Agenda item

(i)         By Councillor McLean to Councillor Wright, Executive Member for Adults and Public Health:

The new Labour Government having taken the winter fuel allowance away from many elderly residents, what steps will the Council be taking to make sure those effected are kept warm this winter?

(ii)        By Councillor Harrison to Councillor Jefferies, Executive Member for Culture, Delivery and Public Protection:

Following yet another occurrence of waste being fly-tipped in Wellers' Lane in Warfield, will the Executive Member responsible please update the Council on how many new CCTV installations to deter this crime have been made since Council last passed a resolution on fly-tipping?

(iii)       By Councillor Allen to Councillor Neil, Executive Member for Finance & Corporate Improvement:

            In the 2023/2024 financial year, Bracknell Forest Council posted an overspend of £1.225M – the only overspend the Council has ever had.  How much additional funding does the Council need from central government to balance our books for this year and for the following two years?

(iv)       By Councillor McLean to Councillor Temperton, Leader and Executive Member for Council Strategy and Climate Change:

We understand that a decision has been made to re-name the Executive as the Cabinet.  How much will this cost our residents?

The four questions and responses submitted under the Council Procedure Rule 10 were published in advance of the meeting –Council Procedural Rule 10 – Question and answers

(i)         By Councillor McLean to Councillor Wright, Executive Member  for Adults and Public Health:

As a supplementary to his questiondetailed in the agenda papers, Councillor McLean asked the Executive Member whether they supported Peter Swallow’s recent block on an attempt to stop the cuts to the winter fuel allowance.

Councillor Wright, Executive Member for Adults and Public Health responded that she was not aware of this recent occurrence and would look into it. She felt that the Council had a very good system to support people struggling with their energy bills and there was a welfare program in place. They were well aware of that people were struggling and they knew where to come to with warm hubs and support of voluntary services.

The Mayor advised that it was not relevant to the supplementary question whether or not the executive member supported Peter Swallow, the member of parliament for Bracknell, proposal to the House of Commons and referred to the question which had been already answered.

(ii)        By Councillor Harrison to Councillor Jefferies, Executive Member for Culture, Delivery and Public Protection:

As a supplementary to his question detailed in the agenda papers, Councillor Harrison requested whether the executive member would commit to getting funding for additional cameras to be built into next year's budget plans? 

In response, Councillor Jefferies, Executive Member for Culture, Delivery and Public Protection advised that he was fully committed to upholding public protection for Bracknell Forest. The fly-tipping for environmental crime fell under the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) remit and this was a very important matter to the administration. On, 1September 2024, members were invited to participate in a session being run by the PPP and collaborate on priorities and the pressures that affected the PPP. The strategy around environmental crime went far beyond CCTV.  The current strategy took an intelligence led approach to tackling the issue of fly-tipping. This included looking at trends and locations identified by the analysis of intelligence as well as looking at high risk areas. Hotspots were constantly sought to raise awareness and seek information from the public. The PPP would continue to deliver an effective service. 

However, it was noted that, financial pressures would be dictating the priorities of the future but would like to commit and assure that this would remain an important issue on the council’s priorities in protecting the public.

(iii)       By Councillor Allen to Councillor Neil, Executive Member for Finance & Corporate Improvement:

As a supplementary to his question detailed in the agenda papers, Councillor Allen first asked for clarification on the answer given that when referring to Bracknell Forest’s core spending power reducing by 8% in real terms between 2010 and

2014, that it actually meant 2010 and 2024. It was confirmed that this was correct.

Councillor Allen went on to ask the executive member about the situation in relation to use of reserves. It had been stated that the plan was to reduce the use of reserves to balance the budget each year, with the hope that by 2027 would not need to be used. Given that the executive member had said that the social care budget was increasing by £5m per year and the challenges of the council getting any additional funding from the government were negligible, alongside the significant drain on reserves from the safety valve program was it far more likely to have no reserves left by 2027.

In the response from Councillor Neil, Executive Member for Finance & Corporate Improvement, it was noted that the pressures faced last year were included in the 2024/25 budget and that this also included contingency of £4 million which was the highest sum ever. Despite this, officers were still reporting an overspend of £0.4m and £3.2m. The corporate management team and budget managers across the organisation were looking at all options to bring protected spending down to the budgeted figure between now and year end.  

At this stage the focus was on curtailing non-essential expenditure that the council had which would not have any material impact on service delivery. It was possible that further steps would need to be taken in the autumn if this wasn’t enough and proposals which would include services changes would always be brought forward before councillors before they were implemented.

(iv)       By Councillor McLean to Councillor Temperton, Leader and Executive Member for Council Strategy and Climate Change:

As a supplementary to his question detailed in the agenda papers, Councillor McLean asked Councillor Temperton, Leader and Executive Member for Council Strategy and Climate Change, why the executive didn’t know whether they supported attempts to stop the winter fuel allowance affecting residents, but they did know that they wanted to change the name of the executive to the cabinet to provide clarity and consistency and whether residents should expect council priorities to be changing names rather than doing something that actually impacted residents more closely such as the winter fuel allowance?

Councillor Temperton responded that it was felt that this was an important change to take because she had said to residents that she wanted to take the council to them and she had. The leader had undertaken a lot of consultation with residents and there was a lot of confusion with the terms executive officer and an executive member and the differences in the responsibilities. Whereas the term Cabinet was clearly understood. The cabinet was elected members and it was considered that residents would understand much more the clarity of professionals being executive directors and officers and the cabinet being elected members.