Issue - meetings

To consider any questions submitted by Members of the Council, in accordance with Standing Order 4.8.11 (b).

There were two questions submitted in accordance with Standing Order 4.8.11.

(A)   Home Internet for Officers

Councillor Ralph Muncer to Councillor Ian Albert (Executive Member for Finance and IT).

(B)   Impact of Waste Service Design on Rural Communities

Councillor Ralph Muncer to Councillor Amy Allen (Executive Member for Recycling and Waste Management).

Audio recording – 8 minutes 42 seconds

There were two questions submitted in accordance with Standing Order 4.8.11.

(A)   Home Internet for Officers

Councillor Ralph Muncer to Councillor Ian Albert (Executive Member for Finance and IT).

“How much has the Council spent on providing home internet for Officers since 2019?”

Councillor Ian Albert gave a response as follows:

“I assumed that you might be referring to a Freedom of Information request we had from the Taxpayers Alliance last year where we provided a full response in relation to staff working at home payments, we do allow staff that work at home to claim an allowance towards additional costs, but in direct response to your question, we do not pay for Officers home internet bills.”

Councillor Ralph Muncer asked a supplementary question, as follows:

“In response to that Freedom of Information request I am sure that many members of the public will be quite simply shocked that some of their taxpayer’s money is going towards funding home internet for Officers to an extent. So will he commit to withdrawing this scheme for Officers and encouraging Officers who do not have access to suitable home internet to work from home, sorry forgive me to work from the Council Offices of which six million of taxpayer’s money was only recently spent on refurbishing them.”

Councillor Albert responded:

“So the answer to Councillor Muncer is no, working at home is good for the organisation, working from home has many benefits for staff as well as the Council and our residents, increases our resilience and business continuity as we saw during the pandemic. It has not led to any downturn in productivity, we are aware of the cost of living crisis and with limited pay increase, we feel a contribution to employees working from home costs is fair. Indeed 80% of our staff value, indeed highly valued the allowance. The Local Government Association says flexible working is good for retention and morale and gives people the ability to have more balance which is good from a health perspective, but the important thing here is balancing what if the needs of the business and the needs of our staff it’s a win-win we believe we have and that’s where we are, but I know Councillor Muncer is also keen on financial returns and if I haven’t yet managed to convince him about the importance of working home we have also demonstrated some very clear financial benefits from homeworking. For floor two we are receiving annual rental incomes of nearly £50,000 a year, we are also recharging costs of over £50,000 including business energy usage, broadband etc. Altogether this means we have £100,000 worth of returned, more than twice the amount we are paying currently in working at home allowances. Indeed, that money that we get generated may increase even more with potential future letting of floor 3. So once again this administration is showing how we carefully manage our resident’s money and actually carefully work with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 255