Meeting documents

• (Attachment: 1)Minutes

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 8 September 2016 be approved as a correct record.

Committee Members: Councillors M. Blacker, (substituted by Cllr K. Foreman), J.S. Godden (substituted by Cllr J.M. Ellacott).

Other Members: None.
 

Councillors K. Foreman and J.C.S. Essex declared personal non-pecuniary interests in relation to the consideration of the presentation from Voluntary Action Reigate and Banstead.

• (Attachment: 2)Item 4: Voluntary Action Reigate & Banstead Presentation (592K/bytes)

The Chairman welcomed to the meeting Gill Williamson, Chair of VARB and Nina Porter, Operations Manager of VARB who had agreed to make a presentation on their work and respond to Member questions about those activities.

Nina Porter made a presentation to the Committee that outlined VARBs work undertaken to support the voluntary and community sector together with their activities for supporting and promoting volunteering.
More specifically the presentation covered the ways in which they provided practical support to other voluntary organisations; how they helped with fundraising activities; training and recruitment of volunteers and ways of assisting with training and sharing of information.

The Committee was pleased to hear about a wide range of successes that had been made by VARB during the year including:

• Funding Fair & Funding Surgeries – advice and information for over 130 organisations
• Building Better Partnerships project – maximising resources within the voluntary sector
• Directory of Voluntary Organisations produced
• Training & Networking events delivered (12)
• Improved signposting through new database, website and Enews
• Engaging with local businesses to place 50 corporate volunteers
VARB had also undertaken a substantial amount of work on promoting volunteering and the examples cited included:
• Raising the profile of volunteering;
• Matching volunteers with the right opportunities;
• Providing the right level of support, training and information; and
• Celebrating the successes, at for example the Mayor’s Volunteer of the Year Awards ceremony held at the Town Hall.

As VARB were one of the bodies that the Council provided Core Funding for the Committee was keen to know how their work had related to the Council’s priorities and was pleased to hear of the association with the following elements of the Council’s 5 Year Plan:

• Encouraging volunteering;
• Improving the health and wellbeing of many by supporting volunteers and the associated benefits that voluntary work provided for the health & wellbeing of people and the consequences on their organisations; and
• The efficient use of resources

Recognising all of the excellent work being undertaken by VARB the Committee also noted the following areas that the Council could consider for further support:

• Continuation of Core Funding
• Highlighting tender opportunities
• Lobbying to secure resources
• Joint work with training
• Encouraging corporate volunteering placements from Council Officers with VARB and their partners
• Supporting ongoing partnership work

The Committee was most complimentary about the work of VARB and in the spirit of support asked questions and commented on the following areas:

• The excellent value for money of VARB services;
• Whether provision of accommodation for VARB was something that the Council could consider;
• The successful activities to improve the geographic coverage of volunteers across the Borough, noting that further analysis could be undertaken on postcodes to provide further depth to the analysis;
• Efforts to bring volunteers and organisations together that were seeking to achieve similar community goals;
• Positive work that was being done with the charity sector to build on their expertise and provide support for the wider network of voluntary organisations;
• Continued efforts to support the difficult to recruit areas of volunteering (i.e. working with children as there are a range of safeguarding requirements);
• Work to assist specialist skillsets being attributed to a wide range of voluntary organisations;
• Collaborative work with adjoining areas to pool expertise such as DBS checking and training;
• Continued work with the community engagement undertaken by the Faith Sector and the building of better partnerships in that area;
• Support for placements on School and other Governing Bodies;
• Value of the Sector Directory that had been prepared; and
• The effectiveness of the Core Funding arrangement.

RESOLVED that Nina Porter and Gill Williamson from Voluntary Action Reigate and Banstead:

(i) be thanked for all the hard work that their organisation had put into providing community support for such a wide range of activities within the Voluntary Sector; and
(ii) for making such a positive presentation to the Committee on their activities and for responding to Member questions.
 

