To receive any questions submitted from Members of the Council in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rules 30 and 30A.

The Chairman confirmed that five questions had been submitted and that they would be taken in the order that they had been received.

 

Councillor Powell to the Leader:

At the September meeting of Full Council, the leader reported that 'following appeals to the MP and the Council, a project had been initiated to explore retaining a community radio station so local residents could continue to be kept informed of local events'. This followed an announcement on 28 August of the launch of this new project and the confirmation of the appointment of a project manager a few days afterwards on 3 September.

Rutland Radio will be sorely missed and I would certainly would support any initiatives to replace this valuable community resource.

My question is about communication and process in the decision to commit Rutland County Council budget of £50,000 to this initiative and the setting up of this project. Once again, there seems to be a lack of transparency with communication to fellow councillors following only after the decision had been made. 

Can the leader confirm firstly what the precise process was in terms of approval of this project and its budget and secondly how such proposals for additional budgets, not already earmarked, will be dealt with in the future?  

 

Response from Councillor Hemsley to Councillor Powell:

 

1. In terms of the process for the approval of this project, this was something that was established by the previous Chief Executive, who did consult with HR, Communications, the Leader and Deputy Leader.  It was recorded on the Covid-19 Incident Record of Executive Delegated Decisions (82).  This was a new project so there was no existing funding for it either from an external source or internally.  A new budget had to be created for it, the money was from the Council’s reserves as this was the only source that it could come from without impacting on other budgets.  The budget was authorised by the previous Chief Executive using her delegated powers. 

 

2. The project is to assess the feasibility of a community based radio platform for Rutland and Stamford and as such is short term.  There will not be any future budgets as this was a one off allocation of a budget for the costs of the project only. Therefore, even if the findings of the radio station feasibility project are that there should be a community based radio platform for Rutland and Stamford, it would be a decision for whatever organisation is formed to manage the platform as to how they would fund it, what, if any, posts there should be within that organization and how they will be appointed to.

 

In response to a supplementary question, whereby Councillor Powell raised concerns about future use and allocation of council reserves not within the corporate plan and feasibility studies for commercial ventures, the Leader explained that he would explore ways to ensure more transparency in the allocation of funds.

 

 

Councillor A Brown to the Leader:

 

Can the Leader please explain why the issue of saying prayers at the start of each council meeting was not discussed at the last Constitutional Review Working Group despite the fact it was asked to be on the agenda by all three group leaders

 

Response from Councillor Hemsley to Councillor A Brown:

 

Thank you for the question Councillor Brown. The CRWG agenda reports had already been produced and the Officers did not have the capacity to produce a report for that meeting.

I have asked the Monitoring Officer to ensure that this item is on the next agenda for CRWG. The meeting is scheduled for January. I have also asked the Monitoring Officer to ensure that he discusses the matter with you prior to producing the paper to ensure that your thoughts are fully reflected.

 

Question from Cllr A Brown to Cllr G Brown

 

When is this Council going to have an open public meeting to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding with the MoD relating to the development of St George’s Barracks, and how it was arrived at, the progress on the Housing Infrastructure Fund grant and the costs RCC has incurred on these thus far?

 

Response from Councillor G Brown to Cllr A Brown:    

 

First of all, thank you Cllr Brown for your question. 

As member’s know my door is always open to meet with members and discuss such matters and therefore I am not really sure what the benefit is to Council this evening to raise the topic of a non-legally binding memorandum of understanding as I feel it achieves little at this time, especially when the documents which will really matter, the Grant Determination Agreement and the Allocation Agreement, will be coming forward to Council in due course as I explained earlier this evening.

However, I am happy to explain in some detail the background to the Memorandum of Understanding, how it came to be in place and who was involved in that process. I apologise to those councillors who had this explanation previously as it may take a few minutes to go through this background.

Councillors will recall that the Ministry of Defence, in late 2016, announced that they planned to close St George’s Barracks and that, under clear direction from Government, they were required to bring the site forward for housing development.

From Rutland County Council’s point of view, we had two choices either to engage with the Ministry of Defence and ensure that development was carried out in the best possible way for Rutland or take pot-luck and wait until a developer to bring forward a planning application for the 300 hectare Brownfield site. So, it was really a decision as to whether we had influence over what was to be developed or have very little control and leave it to the market to sort out.

 

Initial discussions took place in late 2016 and early 2017 between the Ministry of Defence and Rutland County Council including the Leader, the Deputy Leader and the Chief Executive and other officers of the Council. This resulted in a report to Cabinet in April 2017 recommending an application being made for One Public Estate funding to take forward two projects

 

The first project would focus on the potential future of St George’s Barracks, building on the dialogue that was already in place between the MOD and RCC.

