Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SERVICE DIRECTOR – RESOURCES

This report presents progress on the Council Delivery Plan for 2024-25. This is a Quarter 2 update, but reflects progress up to the point that this report was prepared.

RESOLVED: That Overview and Scrutiny Committee determined any project that they want to receive more detail on as part of the next monitoring report.

RECOMMENDED TO CABINET: That Overview and Scrutiny Committee commented on the Council Delivery Plan Quarter 2 monitoring report, including the recommendations made to Cabinet:

(1)   That Cabinet notes the progress against Council projects as set out in the Council Delivery Plan and approves the changes to the milestones (Appendix A).

(2)   That Cabinet notes the performance against the performance indicators and confirms the actions detailed in paragraph 8.4.

REASON FOR RECOMMENDATION: The Council Delivery Plan (CDP) monitoring reports provide Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and Cabinet, with an opportunity to monitor progress against the key Council projects, and understand any new issues, risks, or opportunities.

Audio recording – 2 hours 9 minutes 54 seconds

Councillor Ian Albert, as Executive Member for Finance and IT, introduced the report entitled ‘Council Delivery Plan 2024-25 (Quarter 2 Update)’ and advised that:

·       The Council Delivery Plan had been developed with important input from this Committee and tried to simplify and target information to focus on the key issues.

·       Colleagues outside of this Committee should be encouraged to review this report as it provided a snapshot of the key areas being progressed with Council projects and the milestones around these.

The Service Director – Resources presented the report entitled ‘Council Delivery Plan 2024-25 (Quarter 2 Update)’ and advised that:

·       There was 1 red indicator in this quarter and a further two marginal amber indicators, which were outlined at paragraph 8.4 of the report.

·       Previously the report had contained a summary listing all projects reported with their current status, but had been taken out in quarter 1, as all projects were green, and had been omitted from this report by mistake.

·       There were currently 6 green projects and 5 amber projects and the appendix contained detail of these, with amber projects first, followed by green projects.

The Service Director – Place provided an update on the Urgent Item relating to the Leisure Centre Decarbonisation Project, as outlined in Agenda Item 6, and advised that:

·       The Cabinet paper on this had been circulated to Members of this Committee earlier today.

·       During the design stage, whilst looking at heat pump options, there were identified issues regarding the projected running costs of these, which had increased.

·       The grant front loading in 2024/25 and in order to claim the funding, evidence must be provided that the spend was incurred in the correct financial year and that the asset was owned by the Council.

·       The Council was advised that bespoke designed heat pumps could not be provided in time for the grant funding requirements. Therefore, an off-the-shelf option was required.

·       Tables 1 and 2 of the report provided the best and worst case scenarios for increases in costs. However, it should be noted these figures do not take into account additional improvements to centres being made, and further detail on these figures was expected from the contractor.

·       Table 3 of the report provided the same scale of potential increases but for the larger heat pumps.

·       There were four options being presented in the Cabinet report, and subject to agreement from Salix that the Council could pay upfront for the bespoke heat pumps and provide this as evidence of spend in the correct year, Option 4 would be recommended as the preferred option.

·       One option proposed was to only continue with the work at Royston leisure centre, as there was still a small saving possible there, and some grant funding would still be available. 

·       Further detail to the report would be added as a supplement to Cabinet, once available.

The following Members asked questions:

·       Councillor Jon Clayden

·       Councillor Louise Peace

·       Councillor Ralph Muncer

·       Councillor Matt  ...  view the full minutes text for item 70