CUMBRIA ASSOCIATION OF LOCAL COUNCILS
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Minutes of a meeting of CALC’s Executive Committee held on Saturday 20th July 2013at 10.00am at the Leisure Centre, Southend Road, Penrith.
PRESENT:
Keith Hitchen(Chairman)
Leith Hallatsch
Jill Hay
Jocelyn Holland
Leslie Johnson
Bob Mather
Keith Morgan
Craig Nicholson
Rick Petecki
Will Warburg
Ann Woodcock
In attendance: David Claxton, Chief Officer, and Rachel Ashburner, Parish Development Officer.
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
1.Apologies for absence were received from Ronnie Auld, Adrian Dalton, David Johnson,David Peters and David Polhill.
MINUTES
2.The minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee held on 27th April, 2013 were agreed as a correct record.
MATTERS ARISING
3.Referring to paragraphs 12 and 13, the Chief Officer said that separate discussions had taken place with Copeland Borough Council about proposed asset transfers in the Borough and the modelling devolution paper would be discussed more generally with the County and district councils at a meeting in September.
CALC TRAINING SURVEY
4.Further to the report to the previous meeting, Rachel Ashburner presented the findings of the survey she had conducted to find out the views of local councils on training and development. The response rate had been very good with at least one member\clerk responding from 167 of the 219 CALC member councils (76%). The report gave a breakdown of the responses to individual questions and included a note of a discussion Rachel had had with Tamsin Hewitt at NALC about key developments nationally.
5.In the light of the survey findings and the developing national picture, the report set out proposals for the development of training over the following year with the intention that a follow up survey would be conducted in 2014 to gauge whether CALC’s programme was meeting the needs of local councils. In reply to questions, Rachel said that she would make councils aware of the limited online training that was available at present. While the intention was to do more in this area it would be more cost effective for such training to be developed in partnership with other county associations and NALC.
6.The Committee supported the proposals under the “Plans for the future” section of the report and it was agreed that the Parish Development Officer would work with a small reference group to implement the proposals over the following year.
“CONNECTING CUMBRIA” BROADBAND PROJECT
7.The Chief Officer reminded the Committee that the County Council had hosted a conference at Rheged at the end of June to launch the roll-out phase of the project. A roll-out plan had been published on the “Connecting Cumbria” website which provided for work in the mainly commercial areas to be completed by the end of year, with other exchanges being fibre enabled over the following two years. At present it was unclear which areas would be within the 7% which would not immediately benefit from superfast broadband, and it was noted that Ministers had taken steps nationally to seek to ensure that BT and small providers worked better together locally to fill in gaps in coverage as far as possible. Discussions about how this would work in practice in Cumbria would need to take place through the Connecting Cumbria Partnership Board.
8.It was unclear what further progress had been made with the RDPE funding application for the exchange lines only project, and it was agreed that the Chief Officer would ask the County Council for an update report and also that an item should be included in the agenda for the Lake District National Park Partnership’s next meeting to understand better which areas within the Park would benefit from superfast broadband coverage.
NALC FUTURE STRATEGY PAPER
9.The Committee considered a strategy paper developed by NALC setting out key objectives, an assessment of resources and a statement about changing the Association’s culture and processes. It was understood that John Findlay, the Association’s Chief Executive, would be retiring a little earlier than planned in February 2014 and the arrangements for appointing a successor were in hand.
10.The current intention was that after consultation a draft strategy would be finally approved by NALC’s National Council in October 2013. While generally content with the broad direction of the paper, the Committee considered that it was imperative that the incoming Chief Executive had an opportunity to work with NALC to help shape how the organisation should move forward before a draft strategy was finally approved. It was therefore agreed that the Chief Officer would write to NALC strongly expressing this view and that Keith Morgan, CALC’s NALC representative, would lobby other representatives to support this position.
LAKE DISTRICT NATIONAL PARK PARTNERSHIP – MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
11.The Chief Officer reported that with the benefit of experience since 2006 the Lake District National Park Partnership felt that the time was right to put in place a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) setting out the Partnership’s governance arrangements. The MOU was not intended to be a legally binding document but one which simply set out, among other things, the Partnership’s purposes, the relationships between partners, how partners would work together and so on. CALC, was one of the Partnership’s founding members, and the Committee was invited to agree to sign up to the MOU.
12.It was agreed that CALC should endorse and sign the MOU for the Lake District National Park Partnership.
MANAGING RADIOACTIVE WASTE SAFELY - UPDATE
13.The Committee received a copy of the response submitted on behalf of CALC to a Government call for evidence on the site selection process for an underground repository for high level nuclear waste. CALC’s response was based on the previously expressed views of this Committee and made the particular point that the site selection process would only have credibility in the minds of potentially interested communities if it was clear that geological and safety considerations were the primary drivers of the process. The Government was expected to issue a consultation paper on the way forward for MRWS in the Autumn.
14.Innoting the response, the Committee were mindful that CALC needed to be alert to the possibility that fracking might become an issue for local communities in Cumbria.
REPORTS FROM DISTRICT ASSOCIATIONS
15.The Committee received the reports from the district associations.
REPORTS FROM CALC REPRESENTATIVES
16.The Committee received written reports from the Association’s representatives.
NALC “PUTTING OMMUNITIES FIRST” CONFERENCE
17.The Chairman presented a report on his attendance at this NALC Conference held in Sheffield on 11th July, 2013. The Conference generally had been very good and the opportunity to talk to other councillors abut current issues had been particularly worthwhile.
18.The Chairman had suggested a number of possible follow up actions and it was agreed that the Chief Officer would:
1)find out whether there was an appetite among the County\Districts to develop any “Our Place” pilots under the Government’s programme;
2)speak to ACT about refreshing communications with local councils about community planning;
3)use the CALC Circular to bring to councils’ attention the new opportunity to put forward proposals under the Sustainable Communities Act.
CALC PAYMENTS AND RECEIPTS 2012/13
19.The Committee received a statement of payments and receipts for the period ended 30th June 2013.
20.The Chief Officer said that most councils had paid their subscription for the year and a half year payment was due from the County Council.
DATE OF NEXT MEETING
21.It was noted that the next meeting would take place on Saturday 12th October at the Community Fire Station, Penrith.
22.It was agreed that the Chief Officer would invite the new County Council Leader to attend the next meeting to give an overview of the budget outlook for the County Council, and how the new Administration would like to develop working relationships with local councils.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
23.In response to a request from the County Council for suggestions for topics for Scrutiny reviews, it was agreed that the Chief Officer would put forward the operation and effectiveness of the Neighbourhood Care Scheme. There was some concern about how neighbourhood forum grants were dealt with in different ways across the County and the Chief Officer was asked to seek information from the County Council about the legal basis and accountability for the making of forum grants.
Chairman
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