Agenda and draft minutes

In the absence of prayers, in formally opening the meeting, the Vice-Chairman (in the Chair for the meeting) asked Members to remain standing for a minute’s silence in respect of former District Councillor, and former Leader of the Council, Burt Keimach. 

On resuming seats, before moving to the agenda, the Chairman took a moment to reflect on Councillor Keimach’s time in public office noting that he served the District Council from 2008 – 2010 and again from 2011 – 2015, representing the Market Rasen Ward and having been Leader of the District Council from 2011 – 2013.

Cllr Keimach had also served on both the County Council and Market Rasen Town Council, where he held the position of Mayor.

Other Members paid tributes to their former colleague, and the Chamber offered their sincerest condolences to former Councillor Keimach’s friends and family.

Bringing tributes to an end the Chairman formally welcomed all those attending with a warm welcome extended to Mr Richard Quirk Chairman of the Independent Remuneration Panel, who would later present his Panel’s recommendations in respect of Members Allowances for the next Civic Year.

To confirm and sign as a correct record the Minutes of the Meeting of Full Council held on 10 November 2025.

Having been proposed and seconded, on being put to the vote it was:-

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the Meeting of Full Council held on 10 November 2025 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

Members may make any declarations of interest at this point and may also make them at any point during the meeting.

No declarations of interest were made at this point in the meeting.

Setting out the current position of previously agreed actions as at 16 January 2026 -  for noting.

The Chairman introduced the report advising Members that it would be taken “as read” unless Members had any questions that they wished to raise.

With no comments or questions and with no requirement to vote, the matters arising were DULY NOTED.

i)               Chairman of Council

ii)              Leader of the Council

iii)            Head of Paid Service

Chairman

In the absence of the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman, addressed the Chamber highlighting recent events attended.

He thanked those Councillors who had supported the Chairman at his Community Carol Service, held at All Saints Parish Church in Gainsborough.  The event had been well attended and had raised £200 for the Chairman’s Charities.

Both the Chairman and Vice-Chairman had had the pleasure of attending the Pantomime at the Trinity Arts Centre, which had been superb, and of the most successful yet.  The centre had been alive with laughter, with many performances being a sell-out.  He congratulated all those involved for what had been a most successful run and was looking for forward to Panto 2026 already.

The last Christmas duty the Vice-Chairman wished to reflect on was the work he personally undertook supporting Gainsborough’s Town Mayor and the Salvation Army, in providing food parcels and toys, which had been most rewarding. He commended the work of charities in supporting people over the festive period.

January had seen Councillors including the Chairman and Vice Chairman attend the Gainsborough Academy, for a tour of their facilities.  Councillors heard and saw the wonderful things being achieved by students and staff with the school now ranked amongst the top 20 most improved schools nationally.

And finally, with mention in the media that fewer young people were reading, the Vice-Chairman took the opportunity to raise awareness of Word Fest which would be rolled out over West Lindsey during the summer months.  Word Fest included creative writing workshops, authors meet and greets alongside children’s crafts.  He encouraged youngsters and their parents to support the event.

Leader of the Council

The Leader of the Council addressed the meeting and made the following announcements: -

“Last week I went to Gainsborough Police Station for my regular update on policing in the District. I also attended a meeting of the Community and Alcohol Partnership, where representatives of different organisations discussed concerns surrounding underage drinking.

I am concerned about the pressure on our local police teams and so I wrote to the Chief Constable to ask him to reconsider his intention to reduce the number of Officers in the Neighbourhood Teams. Unfortunately he is so short of trained police officers that some must be moved to response teams for the moment. He did offer reassurance though, as there is a cohort of officers coming through training which will add to police numbers in about six months’ time, and we hope to get at least some of our Officers back then.

Together with the Chief Executive, I attended a meeting of the joint Greater Lincolnshire Leaders where we discussed the LGR timeline in some detail so far as it is known.

West Lindsey has agreed to host a website for Lincolnshire Councils to share information, and this will help us all to steer our way through the process. Consultation for this is due to start in early February and will last for seven weeks.

I continue to attend the meetings of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 71.

Questions, if received, under this Scheme will be published by way of supplement following closure of the deadline.

The Chairman advised the meeting that no public questions had been received.

Questions, if received, under this Scheme will be published by way of supplement following closure of the deadline.

The Chairman advised the meeting that no questions, pursuant to Council Procedure 9 had been received.

Housing Related Support

“Chairman

Lincolnshire County Council currently commission a Housing Related Support Service across the whole of Lincolnshire. The Housing Related Support service offers short term support for vulnerable adults who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless, and have substance use and /or mental health concerns. It helps them deal with the issues that led to their current situation and develop skills to live independently. Support is offered in various locations, including hostels, people’s own homes and within the community.

