Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Councillor Lagden was absent.

Councillor Islam attended the meeting via Microsoft Teams.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 07 October 2021 as a correct record.

The Chair and Committee wished to send their condolences to the family and friends of Councillor Madams.

Councillor Bateson advised the Committee that during the last meeting he had requested a break down of the £107k for additional fees outlined in the Revenue Monitoring Report (Q1 April-June 2021) and he had been advised that this would be issued to all Committee members after the meeting. This breakdown had, to date, not been issued.

The Deputy Chief Account, Anna Russell advised the Committee that she would provide a written response.

To receive any disclosures of interest from councillors in accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct for members.

There were none.

To agree to the implementation of the new Programme Management Project Model.

The Group Head Commissioning and Transformation, Sandy Muirhead presented a verbal update on the proposed new project model that aimed to improve the way projects were managed, delivered and reported on.

Committee expressed concerns over the £200k that was planned to be spent on refreshing the Network Cabling throughout Knowle Green and asked that an explanation be provided to justify this expenditure.

After the meeting the ICT Manager, Alistair Corkish provided the following statement:

“The proposed budget under the network refresh (cabling project) is to replace the oldest cabling not primarily because of its age but because of its type.  We understand that a lot of the original cabling is Cat5 which has a maximum speed of data of 100mbps and is more prone to interference. We believe that a lot of the original cabling in Knowle Green is Cat5. Therefore, to ensure the Council can maintain efficiency and demands on the system ICT want to replace the cable with Cat5e which is ten times faster or Cat6a which is a hundred times faster.  Also some of the expense will be in working out which of our existing cables are Cat5 as you need people at either end of each one and given the age of the building and cabling there are no clear maps of cable runs.  We understood that cabling lasts 25 years”.

The Committee resolved to note the update.

To note the capital spend as at 31 December 2021.

The Committee considered a report from the Deputy Chief Accountant that sought to outline the current level of underspend on capital expenditure against the Capital Programme provision as at 31 December 2021.

The Committee resolved to note the report.

To note the draft forecast outturn for 2021/22 as at 31 December 2021 and the aggregate variances by cost centre reported in Appendix C2.

The Committee considered a report from the Deputy Chief Accountant that sought to outline the draft forecast outturn for 2021/22 as at 31 December 2021 and the aggregate variances by cost centre.

The Committee resolved to note the report.

To consider the Forward Plan for committee business.

The Committee resolved to note the current Forward Plan but asked that the date range at the top of the document be removed.

To consider any business deemed as urgent by the chair.

The Committee resolved to enter into a closed session to discuss an item that the Chair wanted to raise.