Minutes:
Strategic Planning and Regeneration Scrutiny Committee – 14 September 2005
The Committee resolved the following at the above meeting:-
CAPITAL PROGRAMME OUTTURN 2004/05
“(1) that the Committee expresses its concerns to Cabinet on the spending failures with regard to Direct Grant Schemes, in particular those funded by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund; and
(2) that the Committee receive a report on the spending failures in the Direct Grant Schemes at the earliest possible opportunity, should there be any urgent action required prior to that time then the Triumvirate should be kept informed.”
Councillor Blackmore reported that the reported under-spend on Direct Grants of £3.7m mainly related to the following Regeneration Programme funding regimes;
SRB under-spend of £0.1m The unspent resources were to be carried forward to 2005/06, subject to EMDA's approval of a revised 2005/06 Delivery Plan being submitted in October 2005.
Reasons for the underspend accumulation included a protracted tendering process for £2 million worth of employment, training, business support, and associated childcare provision. This process was now virtually complete and services would be provided from January 2006. Another contributing factor was the failure of a substantial bid by GHCDL (the Greater Humberstone Development Company) to implement its proposals for the Mundella site. A revised bid was expected by 30 September, together with plans for other SRB capital projects in Greater Humberstone.
NRF under-spend of £1m. The unspent resources were vired to the 2004/05 revenue allocation in January 2005. This resulted in an under-spend of the revenue allocation of £0.8m, of which £0.4m was approved to be carried forward by GOEM to 2005/06. The residual balance of £0.4m was lost to the partnership.
£250,000 of the underspend was due to slippage on capital projects. As a two-year programme, NRF was not a suitable source of capital funding. Secondly, several projects managed by the City Council did not start spending until six months of the programme had elapsed. In order to guarantee the maximum expenditure of short-term external funding, the City Council must ensure that projects are ready to start immediately, that support systems are in place, and contingencies available to take up any slack.
It was noted that officers would report to the October Strategic Planning and Regeneration Scrutiny Committee on this issue.
Objective 2 ERDF under-spend of £2.4m. This was vired to the revenue allocation. Due to the complexities of the funding regime, this expenditure was now reported as Direct Grants revenue expenditure and is excluded from the 2005/06 Capital Programme.
PLANNING APPLICATION STATISTICS
“that the Cabinet be requested to look at the fee income generated by additional planning applications being used for development of the planning service.”
Councillor Farmer responded that the Council did receive funding in the form of the Planning Delivery Grant for the development of the planning service. However, there was one particular area where the Council needed to improve performance which was in relation to major planning applications. Therefore he noted the Scrutiny Committee’s suggestion and reported that it would be considered as part of the budget deliberations in the light of the need to improve performance in relation to major planning applications.