The current service is delivered by the Lincolnshire Housing Related Support Partnership, which is made up of Framework Housing, Amplius (formerly Longhurst Group), The Salvation Army and Nacro.

In West Lindsey this service is provided by Amplius and there are 31 units delivered as part of this contract, these break down as 16 accommodation-based units and 15 floating support.  The accommodation-based units are delivered in two ways, 12 units of supported accommodation at The Foyer in Gainsborough and 4 units of self-contained move-on accommodation.

All referrals into this service come from West Lindsey District Council and so to be eligible you have to be accessing the homelessness services. The current service holds a waiting list due to the demand for the support in West Lindsey, both the accommodation based and floating support.

In the past 3 years, since 16^th December 2022, West Lindsey District Council Homelessness Prevention team have made 335 referrals to the accommodation-based support and 273 to the floating support. That is over 600 vulnerable people who have been eligible for support through this service in West Lindsey. 

The service in its current form is in place until September 2026 and there is a consultation underway currently to help inform future decisions by LCC about the direction of the service moving forward.

Although this service is Housing Related Support, in order to be eligible, people must have either a mental health or substance misuse issue. This service is in place to prevent the requirement for Adult Social Care to provide other support and services, and so even though it is a housing related support service, the housing element of this is funded through housing benefit and not from Lincolnshire County Council, they are only funding the additional mental health or substance misuse support.

Lincolnshire County Council have indicated there may not be as much funding if any, available for this service from September 2026 onwards. This would have huge implications for our residents with so many of the most vulnerable residents in the area being referred to this service for support.

Work is underway across the County with other District housing leads to demonstrate the importance of this service and evidence the impact a reduction in this service would have on some of our most vulnerable residents.  The Lincolnshire District Chief Executives have already written to the County Council expressing concerns.

As such I request that the Leader of the Council and Chief Executive ensure that the Council responds to the consultation currently  ...  view the full agenda text for item 74.

The Chairman advised the meeting that one Motion, pursuant to Council Procedure 10 had been received, as set out in the agenda.

As the mover of the motion, Councillor Bailey was invited to read aloud her motion to the meeting, as follows: -

Housing Related Support

“Chairman

Lincolnshire County Council currently commission a Housing Related Support Service across the whole of Lincolnshire. The Housing Related Support service offers short term support for vulnerable adults who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless, and have substance use and /or mental health concerns. It helps them deal with the issues that led to their current situation and develop skills to live independently. Support is offered in various locations, including hostels, people’s own homes and within the community.

The current service is delivered by the Lincolnshire Housing Related Support Partnership, which is made up of Framework Housing, Amplius (formerly Longhurst Group), The Salvation Army and Nacro.

In West Lindsey this service is provided by Amplius and there are 31 units delivered as part of this contract, these break down as 16 accommodation-based units and 15 floating support.  The accommodation-based units are delivered in two ways, 12 units of supported accommodation at The Foyer in Gainsborough and 4 units of self-contained move-on accommodation.

All referrals into this service come from West Lindsey District Council and so to be eligible you have to be accessing the homelessness services. The current service holds a waiting list due to the demand for the support in West Lindsey, both the accommodation based and floating support.

In the past 3 years, since 16^th December 2022, West Lindsey District Council Homelessness Prevention team have made 335 referrals to the accommodation-based support and 273 to the floating support. That is over 600 vulnerable people who have been eligible for support through this service in West Lindsey. 

The service in its current form is in place until September 2026 and there is a consultation underway currently to help inform future decisions by LCC about the direction of the service moving forward.

Although this service is Housing Related Support, in order to be eligible, people must have either a mental health or substance misuse issue. This service is in place to prevent the requirement for Adult Social Care to provide other support and services, and so even though it is a housing related support service, the housing element of this is funded through housing benefit and not from Lincolnshire County Council, they are only funding the additional mental health or substance misuse support.

Lincolnshire County Council have indicated there may not be as much funding if any, available for this service from September 2026 onwards. This would have huge implications for our residents with so many of the most vulnerable residents in the area being referred to this service for support.

Work is underway across the County with other District housing leads to demonstrate the importance of this service and evidence the impact a reduction in this service would have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 74.

The Chairman again welcomed Mr Richard Quirk, Chairman of the Independent Remuneration Panel to the meeting and invited him to introduce the report.

The process undertaken and the factors considered, in making the recommendations, were detailed in the report and he thanked those Members who had engaged in the process.

Four recommendations had arisen from the Panel’s work and these were detailed in the report along with supporting rationale for each and were highlighted to the Chamber.

