making it clear that councillors and over -the -air screening
can contribute to the process of making sure that we are sharing
as much information that's useful to councillors and over -the -air screening
as possible is no bad thing.
It's really good that we're moving in that direction.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:00:06
Okay, jolly good.
So we have a proposal, Councillor Prater.
I was happy to second.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Terrific.
Thank you very much.
Thank you to the officers for a terrific piece of work.

13 Corporate Plan (Strategic Action Plan 2025-26)

Okay, jolly good.
Moving on to item 13, the corporate plan, which I'm going to lead the discussion on.
This report presents a draft Strategic Action Plan
in support of the Council's new corporate plan, 25 to 30,
setting out how it was developed and how we will monitor it.
Just to draw members' attention to the recommendations,
to receive a note of report to approve the draft
Corporate Plan Strategic Action Plan
presented in Appendix 1,
and to delegate authority to the Director of Strategy and Resources
in consultation with the Leader of the Council
to make minor amendments to the Action Plan
following feedback from the Cabinet.
And similarly, just to draw members' attention to paragraph 3,
which describes the Action Plan as a dynamic and living document.
So the whole intention is that we can shape and develop this as we go
and mould it to suit prevailing circumstances.
So I'm very, very happy to move it.
I think it's an excellent piece of work, an excellent piece of detailed work.
I'm very, very happy to say 80 % of it is exactly right.
20 % of it we're probably going to amend and develop
and change etc. But I think it's a terrific starting point and again congratulations to
the officers. So I'm happy to propose and open up for discussion.
Councillor Prater.
I'm happy to second.
Cllr Tim Prater - 2:02:12
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:02:16
Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 2:02:19
I just want to understand about 3 .1, a dynamic live document.
What's the process for that being live and amended and added to
or things taken off as live?
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:02:32
If any member feels that the action plan isn't delivering on the corporate plan
or we're not actioning the way we say we're going to action,
then they can draw it to officers' attention or a cabinet member's attention
and it can come back via channels,
but the easiest way really is just to talk to me
or the senior officers.
So it will be a process that will be relatively informal, I'd suggest,
but there is a formal route if that has to happen in the future.
Very good. Councillor Fuller.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 2:03:19
Just to say, if the corporate plan is our aims, as it were,
these are our smart targets, our smart objectives.
Conor's probably crying over that.
As also a teacher, as it were, or someone.
The key thing with these is that they need to be specific, obviously.
We're going to test if I can remember it now.
They need to be measurable, they need to be achievable, realistic and timely.
Yeah, it is timely, isn't it?
And so we've got that in there, we've got specific actions, we've got time scales.
We hopefully will have more about how we're going to measure it and so on,
But I think, as a recovering teacher, it is really useful to take those initial ideas
and put more meat on the bone, as it were.
Terrific. Thanks very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:04:16
Jonathan, would you like to come back on that?
Mr Jonathan Hicks - 2:04:19
If I may, thank you, Chair. Just on the point about the live document,
I think it wouldn't be practical to change it every week in the same way with the KPIs.
We wouldn't want to have a constantly shifting landscape.
But the idea is that this is based on funded projects that have been agreed already.
Many of them will have come here or will come here to be approved separately.
This document pulls those together.
and I think once agreed, then as it's set out in the report,
we will bring a progress report halfway through the year,
and at which point we can evaluate progress against those,
whether or not we're making sufficient progress
on those actions which support the commitments,
and then we can have a look ahead
as to what else we might be doing,
particularly after we've had Star Chamber
and budget setting,
for the following year, which would then shape next year's
actions. So that's really it. So it's live in the sense that it
will change depending on what the projects are agreed or
whereas where projects expand. We may have an item to develop a
leisure strategy which may have separate items in it which could
form actions that would support commitments in the plan which we
could add to year two, for example, but we want to try to
limit it so that we do have at least starting point from which
to measure our progress this year with a halfway option to make changes that can come before cabinet.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:05:53
Yeah, terrific. I wish I'd said all of that. Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 2:06:01
Sorry, I thought I might say it earlier and I guess it's because I was reminded of what Mary was saying about specific
because some of these, I'm just thinking of developing an agreement district wide carbon plan,
There's a lot underneath that.
There may be service plans.
So do they come back?
How does that all get codified, agreed, clarified,
what's actually underneath some of these headings?
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:06:24
Do you want to talk about the process?
