To receive apologies for absence from Members/Officers for the reasons so stated

Apologies for absence were received from the following Members/ Officers for the reasons so stated:

Councillor S Aspey – Work Commitments

Councillor C James – Unwell

Councillor P James – Caring responsibilities

Councillor L Ellis – Childcare

To receive declarations of personal and prejudicial interest from Members/Officers in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct adopted by Council from 1 September 2008

None

To receive and confirm the minutes of a meeting of Council dated 28 October 2015

RESOLVED:               The minutes of the meeting of Council dated 28 October 2015 be approved as a true and accurate record of the meeting subject to the inclusion of Councillor J H Tildesley’s vote with regard to minute no.545

(i)            Mayor (or person presiding)

(ii)           Members of the Cabinet

(iii)          Chief Executive

Mayor

The Mayor announced that one of his aims for his Mayoral year was to visit different faith groups to demonstrate our support for the multi-cultural society in which we now live. He explained he had the pleasure of visiting the Cardiff Synagogue recently as a guest and observer. He was made extremely welcome and found the whole experience both moving and fascinating.  He was privileged to witness the recitation of the Jewish Prayer for the Dead - the Kaddish - which was recited in honour of Remembrance Sunday. This was a memorable experience and one of the highlights of his year so far. The Mayor added that he had invited Rabbi Michoel Rose and members of his congregation to visit Bridgend and he looked forward to hosting them soon. He was also shortly due to visit the Salvation Army, and was currently liaising with the Muslim Association to arrange a visit to the mosque in Aberkenfig

As Christmas was advancing fast the Mayor had pleasure in announcing that as part of the charity fundraising, he and the Mayoress would be hosting a “Nearly Christmas Dinner” on the evening of the 20 December at the Heronston Hotel. Tickets were £21 per person and Kate Thomas had kindly agreed to speak about her experiences during her time as Lord Lieutenant. He added he aimed to make the dinner a lovely and enjoyable evening and would be honoured if Members would join him. Tickets were available via his charity committee – and added that he appreciated Members support, whether it was attending events, donating prizes or purchasing raffle tickets.

The Mayor confirmed to Members that as agreed at the last Council meeting, he had written as Chair of Council to Prime Minister David Cameron expressing the Council’s opinion that the UK Government should abandon the Trade Union Bill and make a commitment to work in partnership with the Trade Union movement to achieve a fairer society.  He added that he had received a response to say that the correspondence was under consideration.

Finally, the Mayor informed Members that the Council had recently lost two former councillors and past mayors. Bill Burt sadly passed away not long after he and the Mayoress had recently of visited him at Bryn-y-Cae where he was delighted to receive his Ogwr mayoral portrait. The Mayor added that he was a gentleman to the core, and would be greatly missed. His funeral would be held on Monday 30 November at 2.15pm at Coychurch Crematorium and the Mayor was honoured that the family had asked him to say a few words about Bill. He further added that all were welcome at the funeral and later at the Mason’s Arms in Bryncethin.  The Mayor also passed on the sad news that Granville Walters had died last weekend. Glan, as he was known, was the second Mayor of BCBC and a long serving Councillor and community Councillor, his funeral would be held on 2 December at Coychurch Crematorium.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 550.

The Leader announced that following the recent dreadful terrorist attacks in Paris, he advised members he had drafted a letter as Leader to the First Minister expressing the sympathies and concerns of the people of the county borough, and requested that he pass these on in any dealings he may have on the matter. He added that the Mayor had also written directly to the French Consulate, and the authority had observed the national one minute silence with the flags placed at half-mast.

The Leader stated that members may have seen that Welsh Government had confirmed it was due to contribute £580 million towards a City Deal proposal that could be worth up to £1.28 billion. This marked a major commitment and the Leader had recently joined with the leaders of nine other local authorities to submit an outline of their proposals to the UK Government ahead of the comprehensive spending review.   He added that the City Deal would require close working with UK Government, Welsh Government and the private sector, and if successful would deliver many benefits linked to the economy and transport connectivity. It would also improve local productivity, create new jobs and improve the quality of life for people living throughout the South East Wales area.  The Leader stated that he was proud that Bridgend County Borough Council was playing a key role in the project, and was looking forward to keeping Members updated on as it progressed further.

