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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, County Hall, The Rhadyr USK. View directions

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

None.

2.

Public Open Forum

Scrutiny Committee Public Open Forum ~ Guidance

 

 

Our Scrutiny Committee meetings are live streamed and a link to the live stream will be available on the meeting page of the Monmouthshire County Council website

 

 

If you would like to share your thoughts on any proposals being discussed by Scrutiny Committees, you can submit your representation in advance via this form



·      Please share your views by uploading a video or audio file (maximum of 4 minutes) or;

·      Please submit a written representation (via Microsoft Word, maximum of 500 words)

 


You will need to register for a
My Monmouthshire account in order to submit the representation or use your log in, if you have registered previously.

 

The deadline for submitting representations to the Council is 5pm three clear working days in advance of the meeting. 

 

If representations received exceed 30 minutes, a selection of these based on theme will be shared at the Scrutiny Committee meeting.  All representations received will be made available to councillors prior to the meeting.

If you would like to attend one of our meetings to speak under the Public Open Forum at the meeting, you will need to give three working days’ notice by contacting Scrutiny@monmouthshire.gov.uk  

The amount of time afforded to each member of the public to speak is at the chair’s discretion, but to enable us to accommodate multiple speakers, we ask that contributions be no longer than 3 minutes. 

If you would like to suggest future topics for scrutiny by one of our Scrutiny Committees, please do so by emailing
Scrutiny@monmouthshire.gov.uk

 

Minutes:

No submissions were received.

 

3.

Budget Scrutiny: Scrutiny of the budget proposals for 2023/24. A presentation tailored to scrutiny of the areas falling within the remit People Scrutiny Committee will follow. pdf icon PDF 1024 KB

 

 

Please use this link to access the papers for this item - available as part of the 18th January 2023 Cabinet agenda.

 

20230118 Cabinet - Draft 2023-24 Revenue Capital Budget for consultation - Covering report Final v2.pdf (monmouthshire.gov.uk)

 

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Resources presented to the committee the proposals for 2023-2024 (presentation available online) prior to the committee asking questions.  

Challenge:

In terms of how this budget may affect children and young people, you mention that the capital programme oversees the maintenance and enhancement of our roads schools and leisure centres etc, so with the 3% efficiency saving proposal, would you expect that across the board?  Some schools are new and have undergone major improvements in recent years and most schools were in a sound financial position during the pandemic, thanks to the additional money allocated during that time. However, Chepstow School is unfortunately in deficit due to historical reasons. My main concern is the continuation of school improvement in the school environment, so that pupils can keep with their peers in schools in other parts of Monmouthshire, particularly whilst funding from the Sustainable Communities for Learning Programme (formerly known as 21st century schools funding) is awaited. Chepstow is the final school in Monmouthshire to benefit from the programme and Cabinet confirmed before Christmas that they were content with the progress, but I wanted to check that Chepstow School and other schools are still due to receive this funding?

Cabinet Member for Education:  There is no intention that the quality of facilities at Chepstow School will suffer. The council has spent substantial money in updating facilities there, such as solar power generation and I know that the school is delighted with the investment the Council has made so far. We are at an early stage of discussion with Chepstow as the 4th school about what that provision will look like and I hope I have reassured you that the school is firmly in our sights. The new Welsh Medium provision in Monmouth has benefitted from this Welsh Government and Council joint funding and therefore, even in difficult times, we do not forget the needs of our children and young people and that’s why we are proposing to increase the schools’ budget at a rate that has not been seen for some time. 

Regarding bringing in additional income via discretionary fees and charges, such as increased car parking and waste services, surely this will deter people from using the car parks and is likely not to bring in the income expected, whilst annoying residents in the process. Charging more for waste services is likely to increase flytipping or burning of waste at properties, causing more problems for Council staff, so I would like to hear your views on that. 

Cabinet Member for Resources: We are aware of these issues, so we are not changing the frequency of kerbside collections like other councils. In terms of car parking, we are very aware of the interactions between thriving community and town centres and accessibility. We are making use of active travel plans and the funding available there and we have a parking review scheduled for this year which takes into account the needs of communities as well as how  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.

Date of the Next Meeting: 28th February 2023 at 10.00am