The Committee received a presentation from Councillor Mrs R. Mill, Executive Member for Leisure and Wellbeing, which focused on the work being undertaken by the Council in the following areas:

• Grant Funding programme;
• Volunteering activities;
• Success of the three Leisure Centres in the Borough and the relationship with operative Greenwich Leisure Limited;
• The volume of activities undertaken at the three Community Centres managed by Staywell;
• The increased success of the Harlequin Theatre and Studio;
• The increased delivery of Leisure activities including the highly successful R and Be Active programme of events; the range of holiday activities provided; festival of sport; youth games; and Star for a Night event.

The presentation also highlighted the outcome of the 2015 LGA Peer Review that indicated the Leisure and Wellbeing services to be showing significant leadership in the area.

The Portfolio Holder emphasised that one of the key activities that she managed was in relation to the Core Funding of the Council’s voluntary sector partners. The importance of the work that these bodies do within the community was recognised, but it was equally incumbent on the Council, given that it faced significant funding challenges itself, to ensure that it was getting value for money from this core funding arrangement. As such the Portfolio Holder was in the process of introducing Service Level Agreements with associated key performance indicators to help ensure tangible outcomes from these relationships.

Questions and comments related to:

• Core funding arrangements;
• Success of the third annual Run Reigate event that incorporated a half marathon; 10k and 6k events attracting many 1000’s of visitors to the town;
• Liaison with the Clinical Commissioning Groups, Community Centres and their work in the area;
• Partnership activities with VARB; GLL and the success of the R and Be active programme;
• The cross over with the Health Portfolio activities that working together were helping to reduce problems such as childhood obesity; and
• The potential to merge the CIL programme and the Councillors Community Awards scheme to dovetail together in the future.

The Committee thanked the Portfolio Holder for attending and for responding to its questions. The Committee congratulated Cllr Mrs Mill and the Leisure and Wellbeing team for its achievements to date and asked that consideration be given to providing the Committee with the performance information of the Core Funded organisations when this was available.

RESOLVED that the presentation be noted.
 

• (Attachment: 3)Item 6: External Auditors Report on the 2015/16 Financial Statement (ISA 260) (2M/bytes)

The Chief Executive reported to the Committee that he was pleased to present a very positive report from the External Auditors. This reflected the excellent level of performance by the Finance Team to achieve such high standards of recognition.

Member questions and comments related to the following:

• Pensions Liability and why it had reduced from the previous year (Written answer to be provided);
• Creditor Accruals: a request for more information in relation to the £238k accrual that was raised in error was requested (Written answer to be provided).

The Chairman informed the Committee that he had been kept informed regarding the significant fraud referenced in the report. This remained a matter that was subject to Police investigations (who were satisfied that it was an external and not an internal event).

RESOLVED that the report and findings of the External Auditors be noted.
 

• (Attachment: 4)Item 7: Local Development Framework Panel (2M/bytes)

The Committee received a report from Councillor M.A. Brunt, Chairman of the LDF Scrutiny Panel from its meeting on 20 September 2016 that reviewed the Regulation 18 Development Management Plan consultation document.
Councillor Brunt summarised some of the key points arising from the Panel’s report.

The Committee commented that it was an excellent piece of work covering many complex areas of the consultation.

The Panel’s report was comprehensive and it was noted that it would be considered alongside other responses received on the Regulation 18 consultation document. The report to the Executive recommending the draft Plan, anticipated in May 2017, would explain how the Panel’s comments had been reflected.

Additional points to those contained in the Panel’s report raised by Members of the Committee, for consideration by the Executive, were as follows:

• Whether all new street lighting could be replaced with LED lights; and
• Whether a simpler standard of parking could be considered for the roads surrounding town centres (except Redhill).

RESOLVED that:

(i) the LDF Scrutiny Panel’s report be noted and submitted for consideration as part of the DMP consultation; and
(ii) the further observations made at the meeting in relation to street lighting and car parking be included as part of the Committee’s consultation response.
 

It was reported that there were no items arising from the Executive that might be subject to the ‘call-in’ procedure in accordance with the provisions of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules.

None.