Finally, the Leader informed members that not long after the authority first came into being BCBC marked the completion in the Garw Valley of what was then the largest land reclamation project in Europe. He added that he was always impressed at the scale of that project and how it was continuing to benefit local people almost twenty years later, so he was overjoyed to see work begin in the neighbouring Llynfi Valley on an ambitious 10 year plan to transform the former Coegnant Colliery and Maesteg Washery site into an all-new community woodland.   He advised that as well as creating a range of wildlife habitats and bringing part of the valley back into public use, the project was intended to help reduce the risk of flooding in the area.  It would involve the planting of 60,000 broadleaf, ornamental and fruit trees, and the Authority were working closely with Welsh Government, Natural Resources Wales, the Ford Motor Company and Maesteg Town Council on the project.   The Leader added that this was going to create a cleaner, greener space that would encourage people to be more active, and was sure to have a long and lasting impact on the lives of local residents as well as visitors.

The Head of Finance and ICT provided Members with the Half – Year Treasury Management report.  He advised members that the Council was required to operate the overall treasury function with regard to the Code and that it was formally adopted by the Council in February 2012.  This included a requirement for the Council to approve a Treasury Management Strategy (TMS) before the start of each financial year which set out the Councils and Chief Financial Officer’s responsibilities, delegation and reporting arrangements.  He added that Council approved the TMS 2015-16 on 25 February 2015.

The Head of Finance and ICT referred to the table detailed in paragraph 4 of the report and stated that the £19.25 million was due to mature in 2054 and related to the Lender’s Option Borrowers Option (LOBO) loans which may be rescheduled in advance of the maturity date.  The LOBO rate and term may vary in the future depending upon the prevailing market rates, the lender exercising their option to increase rates at one of the bi-annual trigger points and therefore, the Council being given the option to accept the increase or to repay the loan without incurring a penalty.  The current average interest rate for these LOBO’s was 4.65% compared to the PWLB Loans average interest rate of 4.70%

The Head of Finance and ICT stated that the long term liabilities figure of £23.62 million at 30 September 2015 included £19.04 million for the Council’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) arrangement (for the provision of a Secondary School in Maesteg) and a new Long Term Liability of £2.40 million relating to a loan from the WG Central Capital Retained Fund for regeneration works within the Llynfi Valley. 

The Head of Finance and ICT informed Council that the Bank Rate started the financial year at 0.50% and it had remained at that level from 1 April to 30 September 2015.  He added that it was expected to remain at that level for the 2015-16 financial year. 

The Head of Finance and ICT stated that Cipfa’s Code of Practice for Treasury Management required all Local Authorities to conduct a mid-year review of its treasury management policies, practices and activities.  As a result of the review it was not deemed necessary to make any changes to the main parts of the Treasury Management Strategy 2015-16, however, it the review stated it would be beneficial for the Council to make some minor revisions to the Investment Strategy included within the Statement to enable increased flexibility and increase the investment opportunities available to the Council whilst still maintaining security.  Following consultation with Alingclose the proposed main changes were:

·         Reduce the UK Local Authorities individual counterparty limit from £15 million to £12 million

·         Increase the unsecured investments with Building Societies group limit from £5 million to £6 million

·         Add additional wording to clarify to the counterparty limits

A Member referred to para 4.4.3 of the report and asked where the favourable cash flows came from and how they compared  ...  view the full minutes text for item 552.

The Head of Finance and ICT reported that under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (as amended), Council was required to set the tax base upon which council tax was levied by the authority and other precepting bodies.  The information was required by Welsh Government to allocate the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) to local authorities and by the Council to calculate the Council tax required to fund the 2016-17 budget. 

The Head of Finance and ICT advised that the estimated Council tax base for 2016-17 was £53,247.37and the estimated collection rate was 97.5% which was 0.5% increase on the previous year.  He added that the Council tax element of the Council’s budget requirement would be based on the net council tax base for each community area and details of these were attached at appendix A of the report.

A member referred to the table in appendix A of the report and noted that the 97.5% collection percentage was an estimated figure; they stated that members would be better informed if they could see actual figures and not an estimate.  The Head of Finance and ICT stated that the figures were an estimate due to the timescales being in the future, he advised that he was able to share actual figures for previous years as a comparison if members preferred. 

Members questioned the 0.5% increase in the estimated collection percentage of the Council Tax base and asked if the Town and Community Councils would have more financial resources available to them than previous years.  The Head of Finance and ICT explained that the estimated collection percentage was used to calculate the Council’s RSG and that the Town and Community Councils would collect 0.5% more Council tax than they did in the previous year. 

