To receive a presentation on the accommodation strategy.

(Councillor H Bramer declared a prejudicial interest and left the meeting.)

(Councillor A Seldon (Vice-Chairman) in the Chair)

The Committee received a presentation on the Council’s accommodation programme.

A report to Cabinet on 20 October: Locality Asset Review and Accommodation Programme had been circulated to the Committee. This included Locality Master plans for the 9 localities that had been identified within the County. 

The Chief Officer – Finance and Commercial and the Strategic Asset Manager gave a presentation.  The first part discussed the locality asset reviews, the intended outcomes and how pen portraits for each locality had been developed using a common template. The second part focused on the background to the development of the Plough Lane site and the current, revised proposals for the site.

In discussion the following principal points were made:

·         It was asked whether there was a back up plan in place for the development of the Masters House, Ledbury, should the application for lottery funding be unsuccessful.  The Strategic Asset Manager replied that in that event the options would be to scale down the project or ask Council to consider alternative sources of funding.

It was suggested that it would be detrimental to the Council’s reputation if a scaled down project were to result in part of the building being refurbished to deliver Council Services with the community aspirations for the building being left unfulfilled.

That the Locality Master Plan for Ledbury set out in the report to Cabinet was not sufficiently comprehensive.

·         The Strategic Asset Manager advised that he did not have information on the number of projects in the accommodation programme as a whole that were dependent on lottery funding.

·         A Member cited the way in which the Tudorville Community Centre in Ross–on-Wye had been developed as an excellent example of the community working to develop a community asset.

·         The Strategic Asset Manager confirmed that the Council’s smallholdings estate was outside the scope of the current accommodation programme work.

·         Some Members questioned why the report to Cabinet on 20 October was not classed as a key decision and had not been included on the Council’s Forward Plan, given that in their view it proposed a significant change to the Council’s accommodation strategy.  The Chief Officer commented that Cabinet had previously taken a key decision on the matter authorising the Chief Executive to take further action.  Some Members expressed concern that once a key decision had been taken at some point on a particular issue it appeared that a number of decisions flowing from that decision were not being viewed as key decisions.  The Deputy Chief Executive commented that the Monitoring Officer would be presenting a report to Group Leaders on the issue of key decisions in view of recent comment from Members.

·         Some Members questioned the suitability of the Plough Lane site as the main accommodation for Herefordshire Public Services back office staff.  The purchase price for the building and other land (£4.3m) and whether it represented value or money and the resultant annual rental saving (£264k) were also discussed.

·         It was suggested that the proposed desk ratio at Plough Lane of 6 desks to 10 staff was tight.  It was also observed that the flexible working the proposals envisaged posed a number of challenges for management and staff and were dependent on excellent Broadband provision within the County.

·         The Chief Officer: Finance and Commercial confirmed that some work had been undertaken on the Plough Lane site in connection with the original plan to develop a new road and car park and undertook to circulate a briefing note including costs.

·         Paragraph 38 of the Cabinet report stated that the Plough Lane refurbishment scheme demonstrated a clear positive Net Present Value of £540k over a 25 year period.  It was suggested that this represented a very small saving. The margins for error appeared extremely small and should be considered a risk and identified as such on the Council’s risk register given the way in which costs of such building schemes could be volatile and often exceed estimates.  The Chief Officer: Finance and Commercial commented that the financial projection was based on very conservative estimates made by consultants EC Harris Ltd, based on the industry standard model, but he would be reviewing the estimate as part of the next stage of the project.

·         The locality master plans contained the phrase, “Parish and Town Councils are also likely to have more responsibility for the delivery of services needed by local communities”.  An explanation of the implications of this phrase was sought and it was asked to what extent Town and Parish Councils were aware of this thinking.

·         The Strategic Asset Manager reported that Herefordshire Association of Local Councils (HALC) had been fully involved in discussions about the locality plans and had agreed the wording of the relevant sentence.  Where Parish Plans were in place these had been taken into account in the locality plans. 

It was highlighted that it needed to be borne in mind that not all Parish Councils were members of HALC.

·         The report to Cabinet referred to the relocation of The Shared Services Partnership (TSSP) staff out of Plough Lane.  It was asked how this proposal fitted with the stated benefits of co-location, what budget the TSSP had for accommodation and any financial implications for the Council. 

The Chief Officer: Finance and Commercial commented that any accommodation solution for TSSP would have to be cost neutral. 

The Deputy Chief Executive added that many TSSP staff did not need to be physically located near customers, communicating via ICT, and could be accommodated at a lower cost than at Plough Lane.  Those staff who needed to work closely with clients would continue to do so.

The TSSP was a separate organisation that would seek to grow its business.  Its own accommodation would be part of its identity and this was a decision of the Board.

A Member commented that the Council would remain the TSSP’s major customer for a number of years and therefore needed to work closely with the Council.  Reference was also made to a report to Cabinet in July 2011 on the TSSP which it was suggested indicated a reprofiling of the savings target set for the TSSP.

The Deputy Chief Executive commented that the TSSP had not been given a lower savings target.  The Council was represented on the TSSP Board and the TSSP would be expected to meet its contractual requirements.

·         Concern was expressed about the suggestion that a new site for the Council Chamber might be provided at the Shirehall, Hereford.  It was essential that the County retained the Crown Court in the City and increased use of the Shirehall for Council and other meetings might put that at risk.  The proposal would also detach the political centre from senior officers.

·         That whilst acknowledging that not all the detail was appropriate for inclusion in a Cabinet report there appeared to be far too much uncertainty about too many elements of the accommodation programme.

RESOLVED:  

That    (a)        the Vice-Chairman be authorised to reflect the comments made by the Committee to Cabinet and Members of the Committee be invited to submit any further comments they wished to be brought to Cabinet’s notice to him in advance of the Cabinet meeting; and

(b)       a further report on the accommodation programme be included in the work programme.