Minutes:
Councillor Miscandlon stated that no questions had been submitted under Procedure Rules 8.6 and asked if there were any questions under Procedure Rule 8.4 from Councillor Cornwell as Leader of the Opposition Group.
Councillor Booth requested to speak and asked the Chairman if, in respect of the order of items on the agenda, item 13 regarding the council tax support scheme could be moved before item 9 or 10 as a decision on that item would have an implication on both the budget and council tax resolution. Carol Pilson advised it is at the Chairman’s discretion to alter the order of the agenda. The Chairman therefore agreed to forward item 13 for discussion between agenda items 9 and 10.
Councillor Miscandlon then invited Councillor Cornwell to submit his questions.
Councillor Cornwell addressed the Leader and said residents have raised concerns after reading local newspaper articles detailing what appeared to be county council failures in certain supposedly commercial activities. He asked if the Leader could give an assurance that FDC is not exposing this council to commercial risk and if he would publish the result of this question in a simple public statement to that effect so that the public will understand what is happening. Councillor Boden firstly congratulated Councillor Cornwell on becoming Leader of the Opposition, saying Councillor Cornwell has Fenland’s interests at heart and he looks forward to a constructive working relationship together. In respect of the question, Councillor Boden stated that he cannot answer for what the county council does, but he would like to be in their position in respect of some of their investments. Some of the press reports are wrong or mischief making, and some are matters of commercial confidentially that are not yet in the public arena. A fundamental point about commercial and investment work by councils is that what we are doing will expose us to commercial risk, but it is a matter of management of that risk and whether the risk is suitably balanced by the reward. Therefore, he will not say that we will not expose ourselves to commercial risk; we want to achieve good returns and to do so means having some risk but evaluating carefully against the reward. Councillor Cornwell said he realised this but some people do not understand and that is why he had suggested taking the opportunity to explain that the risks taken by our council are not to the degree as reported, hence his suggestion of providing a simple statement.
Councillor Cornwell congratulated Councillor Lynn on his elevation as portfolio holder and thanked Councillor Wallwork for her contribution as the previous portfolio holder. However he was surprised, given our financial situation, that the Leader did not take the opportunity to reduce the costs of Cabinet by reducing its size, given that in 2016 he had advised the previous Leader to reduce his Cabinet size and costs when they were lower than currently. He would like to know why the Leader has changed his view and ignored his own advice. Councillor Boden said he had given this consideration but he made no change because of the sheer volume of work being undertaken within the council, which is at unprecedented levels and some of which is not yet public knowledge yet demands a lot of work. Therefore, the situation has changed considerably since 2016. However he is still keen to keep costs as low as possible and he is looking at possibilities that may be reported back to Council within the next twelve months but he will not do this at the expense of the work that needs to be done. Councillor Cornwell said he looked forward to seeing these proposals.
Councillor Cornwell asked the Leader what steps have been taken to FDC’s procurement policies and strategies now we are free of the restrictions of the EU since Brexit to give us more opportunity to trade with local businesses or buy British. Councillor Boden said our exit from the EU has not meant all the regulations that we suffered have suddenly disappeared. Generally, procurement practice remains the same, however we still have a lot of procurement regulation handover from the EU which central government has not yet been able to change. When it does, he looks forward to doing what Councillor Cornwell says whilst continuing to achieve value for money, ensuring we give business to local businesses and local services.
Councillor Cornwell addressed the Leader and said members were aware that the Opposition Group had disquiet concerning governance matters concerning the new Audit and Risk Management Committee and its Sub-Committee and decided to boycott its first meeting until further investigations were held. He said that our external auditor had raised concerns over two governance issues in a letter shortly after the last full council when the arrangements for the new committee were made. He does not think these concerns were taken any further and would ask that the Leader re-examine the original proposals, taking those into account those concerns. He added that there will be representatives at the next meeting as he noted there were no challenges to the items presented at the first meeting. Councillor Boden responded that he will re-examine the arrangements as requested but firstly, as was quite clear in December, the situation was confused because a first draft was published for the proposals which was amended in time for the full council meeting but unfortunately did cause some issues. However, officers are confident that the arrangements now in place are lawful and they would not have approved them going forward to full council otherwise. He added that he will write to Councillor Cornwell once he has done that and let him know the result. Furthermore, he is happy to have a or public discussion with the external auditor concerning this.
Councillor Cornwell said the Government has confirmed that the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will end in 2030. Given our rural nature, and to support our new cultural and creativity strategy, which he hopes will be approved later in this meeting, he asked the Leader what plans are we making to examine funding streams for electric charge points? Councillor Boden said we have already started looking at some possibilities concerning the use of our car parks for charging points. In respect of on-street parking, the problems are massive. It is not merely the substantial cost, but the fact that the electricity network is not up to being able to provide kerb-based charging because the system was not designed for that. Councillor Boden added that it is likely that the commercial market, such as service stations, will get involved in providing charging points.