Mr Jonathan Hicks - 2:06:26
Yes, I think on individual projects,
they would naturally follow their path
through cabinet or whatever committees agreeing them.
The point here is that we are capturing that as an example,
action that's meeting a commitment.
So as we deliver on parts of that plan,
or in the first instance,
I think this year our aim is to
develop that plan and agree it.
Once that's agreed and that would the
process of that be probably through here,
then we can just reflect that
it's been through cabinet.
And as I said about the example
by the leisure strategy,
the outcomes of that carbon plan could
be potentially be actions that we add
that might support some of those
commitments in the plan.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:07:10
Terrific.
Okay.
Thank you very much, everyone.
So I was happy to propose.
I think Councillor Prater seconded.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Terrific.
Thank you very much, everyone.

14 Infrastructure Funding Statement 2024

Moving on to the next item, the infrastructure funding statement 2024.
Fortunately I've got some notes on this one.
The infrastructure funding statement, the IFS, is a summary of all financial and non -financial
developer contributions for a given financial year.
In 2024 the infrastructure funding statement as detailed in appendix one is the fifth iteration
of this report and relates to the reporting period 1st April 23 through to the 31st March
24.
This component of the infrastructure funding statement effectively forms part of an annual
audit.
Along with the summary information a significant role of the infrastructure funding statement
is to also identify those infrastructure projects
or types of infrastructure which Fosun High District intends
will be or may be wholly or partly funded
by the community infrastructure levy,
whilst indicating other sources of funding
that can be pooled to fund the same infrastructure project.
This information is set out in the infrastructure scheduled as detailed in appendix 2, which
members are asked to know.
I'll draw a line under my notes there, thank you.
So it's set out in an awful lot of detail, awful lot of project specific data there.
I don't intend to go through all of it.
I'm very happy to move and open it up for questions and comments.
Councillor Prater.
Cllr Tim Prater - 2:09:33
I am very happy to second and as I move through second I'll note under 3 .5 of our report
I've been an avid Facebook reader.
I've seen a number of people in the Fodgson area wishing that we would spend more on the
It's great to be able to point them at table 3 .1 with the £150 ,000 funded SIL project
there to make infrastructure improvements on these and the pro -alls and steps, with
that work commencing this summer and to include works which will go through the autumn and
winter period and into spring next year.
So it's really good to be able to see that what people are calling for is actually happening
and it was agreed in the infrastructure section in 2023,
and agreed by Office interview 4, went through cabinet in May 2025,
and it's going to be happening from this summer.
So, we are listening to that, the residents.
When the residents say, this is a priority,
I'm delighted to say that we knew it was a priority, it's in there,
and he gets to start pointing the rules for you soon.
Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 2:10:46
I just wanted to understand more about Appendix 3 in the programme for member engagement
in the development of infrastructure, saying it picks up what Tim was just saying.
It's kind of whose priorities, I suppose there's a two in the name,
in the community infrastructure levy and how our various communities across the district
feel like their priorities, whether they've put them on Facebook or whatever,
are being reflected in this or does it feel like this is a kind of secretive process
where large sums of money are going to one thing but not to another
so I'd just like to understand about Appendix 3
and how do we make sure that communities across our district feel that
this funding is being used as it should be
and my understanding, part of the benefit of CILL is that
it reconciles people to development happening
because yes, people might not be in favour of development
You see this funding coming through, you see great stuff being done,
but it is not being done in a way that people recognise as fair
and fair across the district.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:11:49
I think soften the impact rather than reconcile money.
LAUGHTER
Can we venture an answer to that?
Mr James Hammond - 2:11:58
Yes, thank you, Leda, and thank you, Councillor Butch, for your question.
In terms of Appendix 3,
So this was a look again at the way in which member engagement could come forward in the
process.
So the council actually became a seal collective authority back in 2016 and there was a very
slow time lag in terms of the build up of seal money that was collected.
By June 2020 we found the need to come up with a governance process.
So that was taken through cabinet that year and that gave a lot of delegated authority
to officers because officers obviously know what is being delivered locally, what the
need is, how soon that could be delivered. So the governance framework came forward and
the next IFS document that was published and the three after just followed that process.
