Agenda item

Members to receive the Task Group report with outcomes from the s106 funding review.

Members will be asked to endorse the recommendations.

The Police and Crime Panel received the Task Group report with outcomes from the section 106 Funding Review.

The Chair introduced the report and thanked the panel members who were involved noting that membership was representative of the city, county and Rutland. The Chair also thanked officers for their involvement and support with this piece of work.

The Chair explained that the review was prompted by a range of factors and concern that s106 money was not included within the budget. Once the review started it found there were huge sums across LLR sitting in accounts and not being spent for  the benefit of the community. The task group undertook a deep dive and found bids had been made so far in advance that by the time a trigger was reached the original proposals were no-longer relevant to the present time.

The task group considered that the benefits o re-purposing existing bids would lead to more certainty in future budgets for capital programming and a better understanding of plans for the future.

It was proposed that the Police and Crime Panel support the task group findings and endorse the recommendations to the Police and Crime Commissioner/Force as follows:

1.    The Force to take steps to repurpose s106 agreements that are no longer viable through liaison with local authority planning officers and developers to ensure that funding is secured.

2.    The Force to produce a defined list of items to be linked to its Investment Strategy and which can be used for repurposing agreements.

3.    The Force to progress work in partnership with planners and/or Community Safety Partnerships to align timescales and awareness of new larger developments and to co-ordinate needs with other infrastructure projects.

4.    The Police and Crime Commissioner to provide for resources to enable establishment of sufficient officer support to the s106 area of work and to facilitate the spend of s106 monies and pursuit of new bids.

5.    The Police and Crime Commissioner/Force to develop and introduce a monitoring system to enable oversight and management of all s106 agreements and to monitor use of monies received.

6.    The Police and Crime Commissioner/Force to liaise with planning officers in determining any new method for future bids.

The Police and Crime Commissioner put on record his thanks to the task group and officers for the huge amount of work undertaken during the review and for highlighting this area. The Police and Crime Commissioner agreed it was important to take this forward and to do so as quickly as possible and to adopt the recommendations, which he noted most were now being done and the rest would be implemented. The PCC recognised that securing monies from s106 funding was in the interests of the local authorities, police and importantly residentsof Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

Members commented that it was also important moving forward to ensure that any new bids were agreed in an enabling format rather than constraining format and that was a fundamental change needed.

Members also commented that this was a valuable piece of work which should serve the residents of Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland well and it would be interesting to see how developers reacted to requests to repurpose and members hoped that developers would fully engage as this was about mitigating the impact of their developments.

Members noted that moving forward it was the force intention to look at a set formula for future bids, although that would need to be developed in conjunction with planning officers across the local authorities in the force area.

Members were pleased that this work had highlighted across the whole provision of s106 to the LLR the importance of monitoring the funds and that it is spent in a timely fashion for wider communities.

The Chair requested that the PCC report back to the panel at a future meeting on what had been done to progress re-purposing of outstanding s106 bids and secure s106 funds.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the contents of the report be noted,

2.    That the panel endorses the recommendations of the Task Group to the Police and Crime Commissioner/Force as follows:

·         The Force to take steps to repurpose s106 agreements that are no longer viable through liaison with local authority planning officers and developers to ensure that funding is secured.

·         The Force to produce a defined list of items to be linked to its Investment Strategy and which can be used for repurposing agreements.

·         The Force to progress work in partnership with planners and/or Community Safety Partnerships to align timescales and awareness of new larger developments and to co-ordinate needs with other infrastructure projects.

·         The Police and Crime Commissioner to provide for resources to enable establishment of sufficient officer support to the s106 area of work and to facilitate the spend of s106 monies and pursuit of new bids.

·         The Police and Crime Commissioner/Force to develop and introduce a monitoring system to enable oversight and management of all s106 agreements and to monitor use of monies received.

·         The Police and Crime Commissioner/Force to liaise with planning officers in determining any new method for future bids.

3.    That an update report be brought to the panel at a future meeting to inform progress on implementing the recommendations above and progress on re-purposing bids and securing s106 funds.