Agenda, decisions and minutes

            The Chairman welcomed Members, members of the public and Officers to what was the fourth virtual meeting of Cabinet. He provided a brief summary of how the meeting would be conducted and the protocol that would be followed and how any break in the proceedings due to technical difficulties would be managed.  

Members and officers are invited to make any declarations of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on the agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the item or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

Members and officers should make their declaration by stating:

a) the item they have the interest in

b) whether it is a pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interest

c) the nature of the interest

d) if it is a pecuniary or prejudicial interest, whether they will be exercising their right to speak under Question Time

Councillor Dr Walsh declared a Personal Interest in Agenda Item 4 [Urgent item] in respect on Pavement Licensing as a Member of West Sussex County Council as the Highway Authority.

a) Questions from the public (for a period of up to 15 minutes).

b) Questions from Members with prejudicial interests (for a period of up to 15 minutes).

            The Chairman confirmed that no questions had been submitted for this meeting.

The Cabinet may consider items of an urgent nature on functions falling within their responsibilities where special circumstances apply. Where the item relates to a key decision, the agreement of the Chairman of the Overview Select Committee must have been sought on both the subject of the decision and the reasons for the urgency. Such decisions shall not be subject to the call-in procedure as set out in the Scrutiny Procedure Rules at Part 6 of the Council’s Constitution.

Urgent Decision – Proposed Temporary Observation Wheel, Banjo Road, Littlehampton

            The Cabinet

                        RESOLVED

                        That the proposal of the Observation Wheel for temporary location at Banjo Road Car Park, Littlehampton from 22 July 2020 for an operating period of 28 days commencing from 24 July 2020 be endorsed.

Urgent Decision Two – Pavement Licensing

            The Cabinet

                        RESOLVED – That

(1)  The Pavement Licensing Policy be adopted;

(2)  The application fee be set at zero;

(3)  The authority given to the Leader of the Council in this instance be passed onto to the whole of Cabinet so that Cabinet has delegated authority to determine licence revocations proposed by Officers;

(4)   The authority given to the Leader of the Council in this instance is passed onto the whole of Cabinet and the Group Head of Technical Services, allowing the them to revoke pavement licences where the matter is considered urgent; and

(5)  The authority given to the Leader of the Council in this instance be passed onto the whole of Cabinet and the Group Head of Technical Services allowing the determination of applications, place conditions on licences and to serve enforcement notices.

(6)   

The Chairman confirmed that there were three urgent items that needed to be reported. 

The first related to the Residents’ Satisfactory Survey for 2020 and Councillor Dr Walsh confirmed that he felt that it was important to reveal some of the results that had been received.  He explained that a report would be submitted to the Overview Select Committee and Cabinet later in the year, but that he wanted to pass on the headlines in terms of what local residents thought about the area they lived in and the services received from the Council.

Councillor Dr Walsh reported three highlights from the survey as detailed below:

·         Overall satisfaction levels were high with 87% of residents saying that they were either very satisfied or satisfied with their local area, compared to 80% in 2019 and against a score of 81% for the Local Government Association (LGA) survey covering all Councils.

·         Satisfaction with the overall cleanliness of the district was high with 78% of residents either very satisfied or satisfied. Waste collection and recycling scored a satisfaction rate of 91%, against a figure of 85% for 2019.  This saw a significant improvement from previous results.

·         Satisfaction with the Council and its Services showed 77% of residents were either very satisfied or satisfied with the quality of service provided by Arun District Council, significantly up from 66% in 2019 and against the LGA survey with a figure of 70%.

Finally, Councillor Dr Walsh confirmed that whilst the survey also highlighted areas of concern, which would be reviewed by the Council in due course, he was delighted by the overall picture which showed very encouraging improvements over the last year.  He paid tribute to all Council staff who had helped to deliver these outstanding results and in particular, the Council’s refuse operatives who had continued to collect household waste throughout the Covid-19 pandemic so efficiently and with very few missed collections.

The Cabinet then noted the main features reported from the verbal updated provided.

Councillor Dr Walsh then alerted Cabinet to the next urgent matter which related to the Proposed Temporary Observation Wheel at Banjo Road, Littlehampton.

