Decisions

RESOLVED:

1.    That Forum noted the reports.

2.    That Forum agreed a control of 10% of budget on uncommitted balances brought forward for maintained schools.

(Beth Baines)

RESOLVED:

that the election of Vice-Chair would be held over until the next meeting.

RESOLVED:

That Peter French be elected as Chair of West Northamptonshire Schools Forum for the forthcoming year.

The minutes of the meetings held on 16 March 2021 were agreed as an accurate record.

RESOLVED that:

a)    The Panel agrees to revise the membership of the Complaints Sub Committee to consist of:

·          3 councillor members from the Conservative councillors on the Panel;

·          1 councillor member from the Labour councillors on the Panel, who may be substituted by the other Labour councillor; and

·          1 independent co-opted member to be drawn from the pool of all 3 independent co-opted members on the Panel.

b)    All councillor members of the Panel be contacted following the current meeting in order to confirm the members who will make up the Complaints Sub Committee in 2021/22.

RESOLVED that:

a)    The Panel agrees that its work programme for 2021/22 should include the following matters:

·      A workshop session open to all Panel members in January 2022 on the development of the Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner’s proposed precepts, to include separate sections on Police and Fire & Rescue.

·      A workshop session open to all Panel members in September 2021 on the 2021/22 Police and Fire & Rescue budget positions.

·      Two briefing sessions open to all Panel members with the Chief Constable and the Chief Fire Officer on their respective service’s priorities and challenges, to take place in venues appropriate to the subject matter 

·      A visit to Darby House for all Panel members

·      The Joint Independent Audit Committee Annual Report 2020/21

·      Police & Crime Plan and Fire & Rescue Plan delivery updates presented to each regular meeting of the Panel

·      Police and Fire & Rescue Authority budget updates presented to each regular meeting of the Panel

·      Scrutiny of the Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner’s updated Police & Crime Plan and Fire & Rescue Plan

·      A report on action being taken in Northamptonshire to respond to the outcomes of the Kerslake Report and the Public Inquiry into the Manchester Arena terror attack.

b)    The Panel agrees that a skills audit of Panel members be carried out to support its operation.

c)    The Panel prioritises the following considerations in relation to the locations to be used for its formal meetings in 2021/22:

·      The ability to webcast meetings

·      A location that is relatively central in Northamptonshire, that is accessible and that offers appropriate parking.

d)    The Panel requests that a proposal regarding the future location of its formal meetings be developed for consideration by the Panel.

e)    The Panel requests to receive confirmation that remuneration can be paid to independent co-opted Panel members under the West Northamptonshire Council Scheme of Member Allowances. 

f)     The Panel agrees to continue its membership of the East Midlands Police, & Crime Panels Network for 2021/22.

g)    The Panel agrees to continue its membership of the National Association of Police, Fire & Crime Panels for 2021/22.

RESOLVED that: the Panel accepts the Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner’s Fire & Rescue Statement for 2020/21.

RESOLVED that: the Panel accepts the Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner’s Annual Report for 2020/21.

RESOLVED that:

a)    The Panel requests to be provided with further information on the demographic make-up of recent intakes of recruits to Northamptonshire Police and Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service.

b)    The Panel notes the update on the Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner’s priorities and challenges.

RESOLVED that: Councillor Andre Gonzalez De Savage be appointed as Deputy Chair of the Panel for 2021/22.

RESOLVED that: Councillor Gill Mercer be appointed as Chair of the Panel for 2021/22.

RESOLVED that: the minutes of the Police, Fire & Crime Panel meeting held on 24^th March 2021 be agreed.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet;

1.     Noted continued progress to deliver the Northampton North West Relief Road; 

2.     Supported the capital investment required to complete this scheme as set out in Section 6.1 of this report and required to proceed to construction including forward funding against future S106 and Community Infrastructure Levy payments; 

3.     Agreed to progress a bid to the Levelling Up Fund for £20 million; 

4.     Noted SEMLEP’s proposed conditions on the continued financial support from the Local Growth Fund as set out in Section 5.2. 

REASONS:

1.     The scheme is identified within the West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy as being required to support anticipated additional growth, much of which is already consented requiring the additional highway capacity the scheme provides to mitigate their impacts. 

