Agenda item

Special Projects Fund

The Leader and Chief Financial Officer have been invited to attend for this item.

 

Members are invited to ask questions.

Minutes:

The Leader gave a summary of the background and purposes of the Special Projects Fund, and explained that £1million per annum over a 4 year period would come from reserves and would fund small one-off public projects.  He explained that Members could bid for small projects through the relevant Cabinet Member and sign off of each project was made by the relevant Cabinet Member and Head of Service, then the Leader and Chief Financial Officer.    The Leader added that so far 12% of the £4million had been committed to get projects moving as commencement of projects was unlikely until Spring 2020.

 

The Chief Financial Officer referred to the tabled Appendix which listed projects already bid for and their estimated costs, and said that Faversham Swimming Pool should also be added to the list.  He added that details of the bidding and signing-off process would be reported to the next Cabinet meeting and in future, every finance report would set out the funding.

 

The Chairman asked whether the £100k recently allocated to Murston church came from the Special Projects Fund?  The Leader explained that it had come from the Communities Fund. The ward Member expressed disappointment not to be advised about this.  In the discussion that followed, the Chief Financial Officer confirmed that there was £250k in the Communities Fund.  A Member questioned the process, how applications were made and why this information had not been shared before?  The Chief Financial Officer explained that as projects needed to be progressed, the same process for signing-off that had been used for the Regeneration Fund under the previous administration was replicated.

 

A Member supported the objectives of the Special Fund but questioned whether all the projects on the tabled paper (Appendix I) were appropriate.  He said that the role of Scrutiny was to ensure that the correct things were being done and money was being well spent and without knowing all the details it was difficult to do that, or to inform the public that money was being spent well.  He asked that more detailed information be contained in Cabinet reports and suggested that volunteer organisations could be involved in carrying out some of the work. The Leader acknowledged the comments. 

 

A Member drew attention that funding for projects had been agreed in public documents, but costs had changed.

 

The Chairman asked for more ward Member consultation.

 

In response to a question from a Member on whether funding had been assigned to specific parks (Appendix I), the Leader advised that it had not.

 

In response to a Member’s question on the cleaning of 4 Air Quality Management  Areas, it was confirmed that St. Paul’s had already had a deep clean. 

 

A Member questioned where the information received from the survey of local haulage and bus companies would be used as the Council had no direct control.  The Cabinet Member for Environment advised that the information would be used to apply to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs to fund an electric bus and the Council were working with the bus companies.

 

A Member advised that many funding opportunities could be accessed on the Council’s website, and another Member highlighted the leaflet produced in April 2019 with grant opportunities.

 

The Leader agreed for more clarity in the future.

 

In summing up, the Chairman said there was a lack of understanding and clarity over what the Special Projects Fund was and how the funds were allocated.  He said that funds were allocated with no clear route of where and when the decision was taken, and there was an issue of transparency.  The Chairman said that the Scrutiny Committee could not perform its duty if the information was not known and he hoped the report to the next Cabinet meeting included the process of allocating funding. 

 

The Leader said Cabinet could make executive decisions and would not be inactive due to processes.