The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, Councillor Mrs Staniforth introduced this item and she explained that this report proposed that the Council endorsed the temporary location of an ‘observation wheel’ in Littlehampton at the Banjo Road car park in the area of the coach park which was currently underutilised. Councillor Mrs Staniforth outlined that this was an exciting opportunity for the Council as this would provide an enormous boost to the local economy and other tourism businesses that were struggling as a result of Covid-19.  Councillor Mrs Staniforth explained that this was an urgent report as a decision on whether to accept the observation wheel in this location had to be taken today, otherwise there was the threat that the operator would consider other suitable locations outside of the District.

The Group Head of Neighbourhood Services then presented the report and reinforced what Councillor Mrs Staniforth had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 88.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the Cabinet meeting held on 22 June 2020, as attached.

The Minutes of the Cabinet meeting held on 22 June 2020 were approved by the Cabinet as a correct record and the Chairman confirmed that he would sign the minutes as soon as practically possible.

To consider any reports from the Head of Corporate Support.

There were no matters discussed.

There are three planning appeals for major development where planning permission has been refused by the Council. All of these decisions were made at the Development Control Committee (DCC) contrary to the Officer recommendation. A Supplementary Estimate is sought to be able to present a case to these appeals because Officers are unable to fully articulate the case for the Council.

The Cabinet 

            RECOMMEND TO FULL COUNCIL

            That a supplementary estimate of £40,000 is agreed in order to defent decisions taken on planning applications M/80/19/PL; P/58/19PL and BE/109/19/OUT at planning appeal.

            The Band D equivalent for a £40k supplementary estimate is £0.64.

The Cabinet received a report from the Group Head of Planning which sought approval of a supplementary estimate of £40,000 to be able to present a case to defend three planning appeals for major development where planning permission had been refused by the Council.  The three applications had been refused by the Development Control Committee contrary to Officer recommendation and related to:

·         Middleton Poultry Farm

·         Inglenook Hotel, Pagham

·         Shripney Road, Shripney

The Group Head of Planning explained that Officers’ current appeal workload was exceptionally high and had increased significantly since May 2019. The Planning Department had limited resources to deal with appeals.  In the municipal year May 2019 to May 2020, 16 out of 81 applications that had been referred to the Development Control Committee had been overturned and refused planning permission.  This had resulted in 14 appeals to defend - ten current appeals as four had already been determined.  It was emphasised that the department had a very limited budget for this work and that Officers could not sustain such an increase in workload within existing resources.  Some of the appeals were for major development proposals and so had more significant issues to address as well as there being an increased exposure to cost awards against the Council, this was why a supplementary estimate was being sought. 

 In considering the report Cabinet asked various questions.  The Group Head of Planning was asked why it had been confirmed that Officers would be unable to fully articulate the case for the Council, especially as they were highly skilled in planning matters.  It was explained that there were several reasons why the supplementary estimate has been requested.  Officers had previously articulated decisions of the Committee particularly recently and had faced comments from Members about the quality of cases made at appeal and on issues where they would have genuinely struggled to have come up with a cogent case following the debate made at the Committee.  It was felt that the best solution was to seek a supplementary estimate and to source outside help on these appeals for this reason and due to the workload pressures already explained. 

The Chairman then invited non-Cabinet Councillors to ask questions.  Several participated and outlined concern over the workload of the Officer team and whether the Council was looking to expand the number of Officers in the Planning team to consider the number of planning applications rejected at the Development Control Committee.  Questions were also asked about what would be the supplementary cap before this issue was reviewed?  The Chairman responded to part of this question reminding Councillors that any voting that took place against an Officer recommendation was entirely cross party reflecting the quasi-judicial nature of the Committee.  A better education and briefing of Members with each application might assist.  The Group Head of Planning could not confirm that a permanent solution in terms of extra funding or posts in Planning could resolve the current issue.  If this situation continued to be a trend, then this  ...  view the full minutes text for item 91.

The report provides a summary of revenue and capital outturn expenditure for 2019/20 and compares this expenditure with the approved budget. 

The Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Corporate Support introduced the revenue and capital outturn expenditure for 2019/20 explaining that the report set out the actual performance for Capital, Housing Revenue Account and General Fund Revenue against budget for 2019/20.

It was explained that despite the early effects of the Covid-19 pandemic the Council finished the financial year with some strong financial performance.  The supplementary estimates approved during the year were effectively covered by underspends in other areas and a review of unrequired earmarked reserves enabled an addition transfer to the Funding Resilience Reserve which now stands close to £6m (£5.826m).

