Meeting documents

An apology for absence was received from Mr P Thornton.

Members are invited to disclose any disclosable pecuniary interest they have in any item on the agenda which comprises

1          Details of any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for       profit or gain.

2          Details of any payment or provision of any other financial benefit (other than from the authority) made or provided within the relevant period in respect of any expenses incurred by you in carrying out duties as a member, or towards your election expenses.  (This includes any payment or financial benefit from a trade union within the meaning of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

3          Details of any contract which is made between you (or a body in which you have a beneficial interest) and the authority

(a)       Under which goods or services are to be provided or works are to be           executed; and

            (b)       Which has not been fully discharged.

4          Details of any beneficial interest in land which is within the area of the authority. 

5          Details of any licence (alone or jointly with others) to occupy land in the area of the authority for a month or longer. 

6          Details of any tenancy where (to your knowledge)

            (a)       The landlord is the authority; and

            (b)       The tenant is a body in which you have a beneficial interest.

7          Details of any beneficial interest in securities of a body where

(a)       That body (to your knowledge) has a place of business or land in the          area of the authority; and

(b)       Either –

(i)      The total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one        hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body; or

(ii)     If that share capital of that body is of more than one class, the total nominal value of the shares of any one class in which the relevant person has a beneficial interest exceeds one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that class.

In addition, you must also disclose other non-pecuniary interests set out in the Code of Conduct where these have not already been registered.

Note

A "disclosable pecuniary interest" is an interest of a councillor or their partner (which means spouse or civil partner, a person with whom they are living as husband or wife, or a person with whom they are living as if they are civil partners). 

There were no disclosures of interest made on this occasion.

RESOLVED, that the press and public be not excluded from any items on the agenda today.

To receive the minutes of the Cabinet meeting held on 21 April 2022 (copy enclosed)

RESOLVED,  that the minutes of the meeting held on 21 April 2022 be agreed and signed by the Chair.

The Cabinet Member for Environment announced that Cumbria County Council had been awarded a Carbon Literacy Organisation Bronze Award by The Carbon Literacy Trust.

Carbon Literacy was an awareness of the carbon costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions on an individual, community and organisational basis.

Staff and Elected Members had been undertaking this training, provided by Cumbria Action for Sustainability (CAfS), which helped to increase knowledge and understanding of the issues and challenges of climate change, and also gave the Council real tools to take positive action to tackle the climate emergency.

The County Council had a longstanding commitment to tackling climate change, and this Carbon Literacy training enabled us to further reduce our carbon footprint both as an organisation and as individuals.

Cumbria County Council was now working towards the silver accreditation, which required amongst other things for 15% of the workforce to be certified as carbon literate.

There were no public questions, petitions or statements made at this meeting.

There were no referrals from local committees or scrutiny committees to this meeting.

To consider a report from the Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer) (copy enclosed)

Members had before them a report from the Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer), which set out the Council’s provisional year-end outturn position for 2021/22.

The Leader took Cabinet through the key messages contained within the report.

Since setting the Budget in February 2021, the Council had continued to face significant financial uncertainty relating to: the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic; the impact of Brexit and global adverse events including the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Collectively this global uncertainty was resulting in significant inflationary pressures on goods, services and utilities, resulting in a cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom and worldwide. This was expected to continue throughout 2022/23 and beyond. It was important that the Council continued to provide vital local services during this period of sustained uncertainty whilst carefully managing its overall expenditure within its approved resources.

Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic had had a significant impact on the Council’s financial position there had also been adverse pressures in its underlying budget position arising from non-COVID-19 related issues driving demand and cost of service provision as well as non-delivery of approved MTFP savings.

However, these had been offset by the achievement of in year mitigations and/or one off underspending in other service areas to achieve an overall underspend position for the whole Council at year-end.

Although the financial position for 2021/22 was favourable it was recognised that the underspends were in the majority one offs and yet the underlying financial pressures were not. 

A recommendation had been agreed by Cabinet in the Q3 budget monitoring report (17 March 2022) that any further budget underspends at year-end, would be transferred to the Financial Volatility Reserve. As part of year-end processes, reassessment of the anticipated financial risks that were likely in 2022/23 had been undertaken including an assessment of the extraordinary inflationary pressures. Due to the significant inflationary pressures and the wider cost of living crisis it was considered prudent to make specific financial provisions for these items alongside the contribution to the Financial Volatility Reserve. The proposed transfer to reserves, subject to the recommendations being approved, were summarised as:

·           £4.500m to the Inflation Risk Reserve to partially mitigate the forecast pressures in 2022/23 from rising inflation;

·           £2.000m to a Cost of Living Reserve to be utilised during 2022/23 to support individuals through the cost of living crisis. This supports the emerging risk that has been highlighted in the 2021/22 Q4 risk register;

·           £1.849m to the Financial Volatility Reserve.

The Leader then proposed an amendment to recommendations c) and d) in the report, as follows:-

c)      Approve the following transfers to earmarked reserves:

·      £0.500m to the Schools Maintenance Earmarked Reserve to address essential maintenance and to assist in mitigating inflationary pressures in 2022/23, the balance on this earmarked reserve (after approving recommendations c and f) would be £1.262m;

·      £4.000m to the Inflation Risk Reserve, the balance on this reserve (after approving recommendations c and f) would be £5.054m.

d)     Approve the transfer of £2.000m to a newly  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To consider a report from the Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer) (copy enclosed)

Members had before them a report from the Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer) which provided Cabinet with an update on corporate performance, measured against the new Council Plan Delivery Plan agreed in March 2022.

There had been some significant challenges to be reported this quarter, as the omicron covid variant continued to have a direct impact on staffing levels across services, and local government reorganisation preparations were increasing, placing more challenges on council officers.

Overall 36 or the 63 indicators had been met, or on track and 8 were rated red.  The red rated indicators would be the focus for Cabinet during the next quarter.

RESOLVED, that Cabinet note the overall performance relating to delivery of the four Council Plan outcomes and context indicators for the quarter ending 31 March 2022.

To consider a report from the Executive Director – Corporate, Customer and Community Services (copy enclosed)

Cabinet considered a report from the Executive Director – Corporate, Customer and Community Services, which asked members to consider appointments to cabinet working groups and other bodies, and on outside bodies.

Appointments to Cabinet Working Groups, other bodies and outside bodies were carried out to ensure that the Council engaged effectively in outside and other bodies and that membership of Cabinet working groups was appropriate.

Cabinet annually reviewed its appointments to Cabinet working groups, other bodies and outside bodies, including bodies that the County Council was required to establish by law.

Executive Directors had been consulted as to the recommendations to be made to Cabinet for appropriate outside bodies for the year 2022/23.

The Leader asked Cabinet to note that one body had been removed from the list this year, which was the Cabinet Working Group on Transport.  This was set up last year as a time limited working group and had already reported back to Cabinet, so appointments were no longer needed.

RESOLVED, that

(1)     Cabinet approve the list of outside bodies at Part D of Appendix 1 as the bodies to which a representative will be appointed in 2022/23, and appoint the members to each outside body as set out in Part D of Appendix 1;

(2)     Cabinet agree the proposed membership as set out in Appendix 1 Parts A – C of cabinet working groups and other bodies to this report be approved;

(3)     the Monitoring Officer be authorised to make changes to the list of outside bodies and the appointed members as set out in Appendix 1 – Part D – Cabinet appointments to outside bodies as required in consultation with the Leader of the Council.