Regarding the introduction of a payment for the Chairman of the Joint Staff Consultative Committee, Mr Quirk, in responding to questions, advised that two respondents had raised this matter and he also acknowledged the difference in the role, when compared to other Committee Chairman, as highlighted by the Leader of the Opposition, but considered this was reflected in the remuneration recommended. 

Having been proposed and seconded on being put to the vote it was:-

RESOLVED that with effect from 1 April 2026

(a)    the Basic Allowance payable to all Members be increased by 3% (£213.99) in line with the increase received by paid staff (from £7,132.73 to £7346.71);

(b)    all Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) be increased by 3%;

(c)    the SRAs (Chairman and Vice-Chairman) for the following committees be increased by a further 1% Planning, Prosperous Communities and Corporate Policy & Resources; and

(d)    an SRA be introduced for the Chairman of Joint Staff Consultative Committee – This SRA to be paid at a rate equivalent to that of a Committee Vice-Chairman. 

The Chairman again thanked Mr Quirk for his work, who then left the meeting.

The Chairman introduced the report which set out the declaration of the estimated surplus on the Council’s Collection Fund relating to Council Tax at the end of March 2026 and how it was to be shared amongst the constituent precepting bodies.

The report also set out the Council Tax base calculation for 2026/27. The tax base was a key component in the calculating of both the budget requirement and the Council Tax charge.

Both of these matters were a legal requirement as set out in the Local Government Finance Act.

The estimated surplus on the Collection Fund relating to Council Tax was stated at £1,030,407 of which £212,800 was related to West Lindsey. This amount would be included in the Council’s base budget for 2026/27.

The surplus for West Lindsey represented a decrease of £62,800 against the 2025/26 budgeted surplus, the reasoning for this was detailed within the report.

Appendix 1 set out the Council Tax base calculation and adjustments taken into account.

The taxbase per parish area were shown in Appendix 2.

In response to questions, the Section 151 Officer confirmed that Parish Councils were contacted twice.  The first contact being an estimate figure, the second being the finalised position. 

With the recommendations moved and seconded on being put to the vote it was

RESOLVED that:-

(a)    the estimated surplus of £1,444,840 be declared as accruing in the Council’s Collection Fund at 31 March 2026 relating to an estimated Council Tax surplus;

(b)    the Council uses its element of the Collection Fund surplus/deficit in calculating the level of Council Tax in 2026/27; and

(c)    in accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Tax Base) Regulation 1992 (as amended) the amount calculated by the Council, as its Council Tax Base for the whole of the District area for 2026/27 be set at 33,543.15 as detailed in this report and appendices.

The Chairman of the Governance and Audit Committee introduced the report which stood recommended  from his Committee, and sought Council approval to amend the Council Procedure Rules by increasing the threshold at which Members could request a full recorded vote on a Council decision.

The Governance and Audit Committee had recommended that the threshold increase from 2 to 8.

With the recommendation moved and seconded debate ensued with Members noting West Lindsey’s current threshold was considerably lower than other Lincolnshire Authorities.

Opposition Councillors expressed their disappointment, questioned the motive for the change, and suggested the benchmarking did not go far enough or offer a rounded picture. It was further suggested that a recorded vote was a democratic right and that the proposal reduced transparency, scrutiny and accountability, and had a more detrimental impact to smaller groups.

Opposition Councillors suggested that all votes should be recorded as matter of course, and that greater use should be made of the technology in place.  Again the motive for change was questioned  along with the robustness of the Governance and Audit Committee’s consideration. The Opposition Leader shared with the Chamber statistics, relating to the number of times a recorded vote had been used and the average length of Council meetings.

Opposition Councillors considered the increase was too large, and rather than an arbitrary  number, the threshold should be set at a percentage, and take account of those present at the meeting rather than the total number of Council Members. Following an exchange and clarity the following formal amendment was proposed: -

That the matter be deferred and referred back to the Governance and Audit Committee for them to consider a threshold set at a percentage level of those in attendance.

The amendment was duly seconded and further discussion ensued. Administration Members challenged the points that had been made, referring to the thresholds seen across other Lincolnshire Councils.  A Councillor’s right to request their individual vote be recorded remained unaffected and Members could use this right for each and every decision.

A request for a recorded vote on the amendment was made, with a second Member supporting that request, the amendment was put to a recorded vote, with votes being cast as follows: -

For:         Councillors Dobbie, Hague, Howitt-Cowan, Rollings, Young (5)

Against:  Councillors Bailey, Barrett, Bierley, Brockway, Brown, Bunney, Carless, Darcel, Fleetwood, Key, Lawrence, Morris, Mullally, Palmer, Patterson, Rodgers, Smith, Swift, and Westley (19)

Abstentions: (0)

With a total of 5 votes cast for the amendment and 19 votes against, the amendment was declared LOST.