 

The second project was to bring forward the concept of a combined Hub for the blue light services and primary care, again building on the idea of a health and social care hub which had been previously discussed. Both projects were to be funded from the Government’s One Public Estate programme the purpose of which was to explore options and feasibility for the rationalisation of the public sector estate.

 

In that same April 2017 report to Cabinet (77/2017), it was agreed that a Programme Board would be established to support the initial stages of the two projects. It was that Programme Board that approved the Governance arrangements for subsequent formation of the St George’s and Hub Project Board including their membership.

 

The St George’s Project Board first met on 9 May 2017 and the first item on the agenda was a discussion on a potential Memorandum of Understanding. Attendees at that meeting included the Leader Cllr Matthias, Deputy Leader Cllr Hemsley along with Cllr Gale Waller as the Ward representative plus officers from the County Council, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and One Public Estate.

 

Further meetings of that project board during June, July and August with similar attendees and at each meeting the Memorandum of Understanding was discussed.

 

At the 12^th September 2017 meeting of the SGB Project Board, the Board approved the final MoU document and agreed that it should be signed. The document having previously been circulated to Board members including a hard copy delivered to Cllr Waller.

 

Councillor Waller raised a point of order and stated that that the first she was aware of the MoU was August 2017 as the MoU was not on the agenda of the previous meetings she had attended and the version she saw in August was marked "final".  Therefore, to state she was involved in any discussion of this document prior to seeing the final version was incorrect.

 

 

Subsequently the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Leader and Chief Executive on the 18^th September 2017.

 

Moving to the question of costs, I am not certain to which costs Cllr Brown is referring, however, I will provide as much information as I can in this open public meeting.

 

On 9 July 2019, Councillors will recall that I gave a presentation to members, old and new, on the St George’s Barracks Project, which included a breakdown of the costs from various sources. I cannot recall if Cllr Brown attended that particular briefing but for the record, I stated the following

 

One Public Estate funding paid for the feasibility work and the evolving Masterplan for St George’s

 

Funding was received from Homes England to support the preparation of the HIF business case

 

Garden Community Funding has and will been used for the design work, governance considerations and the development of dementia friendly community. A further application for Garden Community Funding will be considered by Cabinet at the up-coming meeting on November 17^th November.

 

Also at the meeting in April 2017 Cabinet also approved £100,000 of funding to support St George’s barracks and Hub projects. To my knowledge at the end of the 2^nd Qtr of the current financial year £92k of this money has been spent.  The remaining £8k is committed to maintaining the website for the next 2 years.

 

In response to a supplementary question, whereby Councillor A Brown raised concerns about the overrunning of costs and other potential financial risks. Councillor G Brown explained that there was a General Distribution Agreement which was to be signed by all three parties and an Allocation Agreements and these would be brought back to a Cabinet and Council meeting in future.

 

Question from Councillor Cross to the Leader

 

Would the Leader please give a statement and read out his reply to Dr C H Sworn’s letter dated 10^th July 2020 and especially with reference to the final paragraph that reads:

 

“I contend that by restricting Rutland residents to making their representation on the web, you are thereby contravening the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I trust that you will amend your proposals so as to allow residents on planning matters to Rutland County Council by whatever means they wish. Kindly acknowledge this letter, giving me case number and, in due course, I look forward to hearing your considered response”.

 

Response from the Leader to Councillor Cross;

 

You will note that the Officer response to comments made on the consultation with regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 states that: “The consultation was undertaken fairly and appropriately. The Council does not believe that there has been a breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19. The Council has undertaken a consultation and it is our view that this consultation is lawful”. The Council takes its responsibilities regarding human rights very seriously and has undertaken this consultation in a though and robust manner.

 

In response to a supplementary question, whereby Councillor Cross raised concerns about the length of time taken to respond to the letter, the Leader further explained that it had been submitted to the Local Plan Team and following a reminder, the response was then drafted and sent.

 

Question from Councillor Cross to the Leader

Would the leader please explain as to why the?PRE-SUBMISSION LOCAL PLAN REGULATION 19 REPRESENTATION RESPONSE FORM has been devised to be so complex and far too difficult for so many of our Rutland residents to complete without help from a professional.  

 

Response from the Leader to Councillor Cross;

 

As this is a statutory consultation, the response form is based on the Planning Inspectorate model representation form for local plans which is available for use by local planning authorities at publication (Regulation 19) stage. It can be downloaded from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-plansfollows.This has enabled over 400 representations to be made on this consultation, most without the need for professional support.? The Planning Policy team has been available throughout the consultation to answer any queries and to provide clarification from any citizens wishing to access the consultation or respond to this. 

 

In response to a supplementary question, whereby Councillor Cross questioned why two rooms had not been used for viewing of the consultation document, the Leader stated that this had not been actioned due to a very low number of people requesting to see the document at Catmose.