So were there any projects that would reasonably qualify for CIL spend? Between 2020 and 2022
no, we didn't allocate anything meaningful. Last year was when the first meaningful allocation
still came forward so this time last year cabinet approved the allocation of about £2
million worth of funding across seven projects. But there was a lot of discussion in the chamber
around how much still receipts we had control of as a district council, how we could do
that meaningfully and spread the benefits across various infrastructure items and really
how members could get in front of that process. So appendix 3 what we've done there is the
green colour coding introduces kind of those line items that
have appeared in our governance from that 2020 date that I
explained and the new line items two, three and four is what we
are proposing to give members that greater degree of
involvement. So for example there will be an informal
officer briefing to portfolio holders to discuss priority
projects and that will link back into the previous item. So for
for example the corporate plan,
another documentation coming forward,
then the line item for the officer
discussion so that we could feedback
in those member priority back into
our officer group which happens
quarterly and then it's a case of
checking back in with members to say
well we've had that internal dialogue
and line item four is just to feedback
to members overviewing scrutiny or
another suitable equivalent for him to
say this is how we've gone through
of identifying projects and this is the outcome.
What you see after that is the draft infrastructure funding statement
that will just tie that all together.
That's the intention, just to give those layers of involvement and feedback.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:14:46
Is that OK, James? You sat somewhere there.
Councilman O 'Connell.
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Connor McConville - 2:14:52
Just wondered if someone could just maybe provide a little bit of insight.
In table 3 .1 in the main report where it talks about total monies to be provided and total
monies received and the gap there and again the total number of affordable homes to be
provided and the total number of houses which were provided and the gap there and what the
process is for ensuring we get what we're owed.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:15:18
James, you're over.
Mr James Hammond - 2:15:21
Thank you, leader.
Thank you, councillor.
This is kind of information that we collect and collate from other partners,
both internally at Folsom High, so for example on affordable housing,
but then I reach out to colleagues at KCC to understand in that reporting year
what was the benefit that was realised in terms of, for example, secondary school places
in primary school places, they're showing a zero. If we cast our mind back to last year's
report, there was actually some numbers against those. So it's just a year -on -year look at,
say for example, education through 106 funding that probably happened a number of years ago.
So development might, for example, come forward in 2020, but there might be a time lag between
when that then delivers primary and secondary places. This is just a look within that monitoring
period to say in this monitoring period there were unfortunately zero secondary places.
We're just reporting the data that arises in that single year.
But then more positively, look at the data.
Obviously we secured the provision of 73 dwellings.
So that is the wording says total number of affordable housing units to be provided.
So that was what was secured through sexual abuse agreements in that year.
So you'll see those 73 units come forward in future years.
And then the second line item is the total number of affordable units
which were provided.
So 41 dwellings were provided within that single reporting year.
So it's always worth looking back in almost a bit of trend analysis
to look at what's happened in the past.
But this is data that we report on through engagement with our partners.
Yes, Councillor McConville.
Cllr Connor McConville - 2:17:09
Thank you for that. I mean, I assume that was the case.
I guess it's probably in a deep hole somewhere,
but I assume there is somewhere where you can track all the agreements
and everything so you can sort of work out where we are
to make sure we're not losing out, as it were.
Mr James Hammond - 2:17:30
Yeah, certainly. We have a tracker that we monitor through our officer group,
but then also if you were to look through,
I think it's a later appended item,
table 3 .5 details out.
Money's held, for example,
so money's held by different planning reference numbers.
So, effectively you can translate a KCC education contribution
at some point in time when that money's released
will result in school places.
So, yeah, this is our kind of tracker year on year,
But you'll notice that some of the applications you can see,
for example, a Y18 application, that was a 2018 application,
that now is translated into money held on account.
But we haven't yet released that money because to do so,
development management colleagues
need to see what project that will go towards.
So you can gauge what the time lag is.
So we're talking seven years from that one example.
But it's just our way of recording in a single place
what we can expect to see come forward in the future.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:18:35
Is that okay, Connor?
Yeah, to that.
Do we have any other queries or questions?
I proposed the item.
Did we have?
Oh, Tim seconded.
Oh, thank you very much, Tim.
So we have a proposer.
We have a seconder.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Super, thank you very much everyone.
Moving on to item 15,

15 New Dog Control Public Spaces Protection Order 2025

new dog control public spaces protection order 2025.
Fortunately I've got some notes for this one as well.
I'm introducing this report on behalf
of Councillor Polly Blakemore.
The council's dog control public space protection order
expires at the end of this month.
Public space protection orders place restrictions
on the use of public land, which are enforceable
through the issuing of fixed penalty notices.
A new dog, PSPO, has been drafted,
which recently went to public consultation for six weeks.