Returning to the original recommendation, debate ensued and again there was political exchange regarding the merits and motive. The effectiveness and relevance of the benchmarking was again questioned with a further amendment moved, namely: -

That the threshold be amended to 5 as opposed to 8 as recommended.

The suggestion that scrutiny and transparency were being eroded  was strongly refuted, and again it was suggested Members could and should use their right to request an individual vote be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77.

The Chairman of the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee presented the report, which sought approval of the Mid-Year Treasury Report 2025/26 and changes to prudential indicators.

The report had been presented to the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee, where it had been fully considered and debated and stood referred to Council for approval.

Members were advised that the report was required to comply with the CIPFA code of practise on treasury management and also served to keep Members updated with the current treasury position and wider global economics.

There had been no breaches of the Council’s prudential indicators in the first half of the year. The report  (Sections 5.1,6.1, and 6.2) detailed the movements in the Council’s prudential indicators which had changed due to a revised capital programme for 2025/26.

Appendix B set out the latest list of approved countries for investment as at 30September but typically the Council only invested within the UK.

Members asked a number of pertinent questions which were responded to accordingly.

With the recommendation duly proposed and seconded, on being put to the vote it was

RESOLVED that the recommendation from the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee be accepted and as such the Mid-Year Treasury Management Report and treasury activity be noted and the changes to Prudential Indicators as detailed at Sections 5.2, 6.1 and 6.2 of the report be approved.

The Chairman of the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee presented the report to Council, which sought approval of the Council Tax Support Scheme for 2026/27, on recommendation from the Corporate Policy Resources Committee.

Members noted that the scheme had not been amended significantly since 2019/20 due to the implementation of Universal Credit, the Covid pandemic and cost of living crisis. 

Data available showed that the Scheme had been an effective one with a collection rate the previous year of 97.7%,  which was top quartile performance. 

When considering the scheme for 2026/27 consideration had been given to the Government’s plans for Local Government Reorganisation and the likelihood of the scheme requiring modifications in the future.  Any significant changes for 2026/27 could require changes again within a short period of time  which may have a negative impact on council tax support claimants navigating entitlement to new awards.

As such the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee had considered the report and had recommended to Full Council that Option 1 be implemented.

The recommendation was duly moved and seconded and on being put to the vote it was

RESOLVED that the Recommendation from the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee be accepted and Option 1 of the report, be adopted as the Local Council Tax Support Scheme for West Lindsey District Council for 2026/27. That being: -

To make no changes to the current council tax support scheme apart from to apply any new legislative requirements and the uprating of the non-dependant charges, applicable amounts and household allowances and deductions used in the calculation of the reduction in accordance with the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) annual up-ratings.

To also apply any additional changes to mirror government welfare benefit regulations during the year which are intended to increase the income of benefit recipients to avoid unintended consequences to customers.

In the absence of the Chairman of the Licensing Committee, the Vice-Chairman presented the report to Council, which sought approval of the  Review of Licensing Policy- Statement of Licensing Principles, on recommendation from the Committee.

The Council were required to update and review its Licensing Policy on an ongoing basis, or at least every five years. The report presented the outcome of the latest review

During the consultation period no responses were received, and no policy amendments had been made.

The recommendation was duly moved and seconded.  Members congratulated the work of the team and on being put to the vote it was: -

RESOLVED - that the recommendation from the Licensing Committee on 4 December 2025 be accepted and The Statement of Licensing Policy, as detailed in Appendix 1 be approved for adoption with immediate effect.

Having considered a report at its meeting in November 2025, with Council having resolved that that report be referred back to the Monitoring Officer for further consideration, on the basis that Council considered only one volunteer was needed to fulfil the role on the Standards Committee, Members were presented with a revised proposal.

Opposition Members suggested two volunteers were more appropriate and questioned the reasoning for the reduction.

The Chairman of the Standards Committee and Monitoring Officer had considered the matter further as requested by Full Council and were satisfied that one Parish Council representative was sufficient for the purposes of the Committee, and hence had made a recommendation in line with Council’s previous request. 

Having being proposed and seconded on being put to the vote it was: -

RESOLVED – that Councillor Stephen Riley (Grasby Parish Council) be appointed to serve as a member of the Standards Committee (without voting rights) until the Annual Council Meeting in May 2027 (the next planned all out elections).

Note:          Councillor Dobbie requested that his vote against the above decision be recorded.