Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillor Amanda Boote and Councillor Adam Kirby.

(i)         To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary and other interests from Members in respect of any item to be considered at the meeting.

(ii)        In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Chief Executive, Julie Fisher, declares a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which she is a Council-appointed director. The companies are listed in the attached schedule. The interests are such that Mrs Fisher may advise on those items.

(iii)      In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Strategic Director - Corporate Resources, Kevin Foster declares a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which he is a Council-appointed director. The companies are listed in the attached schedule. The interests are such that Mr Foster may advise on those items.

(iv)      In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Strategic Director - Communities, Louise Strongitharm, declares a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which she is a Council-appointed director. The companies are listed in the attached schedule. The interests are such that Mrs Strongitharm may advise on those items.

(v)       In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Head of Transformation and Digital, Adam Walther, declares a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which he is a Council-appointed director. The companies are listed in the attached schedule. The interests are such that Mr Walther may advise on those items.

In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Chief Executive, Julie Fisher, declared a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which she was a Council-appointed director.  The companies were listed in an attached schedule.  The interests were such that Mrs Fisher could advise on those items.

In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Strategic Director - Corporate Resources, Kevin Foster declared a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which he was a Council-appointed director.  The companies were listed in an attached schedule.  The interests were such that Mr Foster could advise on those items.

In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Strategic Director - Communities, Louise Strongitharm, declared a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which she was a Council-appointed director.  The companies were listed in an attached schedule.  The interests were such that Mrs Strongitharm could advise on those items.

In accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules, the Head of Transformation and Digital, Adam Walther, declared a disclosable personal interest (non-pecuniary) in any items concerning the companies of which he was a Council-appointed director.  The companies were listed in an attached schedule.  The interests were such that Mr Walther could advise on those items.

The Mayor referred the Council to the report before it on the Section 114(3) Notice and the Chief Executive’s response, and briefly outlined the procedure to be adopted for the evening.  In line with Standing Order 31.2, the Mayor proposed that Standing Orders should be suspended for the sole purpose of enabling the Section 151 Officer and Interim Director of Finance and the Chief Executive to directly address the Council.

RESOLVED

That Standing Orders be suspended for the sole purpose of enabling the Section 151 Officer and Interim Director of Finance and the Chief Executive to directly address the Council.

The Section 151 Officer and Interim Director of Finance, Brendan Arnold, was invited to introduce the report.  The Section 114(3) Notice had been issued on 7 June 2023 as, in the view of the Section 151 Officer, the expenditure of the Council incurred (including expenditure it proposes to incur) in 2023/24 was likely to exceed resources (including sums borrowed) available to it to meet that expenditure.  It was noted that the Council faced a financial situation of an extremely serious nature, with an unprecedented shortfall and no prospect that the Council would balance its budgets in subsequent years without external financial support on a large scale.

The Council faced a deficit of £1.2 billion against the core funding of £16m available in the current financial year, a position which was expected to worsen initially.  The Council had not set aside sufficient funds to pay off the interest on the debt, and the investments had been impaired.  A suite of financial controls had been introduced which would continue going forward.  The situation would require both immediate and ongoing action over a number of years in order to return the Council to a path of financial and operational sustainability and recovery. Weaknesses in the management of financial affairs had been identified and were being addressed.

The Local Government Finance Act (1988) provided that the Council had to consider the report of the Section 151 Officer at a meeting to decide whether it agreed or disagreed with the report and what, if any, action it proposed to take.  The Council had been required to meet within 21 days of the date on which the Section 114 Notice had been issued and accordingly the Extraordinary Meeting of Council had been convened to fulfil the requirement.

The Chief Executive, Julie Fisher, was invited to present her response to the Section 114(3) Notice, details of which were set out in the report before Council.  The response summarised the work undertaken over the past six months and outlined a series of recommendations to take the Council forward.  A Commissioning Team had been appointed through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and was working closely with the Council on the development of an Improvement and Recovery Plan.  The key lines of enquiry being used to develop the details of the Plan had been included in the report before Council.

Above all, the reports before the Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.