RESOLVED:               1. Council approved the Council tax base and collection rate for 2016-17 as shown in paragraph 4.1 of the report

                                    2. Council approved the tax bases for the Community areas set out in Appendix A of the report.

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services submitted a report to Council regarding he progress that had been made in respect of the implantation of webcasting for meetings of Council and its Committees.  He explained that the following benefits had been identified that could be achieved from the broadcasting of public meetings:

§  Transparent governance and accountability

§  Citizen engagement and understanding of the democratic process for example understanding of planning decisions

§  Enables the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 requirement for engaging public in Scrutiny

§  Incentive for high standards of member attendance, engagement and conduct at meetings

§  Effective means of communicating to officers and other members information and decisions.  Archived meetings could also be a useful part of officer induction and training.

§  Opportunities for members to learn from peer observation and inform potential candidates about their role to encourage democratic renewal.

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services reminded members that Council approved the recording and broadcasting of meetings and approved initial proposals to take forward the webcasting of meetings on 30 April 2014.  Council agreed that to reduce the cost of implementation and operation, the Council Chamber would be used for all webcasts.  As a result, work was carried out to improve the displays and update some of the presentation systems within the Council chamber and a pilot webcast had taken place as proof of concept.

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services advised that an initial plan based on a formal Committee meeting lasting 3 hours was being proposed which would enable many of the public formal Committees to be webcast before 30 March 2016.  As the Development Control Committee was a regulatory Committee and currently had a higher level of public interest than other committees it was proposed that two meetings of that Committee be webcast during that period. The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services informed Members that additional webcasting refresher training would be provided to members and officers.  Training sessions had been provisionally arranged for 4 January 2016 and a further session would be held on 25 January 2016. 

RESOLVED:               That Council considered the content of the report and approved the implementation of webcasting to Bridgend County Borough Council

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services presented Council with a review of work undertaken by the Overview and Scrutiny function during the period September 2014 – September 2015.  He advised that since 2008 there had been a number of incremental changes to the corporate structure.  Some changes to the remits of the Committees had been undertaken but these changes had only been to realign the scrutiny Committees to the directorate responsibilities.  He added that with the significant challenges faced by the Authority to meet the requirements of the MTFS, savings have had to be made across all departments and Directorates, with scrutiny being no exception. 

The Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services informed members that following a work programming exercise in 2014 it was identified that there was a significant volume of replication between the scrutiny committees.  Members expressed their concerns that this was a duplication of effort and distracted the committees from undertaking effective scrutiny of the service areas.  He advised that to address this and other concerns a review of the activities of Scrutiny was undertaken.  Proposals were developed in consultation with the Scrutiny Chairpersons which were subsequently collated into a report for presentation to Council in April 2015.  The Future Delivery of Effective Scrutiny report proposed a significant number of changes to address the concerns of Members, this included scrutiny of the following topics and to be co-ordinated by the Corporate Resources & Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a.     Performance Monitoring

b.     Corporate Plan

c.     Business Planning

d.     Budget Monitoring

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services stated to Members that covering reports from the scrutiny officers to the Scrutiny Committees had now

ceased.  He explained that scrutiny officers had begun to work with the service officers to prepare their reports in accordance with the Committee requirements.  He added that the process would continue to be developed and it was hoped that reports presented to the Scrutiny Committees would fully meet their requirements.  The involvement of scrutiny officers to support the authors of the reports would also reduce the likelihood of additional requests for information being made by the committee, thereby substantially reducing the considerable amount of time spent by Scrutiny and other officers within the directorates in following up requests for further information.

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services explained that Scrutiny activities could be wide ranging and diverse and were not necessarily experienced by stakeholders within the process in a consistent and easily describable way. For example, Research and Evaluation Panels provided a less formal form of interaction between Committee Members and invitees than a traditional Committee meeting setting allows for. However, ‘Call-Ins’ were a very different experience for invitees and the impact of Scrutiny in these two instances would be specific to each case.  He added that striking an effective balance between the ‘challenge’ and ‘support’ elements of the Scrutiny function was reliant on Committees building strong working relationships and demonstrating other key skills such as negotiation and influencing,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 555.

To consider any item(s) of business in respect of which notice has been given in accordance with Part 4 (paragraph 4) of the Council Procedure Rules and which the person presiding at the meeting is of the opinion should by reason of special circumstances be transacted at the meeting as a matter of urgency.

None