2.     The Levelling Up Fund provides an opportunity to gain the additional financial support the project requires and the project is a very good fit to the aims and requirements of this funding opportunity. 

3.     The £7.93 million Local Growth Deal funding administered by SEMLEP provides an essential contribution to the project funding. 

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:

The road is required in order to improve the highway network and help to address traffic problems in parts of northern Northampton and surrounding villages. By providing additional capacity the road will help to enable development including the major Sustainable Urban Extensions at Buckton Fields, Dallington Grange and Northampton West.

During previous consultation, 64% of those responding to the consultation supported the need for the North West Relief Road. A number of respondents commented on potential flooding, noise and visual impacts and the severance of rights of way or thought that the road should be built as a dual carriageway from the outset. There was also significant concern expressed about possible traffic impacts due to the road opening before the Northampton Northern Orbital Road and it was suggested that the two roads should be built at the same time. However, there were very few suggestions that an alternative route would be more advantageous.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet;

1.     The changes to the Constitution already made by the Monitoring Officer under her delegated power be noted

2.     The proposed changes to the Constitution set out in Appendix 1 be agreed

3.     Delegated power be granted to the Monitoring Officer to amend the Constitution to give effect to the agreements for joint arrangements with LGSS (Cambridgeshire, Bedford, Milton Keynes) Northampton Partnership Homes and North Northamptonshire Council.

4.     A further review of the Constitution?and Member Officer Protocol?be carried out by the Democracy and Standards Committee and referred to a future meeting of Council

REASONS:

1.     The Council must have a Constitution and that document must be kept up to date. 

2.     Executive delegations and amendments require approval by the Executive as all Executive functions sit solely with the Executive. 

3.     The proposed changes will support decision making and enable the Council to carry out its functions.

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS: Failure to make the recommended changes could result in a Constitution that is not up to date or fit for purpose.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet;

1.     Endorsed the agreed Transformation Priority Plan timeline to disaggregate the hosted services between North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council. 

2.     Endorsed the principles of transformation as laid out in section 4.5 (a) to (I), inclusive

REASONS:

The recommendations were both agreed outputs of the Joint North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council Members Transformation Task and Finish Group

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS: None

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet;

1.     Approved the 2021/22 ‘School Minor Works’ budget to rectify condition issues in WNC maintained schools, ensuring the Council continues to fulfil its statutory obligation of maintaining its school estate; 

2.     Noted that WNC’s allocation of ‘School Condition Allocation’ funding for 2021/22 has been confirmed by the DfE at £1,629,546 and agree that this grant funding will be utilised as WNC’s ‘School Minor Works’ budget for 2021/22; 

3.     Noted that any works undertaken under the ‘Schools Minor Works’ budget will be delivered as part of a rolling programme of conditions surveys at maintained schools in the Local Authority

REASONS:

1.     WNC will continue to fulfil its statutory obligation of maintaining its school estate; 

2.     The recommended course of action is the most effective and prevents delays in procuring essential works; 

3.     Consistency with previous decisions. This is the third year of the ‘School Minor Works’ programme. 

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:

This paper relates to the fulfilment of WNC’s statutory obligation of maintaining its maintained schools estate. If WNC take no action the schools estate will deteriorate and remedial works will represent a greater financial liability when requiring to be addressed in the future. The grant would also need to be returned to central Government.

Failure to address works categorised as ‘urgent’ or ‘required immediately’ would increase the risk of serious health and safety incident(s) occurring, with schools potentially having to close as a result of condition issues and pupils being unable to access education. This is not considered to be a viable option.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet;

1.     Noted the commissioning activity to date along with ongoing intentions to commission and procure residential and nursing care services for the future.  

2.     Approved for delegated authority be given to the Executive Director for Adults Communities and Wellbeing to undertake a procurement exercise to secure and implement an interim Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) framework to commence the 1 September 2021 for a period of 12-months.  

3.     Approved the proposed fee rate inflationary uplift of 2.65% for 2021-22 to support market delivery cost pressures.  

