Agenda item

The Community Engagement, Participation & Strategy Lead Officer introduced the report and requested that the Committee consider the recommendation as set out within the report.  The Chairman noted that the report was excellent and welcomed the Committee to agree the recommendations

Following the consideration of the item the Committee:

·         That the Committee noted the review and its findings and the recommendations to improve Area Committee and Residents’ Forum operations.

·         That the Committee noted the proposed relationship with the Council’s Theme Committees – particularly the Environment Committee – and the implications for the Area Committees, including the need to coordinate with the deadlines for external funding cycles.

·         That the Committee noted and supported the proposals to delegate additional resources to Area Committees to meet need and resolve issues in their local areas, including a proportion of income from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) (if agreed by Policy & Resources Committee on 9 July 2015).

·         That the Committee approves the list attached at Appendix B as an accurate record of the outstanding historic issues raise as of 12 June 2015, and notes the estimated total cost of the works, taking the following revisions into account:

o   RE15 should be removed from the list as this is an issue relating to Hendon, not Chipping Barnet (this has no cost implication)

o   RE47 should be shown as ‘on hold’ and the estimated outstanding costs of £20,000 removed from the estimated total cost of the backlog.

·         That the Committee approve the draft guidance produced in response to the instruction from Environment Committee and attached at Appendix D.

·         That the Committee refers the backlog issues listed at Appendix B, for which outstanding costs are more than £25,000 and which are neither closed nor fully funded (i.e. excluding RE 44, whose costs are estimated at £25,000 or less) to Environment Committee for consideration at their meeting on 15 July.

o   This corrects the misnumbered issue space (shown as RE4 rather than RE44) in the published paper, removes RE47, for which there are no outstanding costs, and RE25, which is considered as a separate issue under Agenda Item 9.

·         That the Chipping Barnet Area Committee refers issue RE44 onto its work programme for consideration at its October meeting – as this has an estimated cost of £25,000 or less – when additional resources from CIL may be available to fund it (subject to agreement by Policy & Resources Committee on 9 July to allocate a proportion of CIL to Area Committees).

o   This corrects the misnumbered issue space (shown as RE4 rather than RE44) in the published paper, removes RE47, for which there are no outstanding costs, and RE25, which is considered as a separate issue under Agenda Item 9.

·         That the Committee agreed to follow the approach set out in this report (in paragraphs 1.18-1.28) when considering other issues on its agenda, as well as any issues which are referred on to the Committee from the July 2 Residents’ Forum.

·         That the Area Committee approved the transfer of £17,000 of its current budget for 2015/16 to the Corporate Grants programme budget, to be allocated through, and using, the existing and established Corporate Grants application process.

The recommendations were put to the vote by the Chairman.  It all cases the following was recorded:

For – 3

Against – 0

Abstained – 4