The new draft dog control order largely replicated the existing restrictions,
although it did propose changes to a small number of locations
where the council had received complaints and reports of dog fouling hot spots.
The report summarises the responses from the public consultation
as well as the comments received from the overview
and scrutiny committee.
As is described in the report,
almost half of the total responses received
related to the proposed introduction
of a dogs on leads restriction
at the stadium playing fields in Cheriton.
The report seeks approval by cabinet
for formal adoption of the new dog control PSPO to start on 1 August.
It also asked Cabinet to note the amendment from the original draft order
relating to the stadium playing fields in Chariton made
in response to the number of comments received.
So the report is before you and I'm very happy to move it.
Open it up for questions or...
Councillor Prater.
Cllr Tim Prater - 2:21:22
Thank you.
Very briefly, as you say, most of the PSPO was based on the previous PSPO.
Some of the amendments were minor
in that they filled in holes and things like that
that developments had created.
Some of them were significantly built in children's play areas, etc,
that had previously not been in the Scrutin areas were key.
But the big change was to the stadium in Cheriton.
It went back to consultation, people hated the idea of it,
we had a huge number of people who said that they did not like the idea of it,
and that has been removed from this.
That is listening to people and that is responding to their views.
I can totally understand that.
I still feel considerable sympathy for the users of that site
who are playing football sometimes in some difficult conditions.
So I think it is going to be worthwhile.
I'd like us to consider whether there is any possibility at some stage of constructing a dog run,
a dog run in that area, so dogs can be run away from the playing pitches,
but clearly what this paper does and correctly does is it removes it from the PSPO.
Now it does need so people can continue to run there until we can offer...
I would suggest that that continues until there is potentially an option for them to use instead.
There currently is no option, therefore here's from the paper here.
I would come back on one comment whereby people are always excited by this comment
when people talk about beaches over 2 .15,
a range of auctions with respondents suggesting time restrictions
for dogs on beaches early morning and late evening
as a complete ban.
I always find that an exciting auction
because it seems to entirely miss the purpose of the dog ban on beaches.
It's not that we don't like dogs on the beach during the course of the day,
it's not that we're scared of the dog on the beach during the course of the day,
it's that dogs which are allowed on beaches, not on these,
sometimes found on those beaches,
and particularly if you did it at night,
the dog might be off the beach by 9am,
but the deposit wouldn't be.
So it would completely negate the use
of having a dogs on beaches behind in order to remove that,
so I'd like to see if there's more members there.
So I'm happy to second with a second for the PSPA,
as amended by the removal of the stadium,
and thank you for the work that was done on that,
and the consultation, and for listening to the consultation.
and the responses that have been made.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:24:07
I think, just to add to that, I will come to you, Councillor Butcher,
but some of the background to this,
we were asked to ban all dogs from all beaches by the Environment Agency
and it's a step that we didn't take for various reasons of our own.
So, you know, when, you know, people get very, very excited about this,
but we have certainly been listening to, exactly as Councillor Prater says,
and taking on board people's comments as far as we possibly can.
So, Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 2:24:48
There's a couple of things to pick on.
What Tim was saying about the stadium and so on,
that we're going to listen to people's responses
but we can't let go of the problem that people are creating
for users of that and for our grants maintenance staff
and whether that is about a run or it's some tougher enforcement
or something because it just seems unacceptable to leave that as a problem.
I think there's also something we need to look at in terms of signage,
particularly, say, if you think the coastal part
where one bit is on these, one bit isn't.
I've certainly had experience of some disagreements
about whether dogs are meant to be on these at a certain point.
So I think signage on the lees, the signs face out to see.
So if you walk them down the path,
it's very easy to miss the signs that say,
each dog's been reached.
I think it is worth looking at how we signpost things
to bring some clarity.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:25:44
I think it's a very valid point that you make.
Certainly the playing fields,
we certainly have to do something with and we'll give that back to the officers there
to hear listening to the comments.
Similarly with the signage, I think signage is a big help.
And again we'll ask officers to take that on board.
So, bring it.
Councillor Spadafore.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 2:26:10
Just noting it, just on provision of facilities to 16,
I would hope that the council would support Mayor's support for any help
for a waste facility with the contract with Viola,
are really not keen on additional bins of dog waste
because they are just so unpleasant,
particularly for the staff to deal with in the summer.
They are horrible things.
So I think we are moving away.
I think officers would concur with that.