REASONS:

The recommendations underpinned strategic commissioning intentions to design and procure a new outcome-based delivery model for older peoples residential and nursing care for the long-term purchasing of effective, sustainable and affordable provision supply that enables West Northamptonshire Council to fulfil is statutory duties to meet care needs and shape the local care market

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:

The option to proceed with procurement tender only when the cost of care and fee structure work had been completed was considered and rejected. The current Care Home Services Framework and DPS contracts would expire as per the existing terms and from 1 September 2021 the Council would seek to secure supply of residential and nursing care services on a spot-purchased basis until long-term commissioning arrangements are secured. A further report would be presented to Cabinet in due course to seek approval for future arrangements. While spot purchasing can be used to secure services, this approach can increase susceptibility to variable pricing and is not the most effective way of managing cost and supply.

CONFLICTS OF INTERESTED DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet;

1.     Noted the challenges faced by the bus industry due to COVID-19 and the funding that is being provided by the Government and Council to ensure that bus services continue to operate, as set out in Section 5 of this report; 

2.     Noted the publication of Bus Back Better, the National Bus Strategy for England, as summarised in Section 6 of this report; 

3.     Committed to the formation of an Enhanced Partnership under the Bus Service Act 2017, for the reasons set out in Section 7 of this report; and  

4.     Agreed that delegated authority be given to the Executive Director for Place, Economy and Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Transport, Highways & Waste Services to prepare an Enhanced Partnership and Bus Service Improvement Plan to be brought back to Cabinet for approval. 

REASONS:

1.     To improve bus services for West Northamptonshire communities and minimise the risk of any communities losing their bus service; 

2.     To facilitate climate and environmental benefits through increasing bus use and the operation of more low emission buses; 

3.     To contribute to the implementation of the Northamptonshire Transportation Plan (the Local Transport Plan); 

4.     To enable the Council to access the funding being made available by Government to support the National Bus Strategy. 

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:

As an alternative option to the formation of an Enhanced Partnership, it is open to the Council to consider Franchising, although Government has made clear in the National Bus Strategy that due to the lengthy process involved in developing and approving a Franchise model, Local Transport Authorities should develop an Enhanced Partnership in the meantime.

Under the Bus Services Act, an Enhanced Partnership must contribute to the implementation of an authority’s local transport policies, which for West Northamptonshire are currently the Northamptonshire Transportation Plan (Local Transport Plan) previously prepared by the County Council.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet

Delegated to the Executive Director for Place, Economy and the Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Finance and Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Culture, Leisure and Housing, the completion of the acquisition of the University of Northampton’s Avenue Campus in St George’s Avenue, Northampton Avenue Campus excluding the Newton Building to enable development to be taken forward as described in this report.

REASONS: 

1.     To enable the council to fulfil its statutory housing functions.

2.     Increase the supply of affordable housing to meet local housing needs

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:

The Decision was made not to purchase the Newton Building The original assumption in the NBC Cabinet report was that the Newton Building was required for Office Accommodation and provision for the acquisition was included in the HRA Capital Programme. WNC officers are clear that if there was a requirement for the Newton Building to be used for office accommodation then there is not the ability to charge the acquisition to the HRA. It would have to be a general fund purchase. There is no budget in the general fund capital programme to support the acquisition of the Newton Building and therefore if there was the desire to purchase the Newton Building then an additional capital budget would need to be approved by full council before being able to proceed. However, this point is largely academic as there is a more fundamental issue in that officers do not believe there is currently any need for further office accommodation to be held by the Council as it has sufficient office accommodation with its existing estate to accommodate all office accommodation needs. Therefore, it would not be good use of public funds to acquire further office accommodation when there is currently no requirement for it and this approach cannot be supported. As a result, the advice is that the acquisition of Newton Building by the Council should not proceed.

The affordability of the purchase and development of the University Campus (excluding the Newton Building): In the previous business case it was assumed that a certain level of Homes England funding would be received. The expectation is that we will still receive a level of funding but to be prudent we have recalculated the business case and estimated the impact on the HRA in 2021-22 to see if the development is still viable under different scenarios of Homes England funding. Appendix D provides full detail of the funding models that include best and worst case scenarios.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.

RESOLVED: Cabinet noted that the Leader will inform Democratic Services of the Appointments to Partnership Organisations.

REASONS: Appointments to Partnership Organisations are required in order to ensure correct democratic representation on a number of bodies to which members may be appointed.

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS: There are none.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS DECLARED AND DISPENSATIONS GRANTED: None.