Who Controls Access to Overview and Scrutiny?

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Liz

It is very worrying that once again the Overview and Scrutiny Committee of Herefordshire Council had documents withheld from them by officers, whose work they are supposed to be scrutinizing. Today questions written and submitted last Wednesday (11th January 2012) on items in the agenda, in accordance with the rules of the committee, were submitted by a member of the public. However, it was reported to the meeting that the director of people and places along with David Powell (chief officer financial and commercial) had jointly decided that the questions should not be circulated to the committee members. Councillors were understandably unhappy that officers were filtering their correspondence without referring the matter to the chair, so hurriedly copies of the questions were made and circulated. However, this meant councillors had little or no time to read the questions, due to the fact that the meeting was already in progress.

This unusual treatment of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee follows on from the earlier meeting on 9th December on the Local Development Framework where letters that had been submitted by parish councils and residents raising concerns over the way the process and consultation had been conducted were only circulated to members half an hour prior to the meeting starting. Some of these letters had been written 2 weeks in advance of the meeting and yet didn’t even get mentioned by officers in the report for the meeting. By with holding this correspondence it meant that many councillors once again had very little time carefully to read and consider matters that local tax payers and parish councillors felt needed to be drawn to the attention of this remaining scrutiny committee.

The four questions that were submitted were as follows:- Answers have now been provided by Herefordshire Council

Question 1.The last report to Herefordshire Council on the private company Hereford Futures Ltd was made as a verbal report in March 2011 to the Community Services Scrutiny Committee whose role has now been subsumed by the Overview and scrutiny Committee. When will a proper written report, including financial figures and delivery performance arising from the use of public funds, be provided to Herefordshire Council and the providers of this money, namely the residents of Herefordshire?

Answer: This will be a matter for discussion covering any future work programme.

Question 2.What public assets or funds have been transferred to Hereford Futures Ltd in the last 2 financial years and how has this money been used to achieve value for money of the people of Herefordshire?

Answer: The Council’s accounts show that payments to Hereford Futures/ESG were £586,000 in 2010/11 and £700,000 in 2009/10. A number of properties are ring fenced receipts under the agreement.

Question 3.(i)With regard to the Herefordshire Council Core Principle  “Valued Services – focusing on our priorities & what matters to people, stopping things we don’t need to do” what is the benefit of the £27million link road and the expensive improvements planned for Broad Street included in the Proposed Capital Programme.

(ii) Bearing in mind the very poor state of many of our roads and the many other transport projects in the current local transport strategy that have been cancelled, are these works essential?

(iii) When the Usuable Capital Receipts Reserve is estimated to stand at just £3.55m (one fifth of what it was 3 years ago) is this the best use of nearly £30 million of taxpayers money at a time of financial rationing?

Answer: The following points formed part of the Link Road business case:

  1. Provides access to a development of 800 new homes within the urban village;
  2. Allows the creation of up to 1,400 new jobs resulting from development realised through delivery of the link road;
  3. reduces peak traffic usage on the inner ring road (Blueschool St and New Market St) by up to 50%;
  4. Significantly contributes to the regeneration of Hereford, one of 10 priorities within the current Economic Development Strategy.

Question 4.Hereford Futures Ltd state on their website that they calculate the link road will cost £30 million. On page 11 para 67 Herefordshire Council state “The estimated cost of the overall scheme will be £27million” for which the Council are seeking to secure borrowing in 2012. From a FOI request (002456) of Herefordshire Council a response dated 6th Dec 2011 states that the only funding in place for the Hereford Link road is  “£220K approved by HF Board on 14th November 2011 for advanced works, studies, etc“.

Answer: The figure of £30million was an initial estimate and the latest estimate for the construction of the road including land purchase is £27million

(i)If the link road project was not to go ahead would this deliver a saving in 2012/13 of £220,000 in costs “approved by HF board”?
Answer: The £220,000 is coming from capital receipts reserve funding, if this was not spent the reserve would be reduced and the funding resource would be carried forward to fund capital costs only.
(ii)Would there be any additional payroll costs in HF that could be saved as a result of cancelling this project?
Answer: The Hereford Futures project team has been significantly reduced as part of the places and communities budget saving plan. These savings have occurred over the last two years.
iii) What is the risk of the project costing more than the £27m estimated by Herefordshire Council and probably coming in more than 10% higher as predicted by Hereford Futures Ltd?
Answer: The figure of £27million is an estimate but represents a figure within which the project will be delivered. It should be noted that if phase 2 of the development proceeds there is likely to be a developers contribution which will reduce the overall borrowing.

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