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ITEM CA3

CABINET – 20 DECEMBER 2005

Minutes of the Meeting commencing at 2.00 pm and finishing at 4.25 pm

The Cabinet considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in the agenda for the meeting, together with a schedule of addenda tabled at the meeting, and decided as set out below. Except insofar as otherwise specified, the reasons for the decisions are contained in the agenda, reports and schedule, copies of which are attached to the signed Minutes.

256/05. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Jim Couchman.

257/05. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Item 5 – Financial Monitoring

Councillor Mitchell declared a personal interest on the grounds that he was a Trustee of the Oxford Preservation Trust.

Item 10 – Home to School and College Transport

Councillor Waine declared a personal interest on the grounds that he was a member of the Roman Catholic community in Bicester.

Item 14 – Oxfordshire Minerals and Waste Development Framework

Councillor Howell declared a prejudicial interest on the grounds that he was Chair of PAGE (Parishes Against Gravel Extraction).

258/05. MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting held on 6 December 2005 were approved and signed.

259/05. PETITIONS AND PUBLIC ADDRESS

Ms Maureen Dyroff, on behalf of the Chinnor & Thame Friends of the Earth Group, presented a petition containing over 1,600 signatures, which asked that incineration should not be included as part of this Council’s future waste strategy. She added that the Group’s surveys had shown that people wanted more doorstep recycling facilities, including green waste, and that incineration was a very unpopular choice especially because of fears of health risks. Chinnor & Thame Friends of the Earth Group were willing to work with the Council to encourage local residents to recycle their kitchen and garden waste.

The Chairman advised Ms Dyroff that the petition and associated documents would be referred to officers for review in the context of the Council’s future waste strategy.

The following requests to address the meeting had been agreed:-

Request from	Agenda Item
Dr Les Clyne	8. Children & Young People’s Plan: Resource Implications
Mr Victor Burge (Chair of, and a primary school governor representative on, the Oxfordshire Schools Forum).	9. Delegation of Statementing Budget

260/05. FINANCIAL MONITORING

(Agenda Item 5)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA5) which covered the period up to the end of October 2005 for both revenue and capital.

The Cabinet noted the comments from the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee.

RESOLVED: to:

1. note the report;
2. agree to increase the level of salary and health and safety recharges to the capital programme as described at paragraph 40;
3. agree to make a loan of £0.300m to the Oxford Preservation Trust, as discussed at paragraph 45;
4. give authority to the Head of Finance & Procurement to act on the Council’s behalf in regard to the investments of the Walter Biggs Trust;
5. approve the adjustments to the capital programme as shown at paragraph 58;
6. agree that an additional two loans under the Affordable Housing public service agreement be made at a cost of £0.090m.
   
   

261/05. REVENUE BUDGET AND CAPITAL PROGRAMME 2006/07 - 2010/11

(Agenda Item 6)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA6) informing members on the service and financial planning process and issues for 2006/07 and the medium term, together with a supplementary report which set out the implications of the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement.

Councillor Roaf, speaking as Leader of the Opposition, noted that, whilst the total grant was approximately what had been expected, the settlement was good for schools but not for other services. He expressed concern that some of the suggested reprioritisations were actually cuts. He expressed regret that the Cabinet was considering reducing the number of residential care beds when the Prevention and Day Services Strategy for Older People had yet to be implemented and suggested that the areas which the Cabinet now wished to cut had been those areas which they had previously supported.

Councillor Shouler responded that the settlement had provided approximately the amount of money anticipated to non-school services and slightly more than anticipated to schools. He commented that the Government had significantly changed the basis of local government finance, and moreover that there was now very little correlation between business rates collected in Oxfordshire and the amount of government funding allocated to the County Council. He added that the Cabinet would consider the advice of the Scrutiny Committees as part of the budget setting process but intended to deliver its manifesto pledge of delivering a Council Tax increase of not more than 4.375%.

RESOLVED: to note the report.

262/05. REVIEW OF PROPERTY ASSETS

(Agenda Item 7)

The Cabinet considered information on progress with the Review of Property Assets – Office Reorganisation Proposals and Central Offices Project.

RESOLVED: to:

1. agree the revised timetable set out in the report as Option 2 for implementation of the Review of Property Assets Office and Central Offices Projects; and
2. note that there was likely to be a need for capital funding for implementation of the Review of Property Assets and request that the Capital Steering Group consider this in relation to other capital priorities.
   
   

263/05. CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE’S PLAN: RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS

(Agenda Item 8)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA8) which set out the financial implications of the Children & Young People’s Plan and how they could be met.

