Agenda item

To hear the Call-In of any decisions made at the Cabinet meeting prior to this meeting or made by Cabinet Members, other Council Committees or a delegated officer and published within five working days of this meeting.

Members should bring their Cabinet agenda to the meeting.

Members should consider any other decisions published in the five working days before this meeting.

The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether to refer back any decision to the decision maker.

Members gave consideration to the Cabinet reports of 23 September 2010 and after careful consideration Members decided not to call-in any decision made by the Cabinet at their meeting.

However Members sought clarification on the following items:

Cabinet Agenda Item 7 - Pan London Emergency Arrangements  - Amendment to the Gold Resolution and Procedures for Mutual Aid

In the financial implications of the report it stated that there may be a number of costs falling upon the Council. If at all possible, could officers provide an estimate of this likely maximum financial commitment?

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

“It is important to note that neither the Gold resolution nor the Mutual Aid agreement will create additional costs over and above those that we, as a Local Authority, are already liable for during an emergency. Estimating the maximum costs of an emergency is difficult and imprecise as there are many factors that determine our liabilities. However, below are some examples of areas where Local Authorities may respond during an emergency:

o      Provision of humanitarian assistance

o      Provision of temporary additional mortuary capacity

o      Emergency accommodation, predominantly to those enable to return to their homes due to the impact of the emergency

Below are estimated costs incurred by Boroughs from emergencies, which shows the range and extremes of possible spend. It should be noted the a temporary mortuary of the scale of the 7th July bombings is extremely rare:

o      Overnight stay in temporary accommodation for one family of 4 - £150

o      Temporary mortuary for the 7th July 2005 London bombings, incurred by Westminster - approximately £3 million

Recovering the costs:

o      The Bellwin scheme allows Local Authorities to recoup costs from emergencies. However, the criteria is extremely limited and would not be applicable to Hillingdon until we spent over £760,000 on a single emergency. Note: Bellwin only refunds a maximum of 80% of these costs.

o      Government grants - both during 7th July bombings and 2007 flood, Government Departments offered considerable emergency grants to affect local authorities. However, this is not guaranteed.”]

 Cabinet Agenda Item 8 - Revisions to the Chapter 4 'Educational Facilities' of the Planning Obligations Supplementary Planning Document

On page 83 reference was made to the worked example of 26 flats in Uxbridge which stated that no child-yield would be calculated for the 6 studios. Is there a statutory calculation or some other method which stipulated that there should be no child yield for studios?

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

“The worked example follows the Revised SPD Chapter 4 paragraphs 4.14 - 4.15 on developments that qualify for section 106 contributions. The relevant paragraphs are extracted:  

Qualifying Developments
4.14 The Local Planning Authority will, where appropriate, seek to secure contributions from all new residential development (houses and flats), apart from non-family units. In cases such as sheltered housing, where it can be adequately demonstrated to the Council that there would be no child yield, the education contribution may be waived or deferred until the residence reverts back to family housing.

4.15 The threshold at which the local authority may seek contributions for extra school facilities will be any qualifying residential development(houses and flats) resulting in a total net increase of 6 or more rooms (as defined in paragraph 6.3) for units which contain three or more rooms. In addition, the Council may, at its discretion, consider rooms in excess of 20 sqm as potentially 2 separate rooms for the purpose of this assessment. The policy will be applied to all forms of residential development apart from non-family units with no child yield as may be adequately demonstrated to the Council.

Therefore studios and bedsits do not qualify for assessment on the basis of being non-family units and typically having less than 3 rooms. Since Section 106 calculations were first adopted, it has been the standard practice to excludethis type of property. The Council would not want to encourage children in studio or very small 1 bed flats and hence we have not sought an education contribution from these. Clearly if the accommodation had very large rooms that could be subdivided to comply with the policy, then a contribution could be sought.

As far as actual child-yields are concerned, the original 2001 Census data that underpins the Council's S106 calculations did actually demonstrate that 1 and 2 room properties (proxies for studios & bedsits) contained some children. The original data revealed that there were 935 0-16 year olds residing in 4,332 properties that contained only 1 or 2 rooms.”]

Cabinet Agenda Item 10 - Council Budget - Month 4 2010/11 Revenue and Capital Monitoring

In relation to paragraph 17 on page 101, could clarification be given on the detail in that paragraph and also whether Playbuilder is still running?

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

In relation to the Playbuilder scheme, the authority has confirmed in writing that the full allocation for the current financial year has been committed.  Despite the DfE stating in writing that allocations would be confirmed by the end of August 2010 we still await their decision. The position on Surestart is similar and officers are discussing our revised allocation with the DfE, however much of our allocation was committed in advance of the review of expenditure taking place.”]

In relation to Appendix B - Treasury Management Report - the table on outstanding deposits and the item relating to Unpaid Maturities, could officers inform Members when it was expected that the outstanding monies would be coming back to the Council?

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

“There is currently £13.9m outstanding on the Icelandic investments, of which we expect not to recover £2.5m.  Discussions are continuing with DCLG on capitalisation of this impairment.  Of the £15m invested with Heritable, we expect to recover 85%, of which £6.1 m has been repaid and the remainder is due to be repaid in 5% instalments quarterly until September 2012.  Of the £5m invested with Landsbanki, latest projects are that we should recover 95% and repayments are due to start in October 2011 and continue till October 2018.”]

In relation to Appendix C  - Retaining of agency for Adult Social Care, Health and Housing Services - reference is made to 3 contract workers, although in the final sentence reference is made to 5 posts. Could officers clarify this? 

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

“The correct figure is 3 - tying error on the last line of narrative.”]

Cabinet Agenda Item 16 - Appointment of Consultants for the Planning Application ad Design for the Ruislip High School Additional Form of Entry and Sixth Form Centre

 On page 216 under "What will be the effect of the recommendation?" - Could clarification be given as to whether there would be consultation on the proposals to increase the capacity of Ruislip School as well as the statutory notice?   

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

“Under the statutory School Admissions Code, all admission authorities (the LA is the admission authority for RHS) have to consult on any changes to admission arrangements, including admission number changes. Our next opportunity is January 2011, when we consult on admission arrangements for September 2012. The arrangements have to be formally determined in April 2011.”]

Resolved -    

1.      That the decisions made by Cabinet at their meeting on 23 September 2010 be endorsed and noted and no call-in be made of any decision. 

      2.   That officers be asked to provide responses to the issues outlined above.