Agenda item

To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak. 

A.   Dr Jim Halliday asked the following question to the Leader of the council, Councillor Roger Cox

"I know that the Council has been working with the County Council and BT Open Reach to extend the superfast broadband coverage in the Vale, and that just over 96 percent of the Vale can now access speeds of over 24 Megabits per second. However, this coverage has yet to reach parts of central Abingdon - residents and businesses in Stert Street, Abbey Close, Bridge Street, High Street, Thames Street, Checker Walk, East St Helen Street and the Market Place who have the mis-fortune to be connected to BT cabinets 14 and 54 remain on the slow speed. Given that for some of these premises BT Open Reach is the only possible provider of super-fast broadband, and that currently no conversion dates even seem to be available, please could the Leader ask the Chief Executive to press BT Open Reach to provide a firm date when cabinets 14 and 54 will be upgraded, and then to monitor their progress on a regular basis?"

Councillor Cox responded as follows:

“Better Broadband for Oxfordshire is a project to bring superfast broadband to over 96 per cent of homes and businesses in Oxfordshire. It is a collaboration between Oxfordshire County Council, BDUK and BT that will fill coverage gaps not served commercially.  The first phase was a £25 million investment funded by Oxfordshire County Council, the government and BT. The second phase saw investment of £10.68 million made up of funding from the district councils, Oxfordshire County Council, BT, OxLEP, SEMLEP and government match funding.  This included a contribution of £250,000 from Vale Council which was matched by government.

The two cabinets in question are not part of the Better Broadband for Oxfordshire intervention area as they are served commercially. An Open Market Review exercise was undertaken in 2017 where commercial suppliers advised that they are covering/have plans for specific cabinets.

The council has been advised that Openreach has stated they are ‘unlikely’ to deliver any further Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) commercially whilst they focus on delivery of Fibre to the Premise (FTTP).  The council understands Virgin Media has partial coverage in the postcodes served by Abingdon cabinets 14 and 54, but the coverage is not complete. Through the Better Broadband for Oxfordshire project board, the council will continue to press Openreach to expedite the delivery of FTTP for these areas which will deliver much higher speeds.

A possible solution is to access the government's £67 million Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme. Gigabit vouchers can be used by small and medium sized businesses and neighbouring residents to contribute to the installation cost of Full Fibre Broadband. For example a number of businesses and resident near cabinets 14 and 54 could form a group project to deliver the connection.   Businesses can claim up to £3,000 against the cost of connection either individually or as part of a group project. Residents can benefit from the scheme as part of a group project, which also includes businesses, and can claim for a voucher of up to a value of £500. The Better Broadband for Oxfordshire team is happy to discuss this scheme with local residents and businesses”.

B.   Mr Mayhew-Archer asked the following question to the Leader of the council, Councillor Roger Cox

“Two years ago we were told the Five Councils Partnership would result in a saving for the council of £9m over nine years. A million pounds a year.

Nine days ago the chief executive told the Scrutiny Committee that the savings won't be a million pounds a year. In fact there won’t be any savings at all. 

In fact his assessment of the venture was “Break even at best”.

"Break even at best”. That sounds worrying to me. Does it worry any councillors? if it does could you ask to be put on the Scrutiny Committee in

place of some of the councillors on the committee.

I say this because many members of the current Scrutiny Committee didn’t seem bothered at all that this 5 councils partnership contract might end up costing the council money. Having read the report of Capita’s performance in HR, payroll and IT I’m hard-pressed to understand how any member of the committee could declare there is no problem with outsourcing but one did. I’m also hard pressed to understand how any member of the committee could read the reports and say “people don’t mind paying more if they are getting a better

Service” but one did.

But then this was a pretty odd Scrutiny committee. Two of the members were members of the cabinet which took the council into the 5 Councils’ partnership so they were effectively scrutinising the consequences of their own decision.

That doesn’t sound like proper scrutiny to me.

What worries me is that this council seems unable to admit when it has made a mistake. Instead it starts invoking legal reasons for exempting minutes and packing committees with people who aren’t going to ask awkward questions. And the problem with councils that don’t admit to mistakes is that they don’t

learn from those mistakes.

So my question is Councillor Cox is do you agree with your chief executive's assessment of "Break even at best" and if so what do you think went wrong?”

Councillor Cox undertook to respond to this issue in his leader’s report.

C.   Mr Crawford asked the following question to the Leader of the council, Councillor Roger Cox

Could the leader of the council please provide me with details of the deficit or surplus The Beacon has generated, expressed both as absolute values and as percentages of the council tax generated by households within Wantage parish for each of the last municipal years?

In addition, would he provide me with any documents the council has generated or commissioned which assess the possible financial impact on The Beacon of the two new large community buildings which Vale of White Horse District Council has decided should be built at Grove Airfield and Crab Hill through section 106 agreements with developers?

Councillor Cox undertook to provide a written response.