Issue - meetings

This report seeks Committee support for the adoption of a policy document which provides a transparent and consistent approach to applications and the decision-making process governing the transfer of assets to community organisations (where applicable). To achieve this, the policy document requires that it be demonstrated how community asset transfer supports direct service delivery, the Council’s Corporate Plan, its objectives and other corporate plans and policies.

The Director of Growth presented his report to the committee which was seeking support for the adoption of a policy document providing a transparent and consistent approach to applications and the decision-making process governing the transfer of assets to community organisations.

           Before inviting members to debate the item, the Chair requested members to propose and second the officer recommendation as detailed in the report. The recommendation was proposed by Councillor Stanley and seconded by Councillor  Penycate.

The committee asked a range of questions. Firstly, the disposing of assets at market value was of interest and how equity across the district in such actions would be monitored. The Director of Growth confirmed that he did not propose to speculate how this might be applied to any individual asset and reminded the committee that the purpose of adopting the proposed policy was to ensure a transparent and consistent approach to the transfer of assets that may not have existed in the past. If adopted, the policy would assess one application for a community transfer against another whilst at the same time applying consideration of other areas as set out in the policy. 

As the report confirmed that community asset transfers had been possible since the General Disposals Consent (England) Act 2003 had been introduced, it was queried why had it taken this long for a draft policy to be presented for approval. Was this because the council suddenly had a desire to consider such transfers and needed to introduce a framework to allow it to do so? The Director of Growth highlighted that the council was currently undertaking an accommodation review, the outcome of which was not known at this stage. Having a community asset transfer policy in place would allow the council to consider all common themes and any implications that might arise as part of that work.  There were no other direct examples that he could identify at this stage.

The Chair emphasised that it was important to have a framework in place so that the council could fully consider the risks and benefits of any potential transfers. The  adoption of the policy was seen to be a reasonable starting point and especially as the council was looking at its accommodation needs coupled with local government reorganisation which was on the horizon.  A question was asked in terms of how the policy would be reviewed. It was acknowledged that this would be every 3 years to incorporate legislative regulatory changes and amendments. If changes needed to be made sooner than every 3 years, would the Property and Estates section make the required changes and report these back to committee, as this was not clear from reading the report. The Director of Growth stated that the report had been written before the Government white paper on devolution and local government reorganisation had been published and so this would be a matter for any successor organisation to action.

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED

                     To adopt the policy document.

(During the course of the discussion  ...  view the full minutes text for item 468