So I would hope people would support that.
We do not. Anybody who wants to say,
please let me have a dog bin, no.
That's our response.
Yeah, noted.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:26:48
Yeah, absolutely.
So those comments are noted and that's cool.
Any other comments or questions?
So we have a proposal.
Did someone second?
No.
Thank you very much, Councillor Prater.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.

16 Folca 1 - Update and Disposal Strategy

So moving on to item 16, FOLKA 1 update and disposal strategy and Councillor McConville.
Thanks Chair.
Cllr Connor McConville - 2:27:22
Nearly at the end, very long agenda.
Okay so this hopefully shouldn't be too new to members.
Obviously the Foulker project has come to cabinet for many times over many years.
I think this is nearly six years since we purchased the property.
Obviously we're looking at Foulker 1.
Obviously the building's been divided as we see it into Foulker 1 and 2.
FOLK 1 being the red -bricked Edwardian bit that runs along Bovary Place there.
And just a little bit of background.
It was originally intended that a medical centre might go into this FOLK 1 area.
A cabinet looked at that back in 2021.
It seemed like ages ago.
And unfortunately, due to a number of factors, that wasn't possible.
So, another paper was brought back to Cabinet in 2024
to look at potential other uses for the building
without the Medical Centre being in there.
And as you'll see in the report,
a huge amount of officer and consultant time has gone into
really looking into every possible avenue
that the Council could use to utilise the space in this building.
And, you know, the options there, one through seven.
Unfortunately, you know, the possible desired options,
especially in the public mind, I guess, in terms of utilizing it for office space
or residential or commercial or both, I mean, there's a huge,
quite a large, possibly prohibitive cost to the council to bring those forward.
So, obviously the option is to dispose of that part of FOLKA site, FOLKA 1, to hopefully
put some revenue into reducing the borrowing cost towards FOLKA 2.
We'll come on to that in the next paper.
I think the Council should look at this as an opportunity rather than a threat to the
town centre.
Obviously, in terms of the wider levelling up projects, we want this part, this top bit
of the high street to be really a destination.
And I think trying to bring in some private investment to create something that goes against,
goes complements I guess what this council will be doing with FOCA 2 is a real opportunity.
So, I think we should try and look at it in that way rather than we're losing an asset
because I would argue it's not really an asset.
It's quite prohibitive in terms of cost for us to do anything with, that hopefully someone
can come along and do something really hopefully quite spectacularly with it that fits in with
what we're doing in the wider town centre.
So, that is the recommendations and that is the options.
I think as the process moves forward, if you look at, I think it was Section 4 .4, obviously
there's some comments there from the overhead scrutiny committee and those will be hopefully
taken on board as the sort of discussions continue once if we approve the recommendations
this evening.
Obviously there's quite a few financial numbers within the report.
I believe if members want to go into detail into those,
then we'll have to vote to go into private session.
Obviously we're not in the gallery, so I'll leave it there.
And I'll propose the recommendations.
Thank you very much, Councillor McConville.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:31:21
Very happy to second.
And I just want to make everyone aware
that we have been round the block and back again over this.
We have explored every single option available.
We have knocked on every door.
We have tried every single possible investment avenue.
So it is with personally with something of a heavy heart
that I will be supporting this because obviously we,
The original vision was for something different,
but we will not be able to move on with FOLKA 2
unless we deal with FOLKA 1.
So while I'm very, very happy to second this report,
it is something with a heavy heart, because we had hoped for so much more.
So very happy to open it up for questions or queries.
Any comments anyone wants to say?
No? Okay. Jolly good.
So we have a proposer, we have a seconder.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.

17 Folca 2 - update

So we move on then to FOLKA 2, an update,
and Councillor McConville will lead us through that.
Thank you.
Cllr Connor McConville - 2:32:47
Thank you, Chair.
While the previous paper wasn't ideal, obviously we would have wanted to bring a more positive
paper on FOLKA 2 to Cabinet, but obviously we're not quite there yet.
If you'll look at recommendation 6 with regards to the NHS, we're still awaiting the outcome
of all of that work, which again has been a huge amount of work to get us to the position
we're at currently in terms of really trying to get a medical centre into FOLKA too.
But aside from that, obviously the paper really is looking to receive some additional funds
from the public sector decarbonisation scheme, 1 .44 million,
which will go alongside the levelling up money that's already been put aside
to get the work on the shell of the building, if you like, done.
