Agenda and minutes

To receive any declaration of interest from any Member or Officer in respect of any item of business.

No declaration of interest received.

To consider adoption of the following:-

“Under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, to exclude the press and public from meeting during discussion on the following item on the grounds that it may involve the disclosure of exempt information as defined in Schedule 12A of the said Act and in the attached Public Interest Test”.

The Chief Executive stated that it is usual when an item is commercially sensitive or affect  staff, a process is followed to consider whether those matters should be discussed in an open or closed meeting.  In this particular instance as Officers it was decided that this matter should be discussed in private but relevant parts of the Smarter Working Project  could be released into the public domain.   He further stated that as Officers it was considered that the Smarter Working Project should not be discussed in full at a public meeting as information is included that is commercially sensitive i.e. value of Councils assets before being placed on the open market. 

The Monitoring Officer stated that the Public Interest Test attached to the report sets out the reasons for having the debate in private or in public.  The balance of the Public Interest Test considers that the debate should be in private session in the first instance in order to enable Members to have a free and frank exchange of views.  The particular legal concerns are that there is sensitive commercial information within the report.  The information falls into 3 categories:-

• Sale of assets to help fund this project which identifies in detail what the expected receipts are from the sale of the assets. 
• Information in detail about the procurement required in order to realise the project i.e. supplies and services the Council will need to purchase.
• References to opinions of Officers about certain characteristics of named  contractors.

Therefore the legal advice still remains that the debate should take place in a private forum.  However, the Monitoring Officer stated that if the Council is minded not to follow that advice as the Corporate Scrutiny Committee intended to at its meeting held on 4 November, she asked that the Council should limit the risk as follows :-

• To avoid reference to the commercially sensitive information in the debate by the Council;
• To give authority to the Monitoring Officer, if the Council decides to have the debate in public, to release the papers and to redact the commercially sensitive information after the meeting.  There are 12 sets of redactions within the document.

The Leader of the Council stated that following the detailed advice by the Monitoring Officer, that if the commercially sensitive information is not discussed in public, he proposed that the Smarter Working Project report be discussed in public and to redact the commercially sensitive information within the report thereafter.  Councillor Alwyn Rowlands seconded the proposal.

The Chair of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee stated that the Executive held on 20 October, 2014 approved the Smarter Working project and thereafter the item was ‘Called-In’ to be further discussed by the Corporate Scrutiny Committee and that Committee requested that it be discussed in public.  That meeting was deferred and it is emanating from that decision that the matter has come before the full Council.  He further stated that briefing session on the Smarter Working Project should have taken place before the Corporate Scrutiny  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

A request for an Extraordinary meeting of the Council has been made by Councillors Lewis Davies, Ann Griffith, John Griffith, Trevor Ll. Hughes, Vaughan Hughes, Llinos M. Huws, Carwyn E. Jones, R. Meirion Jones,

Alun W. Mummery, Bob Parry OBE, Dylan Rees, Nicola Roberts in accordance with Section 4.1.3.1 of the Constitution, to revisit the Executive’s decision made on 20^th October, 2014 in relation to the Smarter Working Business Project and to consider this matter in public.

The relevant documents :-

·           Background information for the request for an extraordinary meeting.

·           Copy of the Decision made by the Executive on 20^th October, 2014.

·           Copy of report submitted to the Executive on 20^th October, 2014

A request for an Extraordinary meeting of the Council had been made by Councillors Lewis Davies, Ann Griffith, John Griffith, Trevor Ll. Hughes, Vaughan Hughes, Llinos M. Huws, Carwyn E. Jones, R. Meirion Jones, Alun W. Mummery, Bob Parry OBE, Dylan Rees and Nicola Roberts in accordance with Section 4.1.3.1 of the Constitution, to revisit the Executive’s decision made on 20^th October, 2014 in relation to the Smarter Working  Project and to consider the matter in public.  A copy of the reasons for the request was attached within the Agenda for the meeting.

The Chair of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee raised a Question that the Executive resolved to approve the Smarter Working project on 20^th October, 2014 subject to capital and revenue resources being available.  He referred to the Council’s Constitution 4.3.2.3 – Decisions outside the budget and questioned if the decision of the Executive was within the Councils regulations as Appendix 6 within the report states that the project would be implemented immediately in December.  Questions were raised to how this project was to be funded.

The Monitoring Officer responded that the Executive can only make spending decisions where the funding to underpin that spending has already been allocated.  As the project is  multi-layered, some  funding may be already in place in the budget.  Some elements of the project may not require funding e.g. disposal of assets; these will be issues for the Executive.  Anything else will be a Council decision.

The Interim Head of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer stated that any activity that has taken place this year in respect of the Smarter Working may have not required any budget i.e. Officers time or funding from departmental budgets already in place.  However, if any funding is required during the course of this financial year, the Council does have earmarked reserves which can be deployed through the proper processes to release funding.   He further stated that there is currently no capital provision in place for this project and the Executive has recognised that by only agreeing to the principle of the project.  The Officer stated that he considered that the Executive at its meeting held on 20 October, 2014 made a legitimate decision under the constitutional provision.

The Chair of the Council invited Councillor Bob Parry OBE, as the Leader of the Opposition Group to address the meeting.    Councillor Parry expressed that the main concerns of the Opposition Group to the Smarter Working Project was the expenditure of this project. The project is dependent on selling the Council’s assets on the open market together and selling these assets quickly.  He further stated that whilst he appreciated that elements of the Smarter Working project are acceptable he specified that spending over £1m on the Headquarters would not be acceptable to the residents of the Island when the Authority considers increasing the Council Tax. The issue of local government reorganisation is also a factor that needs to be considered.

Main issues raised by the Opposition Group :-  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.