Agenda and minutes

None.

To adopt and sign as a correct record the committee’s minutes from its meeting on 6 July 2016. 

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 July 2016 were agreed as accurate and were signed by the Chairman, subject to the following amendments:

Minute 6. Work schedule and dates for all South and Vale scrutiny meetings

In third bullet point, insert a comma between “policies” and “services”

Minute 7. Vale of White Horse Local Plan 2013: Part 1

Under Main implications and next steps, fifth bullet point, insert “be” between “to” and “updated”.

None.

There was no urgent business.

The Chairman reported that:

·         If members noticed any typographical or grammatical errors in any of the committee documents, they should notify democratic services outside of the meeting.

·         The vice-chairman, Alice Badcock, would be leading on the committee work programme. (see also Minute 15 below).

None.

To receive the report of the head of corporate strategy (attached).

Elaine Ware, Cabinet member for grants, introduced this item. Also present to answer questions was Jayne Bolton, grants team leader.

The report set out the impact of the new capital and new homes bonus (NHB) grant policies introduced in 2015 and listed further amendments to the policy and procedure that the cabinet member intended to make following feedback from area committee members and the grants team.

The committee noted that the number of organisations applying for capital and/or NHB grants had risen from 25 in 2014/15 with 36% awarded the full request, to 34 in 2015/16 with 68% awarded the full request.

In response to questions and issues raised by the committee, the Cabinet member reported that:

·         the proposal to allocate the capital grant budget to each area committee at the start of the financial year rather than after each round of funding would mean that the area committees would know, from the start of the process, how much money they would have to spend.

·         the majority of applications covering more than one area committee were from organisations operating across the Vale of White Horse.

·         whilst the threshold of £1,000 for capital grant applications might exclude some organisations, a balance had to be struck between the amount applied for and the officer time spent in processing the application. Those seeking smaller amounts could seek funding from their parish council.

One of the proposed policy amendments was that organisations applying for a capital grant either owned the property or had a lease with at least ten years left on the term.  Whilst understanding the reasons for this, a member asked the Cabinet member and officers to bear in mind that, in some parts of the district, such leases were difficult to obtain.

Following further discussion, it was the committee’s view that, rather than allocating funding to three area committees for them to make awards, the process should be simplified with one budget and one member body making the awards.

RESOLVED: to

(1)       note the combined performance statistics for the capital and new homes bonus grant schemes set out at appendix 1 to the report;

(2)       to request the Cabinet member for grants to make the following amendments to the policies and procedures:

·         under policy amendments, third bullet point, delete “multiple committees” and insert “more than one area committee”

·         under procedure amendments, add the following: “ on rejection of an application, the applicant be given feedback on what they should do in order to obtain a positive outcome in future.”

(3)       to RECOMMEND to Cabinet that, in order to simplify the process, authority to award community grants be delegated to a single council-wide committee or panel from a single fund.

To invite the committee to comment on the draft Statement of Community Involvement. The following documents are attached (with a report to follow):

·         Part 1 - Getting involved in shaping our future

·         Part 2 - Getting involved in the preparation of the Local Plan and planning policy

·         Part 3 - Getting involved in planning applications

·         Draft equalities impact assessment (EqIA)

Councillor Roger Cox, the Cabinet member for planning policy had submitted his apologies. In his absence, Ben Davis, planning policy officer introduced this item.  Also present to answer questions was Adrian Duffield, head of planning.

The committee considered the updated Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) which was out for public consultation.  As the consultation fell within the school holiday period it had been extended until 14 September, in accordance with the commitment set out in the draft SCI.

During the ensuing discussion the committee made the following comments on the draft SCI:

General comments

·         The consultation document should be reviewed before the final version is published to ensure that language is as user-friendly as possible.

·         A glossary of terms should be added to each part of the SCI.

·         Any footnotes should be on the relevant page rather than at the end of the document.

·         A separate user guide on planning applications should be produced.

·         A monitoring (measurement) system should be established to ensure that public engagement is effective

Specific

SCI Part 1

·         Page 4, Ease of access to information, bullet point 2: the feasibility of a dedicated planning service facebook/twitter account for consultations on planning policy documents and major planning applications should be explored.

·         Page 4, Ease of access to information, bullet point 5: delete “ and how your comments have been taken into account” and insert “and will provide feedback on your comments”.

·         Page 5, Where can I view planning documents? bullet point 8: delete “Westgate Library, Oxford” and insert “Oxford Central Library, Castle Quarter”.

SCI Part 2

·         Page 5, Who do we consult?: the list of statutory consultees to be publicly available.

·         Page 15, All consultation reports and statements should be accessible at a specific location on the Council website.

·         There should be a separate section on neighbourhood plans.

SCI Part 3

·         Page 6, What is a pre-application? second paragraph: delete “ any pre-application advice” and insert “any pre-application advice letter”.

·         Page 6, amend heading to read “Who might be involved in the Development Forum” rather than“ Who will be….”

·         Consideration be given to how the Development Forum fits into the planning application process (see flowchart on page 5, and narrative on page 6). The flowchart mentions a ‘developer forum’; and it is not clear whether this is the same as a Development Forum mentioned on the next page.

·         Page 7, Neighbour notification letter: criteria used to determine who may be directly affected by a proposal to be set out as examples.

·         Page 7, Site Notice: delete last sentence of paragraph 4.

·         Page 7, Email alerts. Use a full link rather than a ‘click here’, which doesn’t work from a printed copy of the SCI.

·         Page 8, Neighbourhood notification consultation: bullet point list to be included to show when wider consultation may be carried out.

·         Page 11, Does it matter what I think?: title to be deleted and  paragraph to be moved to precede “What types of comments are taken into account” on page 10.

·         Page 12,  ...  view the full minutes text for item Sc14

To review the attached scrutiny work schedule. Please note, although the dates are confirmed, the items under consideration are subject to being withdrawn, added to or rearranged without further notice.

The committee considered its current work schedule which would be updated to reflect recent changes to Cabinet membership and portfolios.

The committee advised that the Government response to the Local Plans Expert Group report would not be published by September, as previously anticipated. Accordingly it was agreed to remove this item from the 29 September agenda.

Councillor Alice Badcock reported that she had agreed with the chairman that she would lead on managing the work programme and would be submitting details of potential items to future meetings.  She requested members to contact her with their suggestions for possible topics.