83/21
It was noted that
five Questions on Notice had been received in accordance with
Council Procedure Rule 8.
a) From
Cllr McKay to Cllr Pearce, Leader of the Council
‘The
Leader will be aware of the Constitution-Part 4-Council Procedure
Rules - Rule 13. Does the Leader agree
that this rule provides a framework for the Council to consult with
its residents and why has it not been employed?’
In response,
Cllr Pearce advised that the Council had adopted the Council Meeting Procedure Rules in
July 2021, replacing and therefore revoking, the equivalent part of
the Constitution. The Rules were agreed by Council following
a number of meetings with Members about the Council’s
decision-making arrangements and a review of the Council’s
Constitution. Cllr Pearce also recalled that Council deferred
adoption of the Constitution from the Annual Meeting in May, so
that Members had more time to consider the new Rules.
Cllr Pearce
proceeded to inform that, in its adopted form, Council Meeting
Procedure Rule 13 dealt with the Procedure for making amendments to
Budget proposals. Previously, the same numbered Procedure
Rule had provided for the Leader of the Council to have a
discretion to call an annual “State of the South Hams
Debate” and to decide the form of the debate “with the
aim of enabling public involvement and publicity”. It
was a provision that had its origin in the Model Constitution
introduced by the Secretary of State following the Local Government
Act 2000 coming into force, which required all local councils to
have a Constitution that covered all of the Standing Orders,
delegated processes and the Code of conduct for
Members.
Furthermore,
the Council was committed to consulting with its residents.
In reality, a single annual debate, did not provide the time or the
level of engagement with the public that would be needed to ensure
that their views are communicated effectively and received an
appropriate level of consideration. This was to be contrasted
with the approach taken by the Council to consult with residents as
part of the process of forming “Better Lives for All”
and the various strategies that flowed from it, such as the Housing
Strategy.
In addition,
“Better Lives for All” also had a number of actions
focussed upon how the Council could improve communication and
engagement. These actions were detailed in the thematic
delivery plans. They included developing a Customer Access
Strategy and a forward plan of Consultation on Engagement.
Both were now in place. Accordingly, the Council could show
by its words and actions, that it had a firm commitment to
consultation and engagement.
b) From
Cllr O’Callaghan to Cllr Pearce, Leader of the
Council
‘Is
it true that SHDC missed the deadline set by the Information
Commissioner to reply to a resident making FOI requests in relation
to the council’s waste management contract? If so, why did
this happen and have we ensured the resident got replies –
and that other FOI requests do too?’
Prior to
providing her response, the Leader reminded the meeting that it had
also previously been circulated to all Members on 11 March
2022. Nonetheless, Cllr Pearce
proceeded to state that:
‘The
Council was of course aware of its duties
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, it also
had a number of other competing or conflicting duties, both
statutory and common law, and limited resources with which to
comply with them. It was, and still was, a matter of
balancing those duties; the right of the individual to know
balanced against the interests of all residents and businesses that
the Council was acting prudently in commercial and legal matters
affecting the Council.
Members were
aware that, at the time of the request, and a number of others like
it, the Council was dealing with a significant number of failures
by its waste contractor to implement the Devon Aligned Service or
indeed to consistently and regularly collect waste across the South
Hams. Seeking to protect the waste collection service and to
comply with our statutory duties regarding the collection of
household waste was the priority. Officers were asked to do
just that. Those officers included the same officers
who would otherwise have been available to consider the
contract and any exemptions that may have applied to it. All
those individuals who requested a copy of the contract or parts of
the contract were advised of this.
Members had
been advised on several occasions that the contract was complex and
one of, if not the largest contracts that the Council had ever
let. The Council could not simply hand-over copies of the
contract to anyone who requested it. To do so, would have
caused harm to the Council’s wider interests and therefore
those of our residents and businesses. The application of the
exemptions that were necessary to protect the Council’s
on-going legal and commercial position in its dispute with its
waste contractor was not straight-forward. The Council had
taken, and was continuing to take, legal advice on the application
of the exemptions. The Council would nevertheless provide
what information was appropriate within the 35-day period given by
the Information Commissioner’s Office.’