Councillor Fooks, speaking as the Shadow Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Families, drew the Cabinet’s attention to the Integrated Information Management Scheme for children and young people, which had been identified as a key priority for improving outcomes for children and young people. She urged the Cabinet to give high priority to supporting the proposed children’s centres and local multidisciplinary teams when setting the budget and expressed concern about the implications of not funding the identified budget pressures and the medium term risks implied by the Cabinet’s demand for a costed exit strategy. She stated that the PSA reward money for meeting specific targets should be put back into the relevant service and urged the Cabinet to reconsider its decision to put it into a central pool. She asked the Cabinet to give priority to meeting the needs of children in Oxfordshire over keeping Council Tax increases low.

Dr Clyne, a resident of Abingdon, commented that the Children & Young People’s Plan had emphasised the importance of ‘fun things to do’ for young people including access to sport and leisure facilities. He urged the Cabinet to provide funding to enable The Net Youth Centre in Abingdon to open on Saturday evenings.

Councillor Chapman stated that there were real concerns about future funding for the children’s centres programme and confirmed that all aspects were being explored in the course of the current consultation. She added that criteria for how the extra funding which had already been secured for the Youth Service would be spent were currently being drawn up. All areas of the budget were being examined to make sure expenditure was appropriately directed.

The Cabinet noted that an account of extended schools and their development potential would be included in the March report on the Children’s Centres Strategy.

Councillor Chapman undertook to meet Dr Clyne to discuss his specific request.

RESOLVED: to note the resource implications of the Children & Young People’s Plan and that these were included in the Corporate and Cross-Directorate Policy Choice Options under consideration in the current budget process.

264/05. DELEGATION OF STATEMENTING BUDGET

(Agenda Item 9)

On 20 September 2005 the Cabinet had authorised officers to carry out a formal consultation with schools on proposals to delegate the statementing budget. The report before the Cabinet (CA9) described the consultation process, results and implications if the scheme were to be approved.

Mr Burge stated that the Schools Forum had wanted officers to ask schools if they wished to retain existing financial arrangements, but this question had not been done during the consultation process. He commented that whilst most of the county’s secondary schools had welcomed the proposals, many primary schools had not. The Forum did not believe that delegating the statementing budget would achieve Ofsted’s recommendation that the County Council should target its resources better to schools, adding that officers should look again at proposals for delegating to primary schools, in a few years’ time.

Councillor Turner, speaking as Shadow Cabinet Member for Schools Improvement, expressed concern that the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee had not been permitted to access the survey response analysis to the consultation until the day of their meeting. He added that the Liberal Democrat Group broadly supported the recommendations, but urged the Cabinet to ensure that some money was retained centrally in the event that individual schools needed to provide for a sudden increase in the number of children with Special Educational Needs.

Councillor Mrs Fitzgerald-O’Connor, speaking as Chairman of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee, stated that the Committee had questioned a number of witnesses to glean their views on the proposals. The witnesses had expressed reservations about delegation to primary schools but had supported delegation to secondary schools. She drew the Cabinet’s attention to the comments made by the Scrutiny Committee, who had agreed to support the proposals in the report, subject as stated in the schedule of addenda.

Councillor Waine responded that the centrally held statementing budget was overly bureaucratic and time consuming for schools. Delegating it to schools would save time and money which could be used to support children. He commented that it had been difficult to gauge views from primary schools as there had been a very low response rate to the consultation. He agreed however that the position needed to be kept under review.

Councillor Waine accepted the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee comments, noting that those which entailed recommendations to schools could not be insisted upon by the Local Education Authority.

RESOLVED:

1. to approve the introduction of a scheme of delegation from April 2006 using the SEN Index formula, on the following basis:
   
   

1. all of the statementing budget for secondary schools should be delegated;
2. for primary schools, funding equivalent to the first 15 hours of provision should be delegated;
3. introduction should be phased over two years.
4. exceptional arrangements should be made for the hundred primary schools with the smallest whole school budgets and other exceptional circumstances, on a basis agreed by the Director for Children, Young People & Families;
5. a contingency fund should be retained for exceptional arrangements, ring-fenced within the school’s block so that any surplus is re-distributed to schools at the end of the year;
   
   
2. that the Director for Children, Young People & Families be asked to:
   
   

1. review the implementation within the first year for consideration by the Schools Forum and Cabinet;
2. produce a full review of the scheme within the first two years, in time for any changes to be made for April 2008;
3. report to the Cabinet in Summer 2007 on the use of "additional funding" and any proposals for its redistribution from 2008;
4. work on extending the scope of ‘School Action Plus’ in the hundred primary schools with the smallest whole school budgets to enable, where appropriate, further centrally agreed funding for specified pupils.
   
   

265/05. HOME TO SCHOOL AND COLLEGE TRANSPORT

(Agenda Item 10)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA10) which set out the reasons for the projected overspend on transport for young people travelling to school or college and reported back on the management actions that had already been taken over the last year to address some of the budget pressures, including a rise in concessionary fares.

