Agenda and minutes

Up to 15 minutes are allowed for public participation.  Participants are restricted to 3 minutes each.

There was no public participation.

To confirm as a correct record the Minutes of the previous meeting.

The minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2017 were approved as a correct record.

Members may make declarations of Interest at this point or may make them at any point in the meeting.

None.

Setting out current position of previously agreed actions as at 3 January 2018.

The Matters Arising schedule was noted.  The Director of Resources highlighted that no paper on the Customer First Programme would be coming to Corporate Policy and Resources unless there were any future financial implications.

Members considered a report setting out the declaration of the estimated surplus on the Council’s Collection Fund relating to Council Tax at the end of March 2018 and how it was shared amongst the constituent precepting bodies.

The report also set out the Council tax base calculation for 2018/19. The tax base was a key component in calculating both the budget requirement and the council tax charge.

The Director of Resources outlined to Members that the report was required in order to set the budget for the following year.

                        RESOLVED:

1)    To recommend to Council that the estimated surplus of £105,010 be declared as accruing in the Council’s Collection Fund at 31 March 2018 relating to an estimated Council Tax surplus.

2)    That the Council uses its element of the Collection Fund surplus/deficit in calculating the level of Council Tax in 2018/19.

3)    That the calculations of the Council’s tax base for 2018/19 as set out in Appendix A be recommended to Council, and that in accordance with the Local Authorities’ (Calculation of Council Tax Base) Regulations 1993 (as amended), the tax base for each part of the Authority’s area shall be as set out in Appendix B.

Members considered a report on the conclusion of the leisure procurement project.

This report followed on from papers that had been to Prosperous Communities on 8 December 2015, 19 July 2016 and 2 May 2017.  It outlined the principles of a new leisure contract.  These included:

·         Refurbishment of West Lindsey Leisure Centre;

·         The provision of a new dry centre at Market Rasen;

·         Provision of a district wide outreach service, should this be affordable.

The Communities and Commercial Programme Manager ran through the whole of the report, highlighting that:

·         West Lindsey District Council’s (WLDC’s) leisure advisers had worked with Officers to prepare a shadow bid; this helped to put an affordability clause in the contract which guaranteed the Council a minimum of £1.5 million income over the lifetime of the contract;

·         Contractors were asked to supply a variant bid for the outreach service.  This was completed as a separate price so that the Council could assess whether this was affordable;

·         The Sport and Leisure Management Bid (SLM) provided for a 15 year contract, with a full transfer of risk from WLDC in terms of maintenance and utilities.  WLDC will have a known financial position for the next 15 years;

·         There was £2 million of positive income over the lifetime of the contract;

·         £1.4 million of the capital set aside would be used to refurbish the West Lindsey Leisure Centre; this would be paid back to WLDC plus an additional 4% interest;

In summary, the current contract costs WLDC circa £300,000 a year; the new arrangements would transform the leisure service, provide a new centre and district wide outreach service, and, even taking into account the cost of borrowing, would provide WLDC with a surplus of £2.477 million over the 15 years of the contract.  By way of example, if the current arrangements were continued, the cost to WLDC would have been £4.5 million over the same 15 year period.

In terms of the timeline, the proposed scheme of refurbishments at West Lindsey Leisure Centre would commence in June 2018.  The first year of the new contract would involve design, and planning of the new centre at Market Rasen, and it was anticipated that this new centre would be operational from June 2020.

Note – Cllr John McNeill declared a personal interest at this point in proceedings as his wife and youngest sister in law’s husband both worked at the current site of the facility in Market Rasen.                                       

Following the overview of the report, Members provided comment.  The response to these comments are highlighted below;

·         There have been press releases around the current facility in Market Rasen.  WLDC have spoken to Market Rasen and Caistor Town Councils, as well as the schools involved, around the provision from two ‘chance to share’ schools ending this year.  The new centre will take some time to build; the district outreach service was designed to plug any gaps with that loss of leisure;

·         The new facility in Market Rasen was due to include a four-court Sports  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92.

To propose a change to the date of the meeting in July 2018, from Thursday 8 February, to Tuesday 6th February.

An error in the agenda pack was identified as this was not a change to the meeting in July. 

It was then:

RESOLVED to change the date of the next meeting from Thursday February 8^th to Tuesday February 6^th (at the rising of the Concurrent Prosperous Communities and Corporate Policy and Resources Committee).

The workplan was noted, with the Committee being informed that there were two commercial schemes that had been added to the workplan after the publication of the agenda.