RESOLVED:                         It was duly moved, seconded and carried unanimously, that Councillor G John be appointed Chairperson of the Coychurch Crematorium Joint Committee for the ensuing year.

Councillor John took the Chair.

RESOLVED:                        It was duly moved, seconded and carried unanimously, that Councillor A Pucella be appointed Vice-Chairperson of the Coychurch Crematorium Joint Committee for the ensuing year.

To receive declarations of personal and prejudicial interest (if any) from Members/Officers in accordance with the provisions of the Members’ Code of Conduct adopted by Council from 1st September 2009.

None.

To receive for approval the Minutes of 05/03/2021

RESOLVED:                              That the Minutes of a meeting of the Coychurch Crematorium Joint Committee dated 5 March 2021, be approved as a true and accurate record.

The Clerk and Technical Officer presented a report, the purpose of which, was to advise the Joint Committee on the performance of Coychurch Crematorium during 2020/21, as part of the above. He briefly introduced the report, then handed over to the Bereavement Services Manager and Registrar to expand upon some detail of its content.

The Bereavement Services Manager and Registrar confirmed that Appendix A to the report, identified the performance of Coychurch Crematorium relating to, in particular:

•           Number of cremations

•           Service standards

•           Planned expenditure

•           Achievement of Business Plan objectives

In terms of the number of cremations for 2020/21, she confirmed that these totalled 2,086 made up of cremations in Bridgend, the Vale of Glamorgan, Rhondda Cynon Taf and ‘others’.

This was an increase on the 1,670 cremations for the previous year, which was largely due sadly, to extra deaths having taken place as a result of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a result of the extra cremations that had taken place, in March 2021 two further staff had been employed at the Crematorium, to assist in the extra work the pandemic had brought about, with staff members working incredibly hard on a two shift basis, undertaking extra hours to deal with the increased amount of cremations.

The Bereavement Services Manager and Registrar was also pleased to confirm that the Crematorium had also in 2020/21, secured another Green Flag Award for the 11^th year in succession

In terms of public satisfaction of performance of the Crematoria during the above period,this reflected an overall satisfaction level being of a standard of good or excellent, ie remaining at 100% through the return of completed questionnaires.

The next section of the Appendix, contained details of expenditure for planned works for 2020/21 where the programme confirmed, that due to the pandemic, three projects had been delayed to 2021/22, namely the External Lighting, Flower Court extension and the Chapel Music and Media System upgrade.

The table in the Appendix entitled 2020/21 Business Plan Assessment and Review, confirmed that other planned works for this year had been completed. This was in respect of Electrical Distribution Boards and planned actions as contained in the Crematorium Budget Strategy.

RESOLVED:                          That the Joint Committee noted the report.

The Treasurer submitted a report, the purpose of which, was to present the unaudited Annual Accounting Statement for the 2020-21 financial year to the Joint Committee, and to obtain approval to submit the Annual Accounting Statement for Coychurch Crematorium to Audit Wales.

Under Regulation 14 of the Accounts and Audit (Wales) Regulations 2014, the Coychurch Crematorium Joint Committee is required to complete an Annual Accounting Statement as they are classed as a smaller local government body with annual income and expenditure below £2.5 million.

The certified Annual Accounting Statement must be published by no later than the 30 September.

Section 1 of the Annual Accounting Statement (attached at Appendix 1 to the report), showed that in 2020-21 Coychurch Crematorium made a net surplus of £845,231 (difference between Line 1 ‘Balances brought forward’ and Line 7 ‘Balances carried forward’). The surplus has been added to the accumulated reserve for the Crematorium brought forward at 31 March 2020, bringing the total of that reserve to £2,898,883 at 31 March 2021 compared to £2,053,652 in the preceding year.

Table 1 in paragraph 4.1 of the report, showed a summary of the final financial position for the Crematorium for 2020-21, as compared to the budget set at the start of the financial year.

Explanations for the more significant variances from budget were given in bullet point format in paragraph 4.2 of the report and expanded upon at the meeting, by the Finance Manager, Financial Control and Closing.

Table 2 below in this section of the report, gave a breakdown of the Planned Maintenance Budget along with the Outturn and Variances for 2020-21. Some of the detail of these, had been shared with Members of the Joint Committee in the previous agenda item including underspends on certain projects that had been delayed as a result of the pandemic, added the Finance Manager, Financial Control and Closing.

In addition to the Annual Accounting Statement, a supplementary Balance Sheet was provided at Table 3 shown in the report. This supplementary information provided a further breakdown of the figures recorded in the Annual Accounting Statement. This was for Members information only, and was not subject to audit at year end.

Further information to explain the balances was provided at paragraph 4.4 of the report.

RESOLVED:                                 That the Joint Committee approved the Annual Accounting Statement for Coychurch Crematorium for 2020-21 (Appendix 1 to the report), and requested that the Chairperson of the Joint Committee signs the Annual Accounting Statement.

To consider any other item(s) of business in respect of which notice has been given in accordance with Rule 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.