Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed attendees to this reconvened meeting.

It was noted that apologies had been received from Cllrs Craig Cheney, Jenny Bartle,

Marley Bennett, Steve Pearce, Kevin Quartley, Tim Rippington and Andrew Varney (Cllr Andrew Brown was substituting for Cllr Varney). It was noted that Cllr Cheney was contactable by telephone to clarify particular points if/as necessary.

To note any declarations of interest from councillors.  They are asked to indicate the relevant agenda item, the nature of the interest and in particular whether it is a disclosable pecuniary interest.

Any declaration of interest made at the meeting which is not on the register of interests should be notified to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion.

There were no declarations of interest.

To note any announcements from the Chair.

None.

Please note:

As explained on the agenda for Part 1 of this meeting (31 January 2023), up to 45 minutes was allocated at Part 1 of the meeting for a public forum session on the basis this would cover both Part 1 and Part 2 of this Extraordinary meeting of the Resources Scrutiny Commission. There will therefore not be a public forum session at Part 2 of this meeting on 2 February.

It was that the following statements had been submitted:

1. Cllr Carla Denyer - topic: carbon impact assessments

2. David Redgewell, Robbie Bentley, Gordon Richardson and Brendon Taylor - topic: comments on the proposed budget including the transport levy.

David Redgewell was in attendance at the meeting and presented this statement.

Explanatory note:

This meeting is being held over two sessions (31 January and 2 February) to scrutinise the Mayor’s 2023/24 budget proposals, as submitted to the Cabinet on 24 January and in advance of the Full Council budget meeting on 21 February.

During the 2 February session, members will scrutinise the sections of the budget relating to the remit of the Growth and Regeneration Scrutiny Commission and the Communities Scrutiny Commission. This information can be found in the following Cabinet papers:

Budget report & Treasury Management Strategy 2023/24

Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Budget Proposals 2023/24

Financial update report - January 2023

Members of the Growth and Regeneration Scrutiny Commission, the Communities Scrutiny Commission and the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board have also been invited to attend this session.

Members’ comments will be reported to the Full Council budget meeting.

It was noted that the Finance Task Group had identified a number of issues/questions/areas of focus in advance of these budget scrutiny sessions. Part 2 of the meeting was accordingly structured largely around these areas of focus, together with points on other issues as raised by members.

A. GROWTH & REGENERATION DIRECTORATE:

1. Supported bus services/transport levy

The Chair referred to the recent decisions taken by the West of England Combined Authority on supported bus contracts, which would see a significant reduction in the number of services that were able to be continued (noting that the West of England Mayor did not have any precepting powers and that supported bus services were funded through the transport levy contributions made by Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset councils as the constituent members of the Combined Authority).

Points raised/noted:

1. Cllr Alexander commented as follows:

a. It was important to recognise that transport operators nationally continued to face a major challenge due to the shortage of bus drivers.

b. Any action taken to increase Bristol’s transport levy would effectively place a substantial additional cost on each Bristol household.

2. The Chair commented that the key objective of the Clean Air Zone was to reduce vehicle emissions; however, the current situation regarding bus service provision and reliability was likely to result in a situation that, by default, encouraged people to make some journeys by private car that they might otherwise have made by bus, thus having the effect of increasing emissions.  In response, Cllr Alexander stated that whilst some supported bus services would cease as they could no longer be subsidised, some of the funding available to the Combined Authority through the Bus Service Improvement Plan was being used to fund increased frequency/reliability (and reduce journey time) on designated main commercial routes; it was hoped that this would encourage increased patronage on these routes.

3. In response to questions about the role of the Council in encouraging public behaviour change in relation to transport modal shift, Cllr Alexander advised that the administration’s transport policies were geared to the reallocation of road space where appropriate and encouraging modal shift.  In the longer term, his view was that public transport route segregation was desirable to ensure improved passenger journey reliability; in the meantime, the administration was implementing specific initiatives - for example, 3 reports had been submitted to the most recent Cabinet meeting on:

- Using CRSTS Liveable Neighbourhood funding to complete Streetspace and related schemes.

- Pay and display parking in district car parks.

- A combined E-scooter & E-bike on-street rental scheme.

4. It was noted that:

a. the transport levy charge for 2023/24 remained unchanged at £10.2m (the 2022/23 level).

b. Unitary authority levies were pooled by the Combined Authority’s Transport Integration Team and managed on a regional basis.

c. An equalities impact assessment had been carried out in connection with the recent (18 January) report on supported bus services as considered by the Combined Authority. 

d. Any proposal to increase the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.