To receive any questions relating to items on the Agenda from members of the public.
Minutes:
Paul Elstone
Question 1:
There was no column shown on the spreadsheet providing details of previous year’s expenditures on these projects. This information was required in order to provide clarity on the total project cost. Why was this information not provided?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
The previous year’s expenditure was reported in the appropriate reports at that time, and fully within the outturn report each year.
Question 2:
Would such information be added to the budget sheet going forward? And if not why not?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
The Council would look to see how historic information could be provided going forwards.
Question 3:
Project 41 Fir Close, Willand shown a revised total 2025/30 budgeted amount of £175,000. After the addition of the £50,000 shown as spent in 2024/25, this means the total cost of this single person’s accommodation would be £225,000.How could such high expenditure be justified?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
Any budgeted amount was the total project cost, so costs included all aspects of any projects not just the structure itself. Details such as parking, fencing, biodiversity net gain, planning fees, officer time and renewables were included within the total spend.
Question 4:
Was the Project 23 the ZED PODS Old Road Tiverton development?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
Project names would not be published until such time as planning permission and local consultation had been undertaken.
Question 5:
The project budget for the Project 23 had increased from £4.1 million to £7.45 million. Could it be explained exactly why this project cost had nearly doubled?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
As with any of the sites identified within the Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) Development Programme the sites were identified at an early stage before any massing or designs were fully carried out and as such movement in unit numbers which could be both up and down could occur during any design process.
Question 6:
What or where was Project 20?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
See the response to Q4 above.
Question 7:
Project 20 was shown as a massive budget of £16.49 million but there seems to be no intention to develop it within the next 5 years. It was known that the Council paid ZED PODS £435,360 in 2023 for work on this project.
Was this payment to ZED PODS not a waste and a very poor use of public funds?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
The Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) Development Programme was under constant monitoring and assessment with many aspects affecting when projects began or were moved. Each project’s viability, in terms of cost and attainable external funding, played a major role in any decision making.
Question 8:
What or where was Project 8?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
See the response to Q4 above.
Question 9:
Why had the cost of Project 8 increased by £1.37 million from £2.44 million to £3.61 million?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
See the response to question 5 above.
Question 10:
Why exactly had the School Close Bampton Project cost increased by over 1 million pounds to £5,5 million?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
See the response to question 5 above.
Question 11:
What or where were projects 29, 33 and 54?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
See the response to Q4 above.
Question 12:
The £5.5 million School Close Bampton cost equates to £4,590 per square metre. The Shapland Place, Tiverton cost was around £5,000 and St Andrews Cullompton was around £4,600 Fir Close Willand could be over £6,000 per square metre. Would Cabinet agree there was a common and very high cost theme developing?
Response from Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Risk:
Those figures were taking total project cost as indicated in Q3, whereas construction cost, and therefore build cost/m², was only one element of total project cost. It should also be remembered that those properties were net zero carbon with far higher energy efficiency elements incorporated. As such, while there may be extra costs involved to achieve this, which could be perceived as optional, the Council had committed to aiming for net zero, with the added benefit of this efficiency translating into lower running costs for tenants over the life of the asset (home).
Nick Quinn
In the press that 1200 Council properties had been overcharged on their rents while 1600 had been undercharged. The Housing Rents report states that it was being proposed to recompense those tenants who had been overcharged and the Council had already said they were not going to recover any undercharges from renters. But it was not clear, from the report, whether corrections were to be put in place for all tenancies, once the formula calculations had been done to work out the correct rent for every property. If this was not done, the overcharged renters had their correct rent put in place, but the undercharged tenancies continue on the incorrect base rent for the remainder of their tenancy. This would mean this Council were subsidising those tenants and would be paying for this error for years to come. Surely, this was wrong. Rather than agreeing to recommendation 2 and leave undercharged tenancies unchanged, as was suggested at point 19 on the table in paragraph 2.2 of the report: Would Cabinet look to undertake moves to implement the correct rent, properly calculated in compliance with the Statutory Social Rent Formula, to all their social rental properties over a phased period which was yet to be determined?
This was answered within the debate at item 6 on the agenda.