            The Financial Services Manager, before commenting on the outturn report stated that she would like to take the opportunity to update Cabinet on the latest Covid-19 grant funding position.  The allocation of the third tranche of £500m had been announced on 16 July 2020 and it was pleasing to confirm that the Council would be receiving a further £264,767.  This was the highest amount for all the Districts in West Sussex and had been based on Round 2 and 3 spend, population and deprivation.  This made the total of non-ringfenced support £1.939m, meaning that Arun had received the highest level of grant funding out of all Districts in West Sussex.

In addition, separate compensation was anticipated for fees and charges such as car parking under the Income Loss Scheme, however, Leisure Trusts were not covered by the scheme at this stage nor were commercial and rental income.

            The Financial Services Manager then reported on the Revenue and Capital outturn 2019/20 report confirming that the draft accounts for the year ended 31 March 2020 were available to view on the Council’s website.  The Statements were currently being audited as originally planned for approval by the Audit and Governance Committee on 30 July 2020, however, achieving this deadline was subject to significant additional risk this year mainly due to the increased uncertainty due to Covid 19 including the issues that were completely out of the Council’s control like the conclusion of the audit of the West Sussex County Council pension fund.

It was outlined that if there were any material changes specially to the usable reserve balances, then a full update would be provided to the next meeting of Cabinet on 21 September 2020.

            Brief updates were then provided as follows:

·         General Fund Outturn 2019/20 - Section 2 - some of the variations against individual service budgets in appendix A were due to technical accounting requirements e.g. capital and special projects which were budgeted separately.  Also, the requirement to split current and past pension fund liabilities. 

The variations against original budget had been summarised in table 2.4 of the report. It was outlined that it should be noted that the outturn was made up of a significant number of over and underspends against budget.

The outturn was generally favourable which allowed an additional contribution of £844k (balance £5.826m) to the Funding Resilience Reserve.  This reserve was set  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92.

This report updates Cabinet on the Council’s response to the pandemic situation and possible proporals for economic recovery.

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Dr Walsh, outlined that this formed another update report from the Chief Executive to bring Cabinet and other Members up to date with how the Council has been dealing with the Coronavirus over recent weeks.  All Members had received a weekly update from the Chief Executive and himself and these briefings had also been sent to the Council’s partners.  

The first part of the report was a formal record of what the Council had done.  The Covid-19 Recovery Working Party had met on the 2 July to help the Cabinet consider not only the economic impact on the Council, but also its local businesses and the community, but also how it should consider the social impacts.  The report provided notes made at that meeting at Item 10 and the Chairman confirmed that these would be considered as part of this item. 

The Chief Executive then worked through some of the detail of the report before moving onto the notes taken from the Working Party meeting, confirming that the Working Party notes set out ideas for the recovery stage of Covid-19.  The Working Party had held its first initial meetings to establish ideas and would be meeting again on 23 July 2020 to prioritise some actions and make recommendations to the next meeting of Cabinet on 21 September 2020.

 The Chairman invited Cabinet debate.  The positive impact from the Bognor Regis Business Improvement District (BID) and the Council in terms of the parts they had played in communicating to the business community was sighted as a real positive.  The role of the business wardens was also seen as a very useful tool used when lockdown restrictions had eased and as the High Street had started to reopen.  It was felt that the business wardens would continue to play a valuable role in assisting with the new requirements for all to wear face masks in shops from 24 July 2020.  It was hoped that most people would adhere to these new rules. Of concern were reports that there was an upturn in aggressive behaviour towards retail staff and how accessible would the police service be in assisting retail staff experiencing difficulties in the event that shoppers were refusing to wear face coverings.  It was asked if the Arun Business Partnership could offer any support to avoid a new strain being placed onto the customer/employee relationship.  

The Chief Executive responded stating that there needed to be a careful balance between encouraging people to come and use the District’s shops versus trying to stimulate markets.  He had been in touch with the Police on a regular basis and would raise this concern.  In terms of trying to support the retail sector, the Council had employed some community officers through the High Street Fund to assist with the issues raised.  The main priority was to support retail in the area whilst at the same time maintaining the safety of the District.

Congratulations were passed onto the Council’s housing team  ...  view the full minutes text for item 93.

Attached are the Minutes from the meeting of the Covid-19 Recovery Working Party which are to be considered in conjunction with Item 9 above.

This item had been considered as part of the last item, the Council’s response to the Covid 19 Pandemic Situation.

The Chairman confirmed that there were no items to report to this meeting.