The Chairman of the Council, the Chairmen of Committees and Sub-Committees and Portfolio Holders to answer any questions on any matters in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affect the District of which due notice has been given in accordance with Council Procedure Rule No. 12.
Minutes:
45.1 Questions were asked in accordance with Council Procedure Rule No.12.
45.2 The Chairman informed Council that in the absence of Councillor Williams a written response would be circulated.
Question 1
Councillor Williams to Councillor Ridley (Cabinet Member for Assets and Investments)
1. Please supply a full copy of the Asset register of Babergh District Council before the office move to Needham Market and Endeavour House, itemising description and book values for each.
2. Please supply a full copy of the Asset register of Babergh District Council after the office move to Needham Market and Endeavour House to the current date itemising description and book values for each.
3. Please supply a full listing of the Assets appearing in 1 above but not 2, along with:
3.1 Their current location and to whom sold and/or donated by full name and address;
3.2 If sold, the amount agreed as consideration and the amount paid; and a full explanation as to why assets were given away or sold at less than book value.
4. Whether any assets in 3 above could be recovered and at what cost.
5. Whether there are any assets now held in Hadleigh, Needham Market and Endeavour House and if so please supply a full description with their acquisition cost and current book values.
6. Can you please supply also:
6.1 The cost of the move to Endeavour House in actual terms with a
breakdown; (A)
6.2 The current annual running costs of operating from Endeavour
House; (B)
6.3 The annual running costs of operating from Corks Lane in its final full financial year (C); and
6.4 The projected annual saving or loss (D) where:
(A + B) – (C ) = D
6.5 The projected saving or loss over the next 5 years.
6.6 The projected costs of a return to Corks Lane.
6.7
The projected annual loss to the
economy of the move from Corks Lane to Endeavour House for:
6.7.1 Hadleigh
6.7.2 Babergh District
6.8 The extent to which the Council analysed the data available to it whether in actual or projected terms) in 6 (but not 6.6) above before deciding to move to Endeavour House.
6.9 Details of any reports commissioned as to the effect on the community and its views of the move to Endeavour House and all conclusions drawn therein on the representational benefits /disbenefits of operating the HQ of Babergh District Council outside and from one end of the constituency (Ipswich).
6.10 When I attended the Joint Audit and Standards Committee on 12th March I was made aware that Babergh Residents in large numbers were turning up at Endeavour House expecting to have their issues dealt with. They were being told to go to Stowmarket and Sudbury. I discovered this by listening to the complaints in the queue of people before me and by questioning the receptionist. I find this entirely unsatisfactory.When will the initiative be taken to reposition our HQ back into our District and in a central location?”
Response Councillor Ridley (Cabinet Member for Assets and Investments)
Question 1 – 5 - Please refer to the attached written response from Councillor Ridley on 20th February 2018, which was the same response provided by the Officer at the Joint Audit and Standards meeting on the 12th March 2018.
Question 6.1 – 6.5 - Please refer to report BOS/17/37 All Together Programme, presented to Babergh Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 19th March 2018.
Question 6.6 – 8 - Please refer to the attached written response from Councillor Ridley on 20th February 2018.
Response Question 6.9 Councillor Davis (Cabinet Member for Organisational Delivery)
I welcome Cllr Williams’ question and share his concerns and to a lesser degree his experience with Babergh residents not being able to access officers.
Indeed having to make a two hour bus journey to get to Stowmarket or Sudbury from the outer reaches of the district, such as Shotley, or Brantham, and it is not much quicker from East Bergholt is not the service we should be proving.
Following a question from Cllr Creswell at cabinet recently it was resolved that we shall look at the viability of a cut down service in Hadleigh and perhaps then rolling a similar service out to other areas within the district.
Hopefully we can find a way of providing an even better service than before the move to Endeavour House.
We are currently reviewing our Customer Access Strategy and will be reporting back to Cabinet in July. We are committed to providing excellent customer services and so are exploring, through this review, how to take advantage of other opportunities to provide further self-service facilities across the district.
We have asked the Facilities Management company Vertas, who are responsible for managing Endeavour House reception, to record details of the number of Babergh & Mid Suffolk customers presenting at Endeavour House and the nature of their enquiries. This will allow us to monitor the situation accurately and respond accordingly. Although we have not designed Endeavour House to be a customer service centre, we will of course support customers coming here, without them needing to re-present at Stowmarket or Sudbury.
As for relocating back into the district, as much as many people may prefer that, It is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. More detailed plans for the re-use of the Corks Lane site have also been consulted on recently and will be coming to Councillors for decisions in the next few months. In all the circumstances, therefore, and having signed a 10-year lease with Suffolk County Council, it would not be prudent to move our HQ again, within six months of moving to Endeavour House.
Question 2
Councillor Bavington to Councillor Osborne (Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing)
1. What is the total number of empty homes in the Babergh District?
Response:- 319 empty six months plus, correct at end Feb 18. These are ‘normal’ empties and do not include those going through probate, people in hospital/care etc.
2. How many have been vacant for two years or more?
Response:- 84
3. How many have been vacant for five years or more?
Response:- 0
4. How many have been vacant for ten years or more?
Response:- 0
5. How many of the total have been brought back into use?
Response:-In respect to the total number of properties brought back in to use, between April 2017 and February 2018, the number of short term empty properties, has increased. The difference between those empty six months to two years between March 2017 and February 2018 rose by 55 as an accumulative.
For those properties empty more than 2 years, 29 were returned to use between April 2017 to Feb 2018.
