Agenda and minutes

Fire & Emergency Evacuation Procedure

The Lord Mayor asked all present to note the evacuation procedures detailed on the Agenda for the meeting and asked anyone with any queries to speak to one of the Town Hall staff who would be able to assist.

The Lord Mayor noted that in advance of the meeting Members had been asked to indicate if they intended to make a declaration of interest at the meeting and had received advice regarding any requests for dispensations.

It was noted that Members had identified interests as below:

At the request of the Lord Mayor the Monitoring Officer addressed Council and gave the following advice regarding the declaration of interests at the meeting.

Members did not need to declare interests that already appeared on their Register of Interests, which was a publically accessible and available document. The Localism Act 2011 expressly excused a Member from having to re-declare interests that appeared on the Register.

Over and above interests declared on the Register, Members had, following the Monitoring Officer’s written invitation issued in January, given details of items they wished to declare at the meeting and these were appended to the Council script and would appear in the minutes when published. Therefore there was no need to verbally re-declare these at the meeting unless these were prejudicial Other Disclosable Interests or Disclosable Pecuniary Interests that would require the Member to leave the room and desist from voting. As always, the judgement remained one for the Member to make, with the Monitoring Officer only able to offer advice.

The Monitoring Officer advised that under the provisions of section 106 Local Government Finance Act 1992 any Member who was in two or more months of arrears of Council Tax should not vote on the items for consideration at the meeting. Criminal liability attached to such a Member who did so.

The Monitoring Officer stated that he had been asked to grant one category of dispensation, without which in his opinion it could be necessary for those Members to leave the Chamber. After consultation with the Standards Committee he thereby granted a dispensation to elected Members who were council tenants (or had family members or close associates who were council tenants) to enable them to remain and participate and vote on both the Budget proposals and, crucially, the Housing Revenue Account proposals that came before this meeting. It was noted that the names of those Members covered by this dispensation would appear in the minutes of the meeting. Members were asked to raise their hand if they wished to be granted the benefit of this dispensation and to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

None.

3.1  General Fund Revenue Budget 2016/17

3.2  Capital Programme 2016/17 to 2018/19

3.3  Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Budget (including HRA Capital  

       Programme) 2016/17.

General Fund Revenue Budget 2016/17

The City Mayor submitted his proposed budget for 2016/17.  The report contained details of the proposed budget strategy and also identified the impact of the budget on 2017/18 and future years.

Details of the recommendation of the City Mayor and the General Fund Revenue Budget and Council Tax 2016/17 – Formal Resolutions were available at the meeting and are attached to these minutes.

Moved by the City Mayor seconded by the Deputy City Mayor and carried:-

28.       That Council:

1)            Thanks partners, scrutiny committees, trade unions and others who have commented on our draft budget;

2)            Notes the comments made in the City Mayor’s formal Decision Notice published on 23 February 2016 and attached as Appendix B to the Script and available at the meeting;

3)            Approves the recommendations set out in section 3.1 of the report ‘General Fund Revenue Budget 2016/17’ without amendment; and

4)            Approves the formal budget resolution as set out in Appendix C to the Script and available at the meeting.

The Lord Mayor put the motion to the vote.

It was noted that under the requirements of The Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 the names of the Councillors voting for or against the proposition would be recorded by the Monitoring Officer and included in the minutes of the meeting.

For the motion:

Councillors Aldred, Alfonso, Aqbany, Barton, Byrne, Cank, Chaplin, Chohan, Chowdhury, Clarke, Cleaver, Cole, Connelly, Corrall, Cutkelvin, Dawood, Fonseca, Govind, Gugnani, Halford, Hunter, Joshi, Khote, Kitterick, Malik, Master, Moore, Newcombe, Osman, Palmer, Rae Bhatia, Riyait, Russell, Sandhu, Sangster, Senior, Shelton, Singh, Singh Johal, Sood, Soulsby (City Mayor), Thalukdar, Thomas, Unsworth, Waddington, Westley.

Against the motion

Councillors Porter

Abstained

Councillor Cassidy (Lord Mayor)

Capital Programme 2016/17 to 2018/19

The City Mayor submitted his proposed Capital Programme for 2016/17 to 2018/19.  It was noted that the report covered three years to 2018/19 but that the third year was indicative and would be revised during 2017/18.

Details of the recommendation of the City Mayor ‘Capital Programme 2016/17 to 2018/19’ were available at the meeting and are attached to these minutes.

Moved by the City Mayor, seconded by Deputy City Mayor and carried:

29.       That Council:

Approves the recommendations set out in section 3.1 of the report ‘Capital Programme 2016/17 to 2018/19’ without amendment and as recommended to Council in the City Mayor’s formal decision notice published on 23 February 2016 and attached at Appendix D to the script and available at the meeting.

Housing Revenue Account Rent Setting and Budget (including HRA capital programme) 2016/17

The City Mayor submitted his proposed Housing Revenue Account Rent Setting and Budget (including HRA capital programme) for 2016/17.  It was noted that the report was in the context of the government requirement that rents were reduced by 1% per annum for each of the next four years.

Details of the recommendation of the City Mayor ‘Recommendation of Housing Revenue Account  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

None.

The Lord Mayor declared the meeting closed at 6.15pm