So it is ready for use.
Hopefully that, as I said, will include a medical centre,
but obviously, if needed,
when the final report comes back later in the autumn,
a full commercial option is ready to go if need be.
Happy to take any questions and move the recommendations.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:34:15
Thank you very much, Councillor McConville.
Very happy to second the report
and open it up for questions or queries.
Councillor Butcher.
Cllr James Butcher - 2:34:33
Is the assumption that if we're coming back with a final set of recommendations in the autumn,
is that effectively the deadline by which the NHS need to have either committed or not committed?
Cllr Connor McConville - 2:34:48
I'll probably say we're past the deadline, but like I said,
I think we really, as I said with the early report,
the council purchased this building six years ago, we just cannot wait any longer.
Obviously, in terms of the wider levelling up work going on,
It needs to happen.
So if they're on board, then excellent.
That's the best case scenario.
But if not, we have a perfectly good commercial contingency,
and we'll have to go with that.
We can't delay any longer.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:35:23
I think Andy wants to add something to that.
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 2:35:24
Thank you.
Just to add to what Councillor Condor has just said there,
I think we have waited a very long time
We've been working very hard with the ICB to try and get this over the line.
We can commence from this report, we've got the PSDS money, which is a great new story.
That's £1 .4 million of additional funding that we didn't have, so we're really delighted
about that and officers and the team worked really hard to get that.
That combined with the funding that we've already got set aside for the Phase 1 works.
We can do a load of work with that, so that's what we're calling Phase 1 and with the PSDS
as well.
So we're going to crack on with that.
We can wait a few more months whilst we fully scope out the phase two design works.
Once those are set in stone and that's the point where we go to tender,
come back to you and then seek approval, go to tender.
That is the drop dead date when we committed.
So now if we can do it and the ICB can commit, excellent.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:36:26
but it literally is a couple of months now.
Just for your information, Councillor Butcher,
the leader of Kent County Council came and see us yesterday
and it was one of the few points of agreement that we had
about how difficult it is working with the Integrated Care Board.
The Integrated Care Board are obviously an organisation
in huge structural change themselves
and they are currently waiting for the output, shall we say, from the Chancellor's spending
review.
That's why they can't commit at the moment.
They have to wait for that.
That doesn't do us any favours, as Councillor McConville quite accurately says.
You know, they've been our partners right from the start.
They've shared the vision.
There's no lack of determination from the individual officers.
It's simply their funding. That is the problem.
But we are reaching a point where we can wait no longer.
Councillor Prater.
Cllr Tim Prater - 2:37:33
Thank you. As you say, our work with FOLKA...
Connor said our work with FOLKA dates back to early 2000.
so I'm the only relic surviving from that particular, and I could probably use £3 .4
million worth of refurbishment works after that period of time as well.
So I'm delighted within this report.
What it actually does is that, as I said, the business case for it will depend on whether
the ICB actually finally can get on board and sign a contract, get on board and sign
a contract by the back end of this year.
But what this actually does is it commits so that we're going to get on with this and
we're going to start to fix that building and fix that art deco frame to make sure that
it's there for the future.
What's great therefore within the report where it says 2 .2, broadly it starts the work from
tomorrow in terms of going out and getting the tender procurement in place, in terms
of preparing, getting construction into place by January 2026, and with six months date
on that.
So I'm really pleased to see that it's moving forward, I'm really pleased to see that we're
going to get ourselves actually milled there.
I look forward to seeing the paper in October, November about which partners will be going
in there and I really hope it will be the ICB and I really hope that they can, you know,
we can actually make a great health centre for Folkestone within that building. But also
congratulate our officers for the amount of work they've done of having a plan B and probably
a plan C if the ICB don't go ahead. The number of challenges on this building since it was
in January, since we started moving on in 2020 is ridiculous.
Moving from Covid through war, through energy costs, through the ICP, hokey -cokey.
There can't have been a challenge not thrown at it.
It's going to be great to start fixing the building and healing the building
and I really hope that not very long after that we can also start using the building.
So thank you for this.
Happy to read the report.
Cllr Jim Martin - 2:39:55
Thank you very much, everyone.
So we have a proposer.
I think I seconded.
So all those in favor, please indicate.
Thank you very much, everyone.
And I think that that concludes our business
for this evening.
Thank you all of the officers.
Thank you all of the members for your patience.
and I didn't see anybody falling asleep at all.
Well done you. Thank you very much.