To receive any apologies for absence

There were no apologies received.

To receive any declarations of interest

Councillor Rayner declared a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in item 6 iv JCEB Minerals and Waste Plan – Consultation on an Additional Allocation, because of her husband family trust. She left the room for the duration of the discussion and voting on the item.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 30 May 2019.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 30 May 2019 were approved.

Cllr Hilton was appointed to the AFC Joint Committee.

To consider the Forward Plan for the period July 2019 to October 2019.

Cabinet considered the contents of the Forward Plan for the next four months and noted the changes made since the last meeting including the addition of two petitions regarding Stafferton Way handed into Council to be considered by Cabinet and that the RBWM Property Company Business Plan will move from July to August Cabinet.

The Lead Member responsible for Economic Development introduced the report regarding the RBWM response to the Berkshire Local Industrial Strategy Consultation.

The Lead Member informed that the report fed into the framework document and sought high level responses from members of the LEP looking at the key elements of building an infrastructure for the future within the Thames Valley taking into account future development over the next few years.  The aim was to make the Thames Valley remain an attractive place for employment to develop and be sustainable.

The Lead Member for Finance said he welcomed the document and that the LEP was looking at the long term future of Berkshire, however he would have liked to have seen more mention of the Royal Borough.

Resolved unanimously: that Cabinet notes the report and agrees the consultation response to the BLIS Framework Document and authorises the Executive Director for Place to submit it formally to the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP.

The Chairman introduced the report that requested an additional budget of £464,202 for Fire Compartmentalisation works to maintained schools, in order to protect the occupants against the potential spread of fire, and to meet health and safety legislation.

The Lead Member for Adults, Children and Health informed that the funding was on top of what was already provided to maintain our schools and meet health ad safety requirements.

Resolved unanimously: that Cabinet notes the report and approved the additional capital budget of £464,202 to ensure the council’s obligations are met and implemented.

The Lead Member for Finance and Ascot introduced the latest financial update report.

Cabinet were informed that the £3.5 million previously reported by the then Lead Member for Finance, Cllr Saunders,  back in February 2019 had now been transferred into the accounts.  After further movement such as additional redundancy costs left reserves at £10,133,000 which was the highest the Lead member could remember.

Although reserves were healthy there would be calls upon them such as the 24 hour pot hole pledge and Heathrow legal challenge.  The Lead Member said that it was important to retain reserves at this level to help protect statutory services.  Cabinet were informed that there was a recommendation for revenue budget of £41,000 for the MAKE MAIDENHEAD marketing strategy, £31,000 is revenue costs and £10,000 is a capital programme budget.

The Chairman informed that the Make Maidenhead brand would replace Enjoy Maidenhead and Maidenhead Regen as the overarching brand for the town.  Twitter and Facebook would be transferred in September 2019 with a new website in place in time for the Christmas lights switch on.

The Lead Member for Finance went on to explain that there were also recommendations for capital programme budget addition of £100,000 for the Oaks Leisure centre project, £121,000 from the Pothole Action and Flood Resilience Fund and £74,000 for Parks improvement works funded by MHCLG grant.  Two risks had been identified relating to placements, particularly learning disability, and legal costs arising from complex court cases.  These were being mitigated by the service areas.

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)     Notes the council’s projected outturn position for 2019-20.

ii)    Approves a revenue budget of £41,000 for the MAKE MAIDENHEAD marketing strategy, £31,000 is revenue costs (of which £10,000 is recurring) and £10,000 is a capital programme budget, see paragraph 4.12 .

iii)   Approves a capital programme budget addition of £100,000 for the Oaks Leisure centre project, see paragraph, 4.16.

iv)   Approves a capital programme budget addition of £121,000 from the Pothole Action and Flood Resilience Fund, see paragraph 4.17.

v)    Approves a capital programme budget addition of £74,000 for Parks improvement works funded by MHCLG grant, see paragraph 4.18.

(Cllr Rayner left the room during the duration of this item and did not vote)

The Lead Member for Planning introduced the report that sought approval to publish a document on the potentially allocation of Bray Quarry Extension in the emerging Joint Minerals and Waste Plan for consultation.

Cabinet were informed that there was a lot of focus on housing and the Borough Local Plan but there were other supporting policies that were required such as the Minerals and Waste Plan.

The Council had been working with Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham Borough councils to produce a Joint Minerals and Waste Plan. A draft version of the Plan was published in August 2018 for consultation.  It was then decided to undertake a further call for sites and one new site, Bray Quarry Extension, was put forward by the minerals and waste industry.  This would be a continuation of sand and gravel extraction at the Bray site, which had a long history of mineral workings.  Minerals would be transported by conveyor belt to the nearby Monkey Island processing plant in order to reduce HGV movements.  Cabinet were asked to approve a focused consultation on the proposed amendments.