In response to
a Supplementary Question, Cllr Pearce expressed some sympathy and
stated that it was her view that the Overview and Scrutiny
Committee should consider the findings made by the Information
Commissioner’s Office as part of the Annual Report produced
by the Local Government Ombudsman.
c)
From Cllr Pannell to
Cllr Pearce, Leader of the Council
‘Will the
Leadership of this Council consider following the example of
Cornwall Council to devolve control and ownership of a number of
its car parks to town and parish councils on the grounds that local
people best understand local needs and how to manage them and, if
not, why not?
In response,
Cllr Baldry, Lead Executive Member for Environment stated that
Cornwall Council was currently considering devolution of some of
its public open space and minor car parks. South Hams District Council had been taking this
approach for some years where Town and Parish Councils had
presented a compelling and reasonable case.
Cllr Baldry
also advised that public open space and some car parks had been
devolved in locations such as Newton and Noss; Dartmouth; and Aveton Gifford and the opportunity remained for
Town and Parish Councils to make the case for devolution of
non-strategic assets.
For clarity,
Cllr Baldry also informed that strategic assets would include Town
Centre and coastal car parks.
In response to
a supplementary, Cllr Baldry agreed that, in the event of any Local
Government reorganisation being proposed, then he would support in
principle devolving the control and ownership of such assets to
local town and parish councils.
d) From Cllr McKay to Cllr Pearce,
Leader of the Council
‘The
Leader will be aware that the South Hams needs to reduce its
emissions of GHG’s by ~10% per year over 8 years if it is to
achieve a 50% reduction by 2030. Does the Leader think the
Council’s Action Plan provides a framework for doings this,
and why?’
In response,
Cllr Pearce advised that the
Climate Emergency and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
was a huge challenge to us all. The Councils Action Plan was an
evolving piece of work and would be subject to a review later this
year after the publication of the Devon Carbon Plan. The Devon
Carbon Plan had been co-produced by leading experts, the public and
strategic partners and would help to set realistic carbon budgets
to work towards. As a Council, we had an aim to reach net zero by
2050 across the District and whilst we had a key role to play, we
could not do this in isolation and would continue to co-ordinate
our efforts with partners in Devon and across the South West to
achieve results in the areas over which we had the greatest level
of influence.
In asking a
supplementary question, Cllr McKay sought further clarity on what
measures would be put in place to ensure the targets within the
Action Plan were met.
In response,
the Leader suggested that it would be appropriate for either a
written response to be provided to Cllr McKay or for a meeting to
be convened between Cllr McKay and lead officers to discuss in more
detail.
e)
From Cllr McKay to Cllr
Pearce, Leader of the Council
‘This Council has earmarked £600k for
climate change and biodiversity, largely at the behest of the
opposition. But why has so little of this money been spent on the
myriad opportunities it must surely be aware of to address the
Emergency it declared two and half years ago?’
Cllr
Pearce’s response advised that, of the £600,000
approved by Council, £359,000 had already been committed
against the delivery of climate related projects within the
Council’s adopted Corporate Strategy: Better Lives for All
and the adopted Climate Change and Biodiversity Strategy. This
included an allocation of £200,000 for grants. £50,000
had now been allocated through the Climate Engagement Fund to a
range of community driven projects designed at delivering
behavioural change. The next phase of our grant scheme would be
published shortly. A further £93,000 had been allocated
to individual Members through the Climate Locality Fund, of which
£35,269 had been spent so far.
A further
£46,000 had been committed to the green space management
changes to improve biodiversity on our land which would ensure that
our aim to increase biodiversity by 10% by 2025 would be
comfortably exceeded. Smaller sums were being utilised to
scope and develop larger, carbon saving projects such as EV fleet
transition. We retained the remaining budget to support costs
associated with operational emissions reductions and projects
likely to emerge from the Devon Carbon Plan.
In his
supplementary question, Cllr McKay asked whether or not there was
any intention for grant funding opportunities to be made available
to allow smaller organisations to secure funding in the
future.
In her
response, Cllr Pearce reminded Members that they had the ability to
use their Locality Funds to support such organisations.