Councillor Turner, speaking as Shadow Cabinet Member for Schools Improvement, suggested that the proposals contradicted the Cabinet’s manifesto pledge to support faith schools. He asked if officers had discussed the proposal to end free travel for non-Oxfordshire residents to Chiltern Edge School with the appropriate Berkshire unitary authorities and added that he wished this to be included as part of the consultation process if this had not happened. He further commented that, in his view, charging for post 16 SEN students to travel to school or college was an unfair burden on rural communities.

Councillor Chapman responded that there was considered to be an overriding need to explore what savings could be made, but no decisions were proposed at this stage, in advance of the consultation which the report proposed. She recommended that outcome of the consultation should be referred back to the Cabinet via the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee to give their advice.

RESOLVED: subject to the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee being given the opportunity to consider the report to Cabinet following consultation and prior to Cabinet consideration, to:

1. ask officers to consult on a revised transport policy, including the following changes to current practice, and to bring a report back to the Cabinet:

1. the phased ending of transport to faith schools and/or continuing to provide transport to faith schools but charging for seats on the same terms as those set out in the concessionary scheme;
2. the phased ending of free travel for non-Oxfordshire residents to Chiltern Edge School;
3. the introduction of charging for post 16 SEN students;
4. using free school meals and maximum working tax credit as the reasons for exemptions to the concessionary charge for transport;
   
   
2. include as part of the annual consultation on admissions arrangements a review of the designated areas of those secondary schools which had areas that overlapped the county boundary, with a view to realigning them with that boundary;
3. endorse the establishment of an integrated Transport Management Team in the Children, Young People & Families Directorate by April 2006 as an interim step towards the longer term strategy of developing a centrally managed team for all of the Council’s funded transport arrangements.
   
   

266/05. REFURBISHMENT OF JOINTLY USED SPORTS CENTRES IN CHERWELL DISTRICT

(Agenda Item 11)

The Cabinet had before it a detailed project appraisal (CA11) in respect of a proposal for the Council to contribute to the refurbishment and improvement of Bicester & Ploughley and Kidlington & Gosford Sports Centres and the rebuilding of the Spiceball Park Sports Centre, in recognition of the increased educational benefit of the refurbished facilities.

RESOLVED:

1. to approve Project Appraisal ED630;
2. to agree that, subject as follows, the County Council would make a capital contribution spread over the 2005-06 and following financial year(s) towards the project to modernise the three jointly used Sports Centres in Cherwell;
3. that the contribution be capped at £1,493,250 (plus interest for payments made in later year(s)) to reflect the benefits to the County Council from the proposed costs to be shared;
4. that the approved contribution be dependent on County Council officers being satisfied with the details of the new provision at Kidlington and the traffic and pedestrian movement improvement plans at Bicester and Ploughley;
5. to authorise the Director for Children, Young People & Families in consultation with the Head of Finance & Procurement to determine the phasing of the payments within the available capital funding provision;
6. to authorise the Director for Children, Young People & Families and Head of Property to agree with Cherwell District Council such changes as were required and were acceptable to all parties in the joint use agreements covering the County Council’s use of these Centres to reflect the changes arising from this project, together with the necessary lease and land use agreements.
   
   

267/05. HENLEY TOWN CENTRE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT SCHEMES

(Agenda Item 12)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA12) which described the proposed Henley Town Centre traffic management and environmental improvement schemes, reported on consultation recently undertaken and sought a decision on how to proceed with the schemes.

Mr Collins reported he had written confirmation from Henley Town Council that they supported the scheme.

Mr Collins stated that the Fire Service in Henley had objected to the proposal to make Duke Street one-way northbound, as it would take them 40 seconds longer to get to other areas. The Fire Service had however undertaken to consider whether its objections would be overcome by a proposal that the traffic controls at junctions on the alternative route should in an emergency be activated from the Fire Station to control traffic flow and provide a clear path for Fire Service vehicles.

RESOLVED: to:

1. approve Project Appraisal H180;
2. authorise officers to proceed with the design and implementation of the Traffic Management and Environmental Improvement Scheme, subject to (c) below; and
3. authorise officers to promote any Traffic Regulation Orders necessary for the implementation of the Traffic Management and Environmental Improvement scheme, subject to any objections being reported back to the Transport Implementation Committee for decision.
   
   

268/05. BANBURY FLOOD ALLEVIATION SCHEME

(Agenda Item 13)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA13) which set out the benefits and disadvantages of the proposed Banbury Flood Alleviation Scheme in the context of the Council’s legal responsibilities with regard to the public highway.

In response to a question by Councillor Shouler, Mr Fell reported that the indemnity being sought from the Environment Agency was to cover unknown and unforeseeable risks, as there was no precedent from other local authorities for the type of arrangement suggested in this case. He emphasised that this issue was not holding up progress on the scheme, as there were other factors which the Agency still had to resolve.