The Chairman asked who owned the site and was informed that it was Summerleaze and due to the conveyor belt there would not be a sharp rise in HGV movement.

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)     Approves a consultation, under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) Regulation 2012, on the possible inclusion of a new site (Bray Quarry Extension) in the Proposed Submission version of the Joint Central and Eastern Berkshire Minerals & Waste Plan;

ii)    Approves the publication of consultation documents related to the Bray Quarry Extension site; and

iii)   Authorises the Head of Planning, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder, to make any minor amendments necessary to the consultation documents related to the Bray Quarry Extension site prior to community involvement.

The Lead Member for HR, Legal & IT (includes Performance Management) introduced the 2018/19 Annual Performance Report.

Cabinet were informed that the council performance management framework had 25 key measures aligned to the strategic objectives in the Council Plan 2017-21.  Of the 25 measures reported performance at year end, 1 April 2018 - 31 March 2019, resulted in 16 measures meeting or exceeding target, 7 measures just short of target but within tolerance and 2 measures being below target.  The two measures had reported ‘Red’ were the percentage of children with a review at 2-2.5 years of age and the performance of the Tivoli contract.

The Chairman informed that the performance management framework was in a better position than before and he requested that the Lead Members for the two indicators that had not met their target to provide further detail. 

The Lead Member for Adults, Children and Health informed that the percentage of children with a review at 2-2.5 years of age was reported to the NHS by local authorities in a variety of ways.  The Royal Borough had taken a strict interpretation of the target and only included face to face contact whilst other authorities had included contact made in writing where a parent declined a visit.  It had been decided to keep the strict interpretation but add a secondary indicator reporting where parents had been contacted but declined a visit from the health visitor.   The Lead Member said that all vulnerable children had been visited and that the least deprived wards had a higher level of declines as parents felt the visit was not required.

The Lead Member for Culture, Communities and Windsor reported that the performance of the Tivoli contract had been a concern and mitigating actions had been taken.  Additional resources had recently been secured to improve poor performance in specific areas, however, sustained improvement across the contract was not being realised.

Increased performance management and monitoring had been put in place and issues had been escalated to Director level within Tivoli. Financial penalties had been applied and performance was due to be revived by scrutiny.  As the contract covered areas that where important to our residents officers had looked at alternative providers and Tivoli  had been given final notice to improve. 

The Chairman reported that the Council would terminate the contract if performance did not improve and meet expectations.  He expected performance to be improved by the time the performance report came back to Cabinet.  Tivoli would continue to receive financial penalties whilst performance was poor. 

The Lead Member for Planning highlighted the excellent performance for delayed transfers of care where nationally this was an issue for many authorities. 

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)          Endorses the 2018/19 Annual Performance Report, summarised in Table 1 and Appendix A.

ii)         Requests relevant Lead Members, Directors and Heads of Service to maintain focus on improving performance.

iii)        Delegates authority to Executive Directors in conjunction with Lead Members to amend and confirm the Performance Management  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6e

The Chairman introduced the report that dealt with the appointment of representatives to serve the Council on a number of associated and outside bodies.  He informed that he had received an email from Cllr Jones regarding her disappointment of the low number of appointments to opposition councillors, however due to the eagerness of the administration councillors to take up posts there were few places left.  The Chairman said he would review appointments and discuss them with Cllr Jones.

The Lead Member for Planning requested the following amendments to the appendix, that he be appointed to People to Places, that he be the appointee to the Building Control Board with Cllr Stimson as the deputy and that the Plastic Free Committee should be split into two one for Maidenhead and one for Windsor.  Cabinet approved these amendments. 

Unanimously approved: that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)          Appoints representatives to serve on the organisations listed in Appendix 1,as amended: cllr Coppinger be appointed to the Building Control Board with Cllr Stimson as deputy, that Councillor Coppinger be appointed to People to Places and that the Plastic Free Committee be split into two (Windsor and Maidenhead).

ii)         Delegates authority to the Service Lead – Governance, in consultation with the Leader of the Council and Leaders of the Opposition Groups, to fill any ad hoc vacancies that might arise through the year from nominations received.

iii)        Requests the Democratic Services Team Leader to contact organisations that Cabinet identifies as suitable to have a reduced or no council representation, to seek feedback on the proposal.

iv)        Following receipt of feedback, delegates authority to the Democratic Services Team Leader, in consultation with the Leader of Council, to permanently reduce council representation on specific associated and outside bodies as appropriate.