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Agenda and minutes
Venue: First Floor Committee Room 1P09 - City Hall, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TR. View directions
Contact: Johanna Holmes
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Welcome, Introductions and Safety Information PDF 98 KB Minutes: The Chair led welcome and introductions. |
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Apologies for Absence Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Mhairi Threlfall, Councillor Graham Morris and Tim O’Gara – Director, Legal & Democratic Services. |
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Declarations of Interest To note any declarations of interest from the 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 declarations of interest made at the meeting which is not on the register of interests should be notified to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion.
Minutes: There were no declarations of interest. |
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Minutes of the Previous Meeting PDF 213 KB To agree the minutes of the last meeting as a correct record.
The presentation slides from the previous Commercialisation and Innovation item have been attached to the minutes. Additional documents: Minutes: The Commission agreed the minutes of the last meeting as a correct record. |
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To note the progress of actions from the previous meeting. Additional documents: Minutes: The Committee noted the progress of actions from the previous meeting.
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Chair's Business To note any announcements from the Chair Minutes: None on this occasion. |
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Public Forum Up to 30 minutes is allowed for this item
Any member of the public or Councillor may participate in Public Forum. The detailed arrangements for so doing are set out in the Public Information Sheet at the back of this agenda. Public Forum items should be emailed to democratic.services@bristol.gov.uk and please note that the following deadlines will apply in relation to this meeting:-
Questions - Written questions must be received 3 clear working days prior to the meeting. For this meeting, this means that your question(s) must be received in this office at the latest by 5 pm on Friday 25th October.
Petitions and Statements - Petitions and statements must be received on the working day prior to the meeting. For this meeting this means that your submission must be received in this office at the latest by 12.00 noon on Wednesday 30th October.
Minutes: A Public Forum Question was received about the ‘Current Council Tax Consultation’ which related to Agenda Item 13 Council Tax Base Report.
After a discussion about the information provided in response to the question about Council Tax expenditure by officers, Members requested the line ‘Balance Corp Expenditure’ be clarified. ACTION: Officers to provide clarity of what ‘Balance Corp Expenditure’ means in relation to the ‘Other’ category of council tax expenditure.
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To note the work programme. Minutes: The date of the December Scrutiny Commission Meeting was discussed due to it being the same date as the forthcoming General Election. It was agreed by everyone that the meeting would now need to be held after the 12th December. ACTION: Scrutiny Advisor to liaise with the Chair and Officers to agree and new date for the next meeting.
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Corporate Risk Report Q1 PDF 150 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: The Chair began the item by asking officers why the Scrutiny Commission were receiving a Corporate Risk Report and not a Resources Directorate Risk Report. Officers said that work was still being carried on the new risk reporting process and a more tailored report would be provided at the December meeting.
It was asked if Clean Air Plan was included in the Corporate Risk Register now. Officers said it wasn’t currently no but it would be added to it soon though.
A Member questioned why on (page 30 of papers) Appendix A of the Report it said that CRR29 - Information Security Management System –said ‘this risk is managed and monitored within the Growth and Regeneration Service Risk Registers’. Officers said they were not sure and that it needed to be checked. ACTION: for this point to be checked with the Risk Manager
Members asked about (Page 32 - CRR1) Colston Hall and if further over-spends were to occur, would the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) cover that? It was explained that BCC will under-write the Colston Hall project because the Council they have a vested interest to ensure the project is successfully delivered. WECA it was said will only cover a certain level of increased costs.
The Commission Members reiterated their request to receive a risk report that was tailored to the Resources Directorate at the next meeting: ACTION: for the Commission to receive a more bespoke risk report at the next meeting in December.
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Financial Task and Finish Group - Stage 1 Report PDF 72 KB Report to follow Minutes: Councillor Stevens, Chair of the Financial Scrutiny Task and Finish Group (T&F Group), summarised the key points in the published statement from Stage One of the Financial Task and Finish Group meetings. The purpose of the statement he said was to assist members of the Scrutiny Commission to ask questions about the Capital Strategy and the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP).
The following points were highlighted by Cllr Stevens and discussed by all:
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Finance Monitoring Report Period 5 PDF 214 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: The Finance Monitoring Report Period 5 was introduced by the Director of Finance. The report had previously been presented to Cabinet on the 1st October 2019. It was reported that in-between the Period 5 and Period 6 Reports officers had undertaken a ‘deep-dive’ into the finances to allow them to be able to forecast any budget pressures and if necessary plan the necessary mitigations.
The Chair said he hadn’t fully understood the debt analysis diagram in the report. Officers said that the bottom section of the graph had dropped off the bottom of the page which made it very difficult to decipher. It was said that the graph had been intended to demonstrate that some debts can be owed to the council for a long time but are not written off because of the potential for them to still be paid off some time later, for example via legacies.
A brief discussion took place about the payment of invoices (p69 of papers bundle: 4. Payment Statistics) and particularly those for Digital Transformation and why so many were paid later than the 30 day target and/or as retrospective orders. Officers said that a number of causes had been identified which effected the speed of process, for example some go to the wrong person to start with and if there’s any type of dispute the invoice stays in system for that length of time. Also, some invoices don’t have a Purchase Order number attached to them so they can’t be paid until this is resolved and this clogs the system up. Officers said that they were aware that the situation needed to be improved.
Members also asked about the Finance row of the same table (P.69 of papers bundle: 4. Payment Statistics) and why 40% / 200 invoices are ‘paid without order’. Officers said they would look into this and report back. ACTION: Officers check this if figure is correct and provide some clarification on the circumstances.
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Collection Fund Surplus/Deficit Report PDF 161 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: Officers introduced the first of two council tax related reports and highlighted the following points to Members which were briefly discussed:
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Council Tax Base Report PDF 152 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: Officers introduced the report to Members and highlighted the following points for discussion:
ACTION: It was agreed that officers would look into this further and would report back to the next meeting.
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Legal Services Draft Strategy 2019-2024 - Exempt Item Exclusion of Press and Public
That under s.100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item(s) of business on the grounds that it (they) involve(s) the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part 1 of schedule 12A of the Act. Additional documents:
Minutes: Exclusion of Press and Public That under s.100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public were excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part 1 of schedule 12A of the Act.
The minutes of this item have therefore not been published with rest of the meeting minutes.
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