Agenda and minutes

Resolved:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 16 October 2019 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

Lead Members to update the Committee on the progress of their Panels (10 mins)

The Future of Health Provision in Andover and Romsey – Councillor Baverstock, Lead Member, updated the Committee on the progress of her panel.  Fran White, Senior Commissioning Manager for Mid Hampshire and Lande Newton, Primary Care Commissioning Manager, NHS West Hampshire CCG attended the panel meeting on 4 October.  A further meeting was held on 14 November which looked at where the panel were and what they wanted to achieve.  A further meeting will be held in the New Year and Rachael King, Director of Commissioning – South West and Martyn Rogers, Head of Primary Care will attend to update the panel on health provision in the south of the Borough.

Armed Forces Covenant – Councillor Borg Neal reported that the scoping document would be presented to the next Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting.

Council Tax Support Scheme Panel – This was discussed as an agenda item.

Budget Panel – The next meeting of the Budget Panel will be held on 16 March 2020.

Audit Panel – The next meeting of the Audit Panel will be held on 29 June 2020.

Lead Members to update the Committee on work streams (30 mins)

Graham Smith, Head of Planning Policy and Lead Officer on the Climate Emergency project explained the background to the project. The aim of the project was to produce an action plan for the Council to balance their carbon footprint.  Each of the 7 work streams had met to discuss their initial scoping documents and confirm their aims and objectives. 

The scoping documents were being co-ordinated to ensure that the work streams don’t overlap.  Once the scoping documents had been signed off these would form part of the next Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s agenda.

Baselines would need to be clearly defined and external expertise would be required to look at where we are and what we want to achieve and what savings could be made. 

The Committee endorsed the inclusion of the following Members on the work streams as follows;

Councillor Ecclestone – Working with our Communities and Businesses

Councillor Watts – Reducing, Reusing and Recycling

Councillor Gwynne – Reducing, Reusing and Recycling

Councillor Cross – Digital and Smart Working

To consider the recommendations made by the Council Tax Support Panel (20 mins)

Councillor Baverstock, Lead Member of the Council Tax Support Scheme reported that the panel had met on 11 November 2019 and reviewed the Council Tax Support Scheme for 2020/21.

The Panel reviewed each of the four changes that are proposed for 2020/21 and took into account the latest responses from the public consultation in formulating their recommendations.

The panel also discussed whether it was appropriate to consider moving to a banded scheme in future years that will simplify the way that Council Tax Support was calculated, particularly for customers in receipt of Universal Credit.

The Head of Revenues advised that the Council Tax Support Scheme that would be approved in January 2020 would be for the 2020/21 year only.  It was a requirement that the Council approved its scheme in advance of each financial year.

The panel recommended that an initial paper, setting out how such a scheme might work, be included in the OSCOM work programme for 2021 and that a panel be established early in the year.

Recommended to Cabinet:

That with effect from 1 April 2020 the following changes be made to the Council’s Council Tax Support Scheme.

1.  That a fixed reduction of £4 per week should be introduced for non-dependant adults living in a property.

2.  That eligibility for Council Tax Scheme was restricted to applicants with less than £6,000 of eligible capital.

3.  That the Second Adult Rebate is removed from the Council’s Council Tax Support Scheme.

4.  That extended payments were removed from the Council’s Council Tax Support Scheme.

To enable Members to keep the Committee’s future work programme under review (10 mins)

The Committee considered and updated the Work Programme as follows:

·  Add Climate Change as a standard item for the next 6 months.

·  Add scoping documents for Climate Emergency work streams to work programme for December.

·  Add Armed Forces Covenant scoping document to the work programme for December.

Resolved:

That the future work programme, as amended, be approved.