RESOLVED: to accept the Environment Agency’s Banbury flood alleviation proposal on the basis set out in the report and agree the withdrawal of the County Council’s objection, subject to the following conditions being met to the satisfaction of the Director for Environment & Economy and the Solicitor to the Council:

1. the documentation in a separate agreement of any rights to be granted to the Environment Agency by the Council;
2. the agreement of a management protocol for early warning of flood events and for establishing and removing of diversions;
3. agreement by the Environment Agency to reimburse the Council’s reasonable costs incurred as a direct consequence of the proposed scheme;
4. the granting of a full indemnity to the Council by the Environment Agency.
   
   

269/05. OXFORDSHIRE MINERALS AND WASTE DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

(Agenda Item 14)

Councillor Howell withdrew from the meeting for the duration of this item.

The Cabinet considered responses to the consultation on and proposed changes to the draft Statement of Community Involvement (CA14).

The Cabinet Member for Sustainable Development undertook that officers would comply with the advice from the Environment & Economy Scrutiny Committee that a note should be issued alongside the publication of the next development document, drawing local members’ attention to the detailed consultation list (held by the Minerals & Waste Team) of individuals, groups, organisations and bodies who wished to be involved and consulted at particular stages in the preparation of local development documents.

RESOLVED: to RECOMMEND Council to:

1. endorse the responses to the representations on the consultation draft Oxfordshire Statement of Community Involvement in Annex 1 to the report;
2. approve the Oxfordshire Statement of Community Involvement, incorporating changes proposed in Annex 2, and authorise the Head of Sustainable Development, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Sustainable Development, to finalise the SCI for submission to the Secretary of State; and
3. authorise the Head of Sustainable Development, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Sustainable Development, to prepare a pre-submission consultation statement and representations statement (to include the responses referred to in R(a) above) for submission to the Secretary of State as required by the Regulations.
   
   

270/05. THORNHILL PARK & RIDE INTERCHANGE

(Agenda Item 15)

The Cabinet considered a report and project appraisal (CA15) for Thornhill Park & Ride Interchange. A scheme to provide a new bus terminus and building and to upgrade the existing car park had been programmed to be constructed in 2005/06. Following production of the final contract documents and a detailed cost estimate the scheme was found to have exceeded the approved project appraisal of £1.97M. Therefore, a reassessment of the scheme and available funding had been carried out.

Councillor Johnston, speaking as the Shadow Cabinet Member for Transport, welcomed the project in principle and asked the Cabinet if they could give an assurance that the proposals would not create future financial difficulties for the Council. He expressed regret that the project had not been completed within its original timescale and asked if the project completion date could be brought forward should any additional funding be provided from revenue raised from parking charges. He further expressed concern that it appeared that people who worked or lived in the vicinity were parking at the site, which resulted in less space for bona fide users.

Councillor Robertson responded that some of the funding would be provided from on-street parking surplus, but that the Cabinet could not plan to spend such surplus as might arise in future. He commented that he did not think that the site was being used extensively by other users, as there were not many businesses in the Thornhill area.

RESOLVED: to approve Project Appraisal H173/1 and the implementation of the amended scheme as described in the report and Appraisal.

271/05. CIVIL CONTINGENCIES ACT 2004 - EMERGENCY PLANNING DUTIES

(Agenda Item 15)

The Cabinet considered a report (CA16) relating to emergency planning duties under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.

RESOLVED: to:

1. approve the terms of an agreement with the District Councils and incorporated protocols as described in the report and set out in Annex 1;
2. note the progress on the Business Continuity Management project and ask the Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer to produce any other reports as required on this;
3. instruct the Director for Community Safety & Chief Fire Officer to report back on any significant additional commitments from the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, when all the Thames Valley and Regional structures were in place.
   
   

272/05. JOINT WORKING ARRANGEMENTS WITH THE DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS

(Agenda Item 17)

The Committee considered a report (CA17) which sought agreement in principle to the proposed joint working arrangements with the Department for Work and Pensions, which was part of a nation-wide drive to improve pension services for older people.

Mr Kearey undertook that a report detailing the effectiveness of the new arrangements would be brought to Cabinet after a year of the new arrangements.

RESOLVED: to:

1. support in principle the proposal for joint working arrangements between the Council and the Pensions Service local service as described in the report, in order to improve the uptake and processing of benefits by clients and carers.
2. note that further consultation would be conducted with all stakeholders, including the Pensions Service local service, representatives from the voluntary sector and Primary Care Trusts, on implementation arrangements;
3. authorise the Director for Social & Community Services, in consultation as he may think appropriate with the Cabinet Member for Social & Community Services, to agree on the part of the County Council the final implementation arrangements to be proposed by the Strategic Management Board following the further consultation with stakeholders.
   
   

273/05. FORWARD PLAN AND FUTURE BUSINESS

in the Chair

Date of signing 2006

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