For further information, of those empty more than 2 years, in the year 2015/16, 47 properties were returned to use and in 2016/17, 64 properties were returned to use.
6. How many EMDOs have been made in the last year? How many cases were prepared and what stage of preparation did they reach and why were they not proceeded with?
Response:-
0. For info, cases were prepared for Compulsory Purchase Orders, but these did not proceed.
An Empty Dwelling Management Order is a piece of legislation which allows Local Authorities to take over the management of an empty property where the following criteria can be proven:
· The property has been wholly unoccupied for at least 6 months
· There is no reasonable prospect of the property being returned to use by the owner
· The property is a habitable standard or can be made habitable at a ‘reasonable cost’
· The LA can demonstrate that the property will be occupied following the EDMO.
The LA must apply to a Residential Property Tribunal to secure an EDMO and are seen as a last resort when returning properties back to use. They can be in place no more than 7 years.
The legislation is complex and difficult to use which is why nationally they are seldom used.
BDC use advice and guidance together with financial assistance to encourage owners of empty properties to return them to use.
7. What is the present total number of families on our waiting list and how many of those families might be housed if EMDOs were made on all homes that fall under this power? Can you confirm how may households might be housed?
Response:- 927 households on Babergh’s housing register
It would be impossible to answer this question without knowing exact property details of each empty together with family size of those on the waiting list, not to mention whether the empty properties were in the location requested by those on the waiting list.
Supplementary Question:-
Can the Portfolio holder confirm that EDMO’s have actually been considered and have been rejected and does she continue to monitor the situation to see whether it would be appropriate in any particular circumstances to use one.
Response from Councillor Osborne Cabinet Member for Housing:
They have been considered but because of the complex legislation and the failure sometimes to get them through and also to take into consideration that those properties can only be occupied under that order for a period of seven years, Babergh haven’t taken them up. There is no reason why we cannot look at that again and in fact under the development of the new housing strategy that is something we can look at and take into consideration on how we actively and innovatively work to bring empty properties into occupation. A lot of work has been done by the homeless team as well as with private landlords to assist in the new Homelessness Act and to make sure the Council is compliant. I would be happy to meet with you at a later date to discuss in detail the work that is being done.
Question 3
Councillor Shropshire to Councillor Ward (Cabinet Member for Economy)
a) How much does it cost to run the Lavenham Tourist Information Centre (TIC)?
b) How much money (sensible estimation will suffice) does Tourism in Lavenham bring into the local economy?
c) How many jobs in Lavenham are supported by Tourism?
Response
a) Lavenham TIC consistently runs at an overall deficit of around £60k net annual cost to Babergh DC (net cost projection of £57,320 for 18/19). This amount does not include Finance Team calculated recharges estimated at £43,250 for 18/19. That would make a total overall annual cost of £100,570 for 18/19.
b) We commission annual district wide ‘Volume and Value’ data on the Economic Impact of Tourism. We last sought a specific destination and market town drill down of this study in 2015 (which included Lavenham), as it is quite costly. This concluded that Lavenham generated a total direct and direct tourism value of £6.51m to the local economy, with Babergh overall generating £183.86m.
c) That same study indicated 113 FTE jobs directly related to tourism for Lavenham (out of 2990 FTE all of Babergh), and 155 as all tourism related FTE for Lavenham (out of 4174 all Babergh).
Supplementary Question from Councillor Shropshire
With somewhere like Lavenham which relies so heavily on tourism, would it not be a sensible suggestion for those facts to be given to both the district councillor and perhaps the parish council before decisions are made so that the ease of the decision can be fed into the community rather than being told one day that the information centre is being shut?
Response
Thank you the paper that went to Cabinet was a restrictive paper because of the HR implications, once the decision was taken the information was then provided.
Question 4
Councillor Hinton to Councillor Ward (Leader of the Council)
As the “Merger” has been put on hold for the foreseeable future, and there was a motion passed by Babergh Council in December 2017 forbidding the expenditure of any monies or officer time on merger work in the financial year 2018 – 2019, how has the “Draft business case” on Merger recently circulated been financed and how much has actually been spent in financial and officer time (we are after all a joint officer structure with apportioned cost, but separate constitutional and financial bodies,) on the 82 page document?
Response Leader of the Council
The draft business case, which has been circulated to all Councillors for information, was developed in accordance with the decision of Cabinet on 7 December 2017.
No direct costs have been incurred in drafting the business case. Staff time has of course been used to draft the business case but as officers do not record their time it is not possible to quantify this with any accuracy however apart from the recent publication on the website the costs of preparation of the business case was incurred in the financial year 2017 to 18.
Supplementary
Bearing in mind in the answer to the previous question which stated that £43K was recharges for the Lavenham TIC for officers time, how is it that they can work out officers time spent on something like the TIC but something like an 82 page document for a business case they are unable to? Added to which it does state on the first line of the business case that Babergh and Mid Suffolk have prepared this business case to test the opinion of generating a new single Council, they were already testing that opinion with a telephone survey.
Response
To answer the second part of that the business case and the telephone survey were quite clearly stated as being two separate parts of the work we were doing to evaluate the viability and case for merger so they were separate and they were always intended to be two different and separate activities, starting with the telephone survey and continuing on with the business case, one informing the other. In terms of the officer time, with the Lavenham TIC that and a number of other service areas have been broken down in terms of their recharges but that hasn’t been possible with the business case simply because the way the work was carried out and the case was prepared but as I did state earlier that time was principally almost exclusively incurred in the financial year 2017/18 where the motion doesn’t apply.