Agenda item

To receive reports from Cabinet Members on their portfolios.

Members are reminded that they may ask questions of the Cabinet Member on their reports and portfolio areas but should note that it is not a debate.

No member may ask more than one question plus a supplementary question, unless the time taken by members’ questions does not exceed 30 minutes in total, in which case, second questions will be taken in the order that they are received (Constitution, Chapter 2, part 2, section 12.2)

Questions will be taken in the order that they are received.

Cabinet members (listed alphabetically)

Cllr T Adams (Leader / Executive Support)

Cllr A Fitch-Tillett – Coast

Cllr W Fredericks – Housing & Benefits

Cllr V Gay – Leisure, Culture & Wellbeing

Cllr R Kershaw – Sustainable Growth

Cllr N Lloyd – Environment

Cllr E Seward – Finance, Assets & Legal

Cllr L Shires – Organisational Resources

Cllr J Toye – Planning & Enforcement

The Chairman asked if any Cabinet members wished to provide an update to their written report. Cllr E Seward, Portfolio Holder for Finance & Assets, referred to the figure in his report for council tax collection for 2021/2022 which was 98.10%. He clarified that this put NNDC in the top 15% of all local authorities for collection rates.

The Chairman invited members to ask questions:

Cllr J Rest referred to Cllr Seward’s report and the reference to a lease at the Fakenham Connect building. He said this was another example of local members not being kept informed of matters in their ward. He asked for more information on the lease arrangements. Cllr Seward apologised that local members had not been informed and said that he would provide a written response.

Cllr N Dixon referred to the recent ‘no notice’ resignation of the Director of Resources. He asked the Leader why it happened the way that it did and whether there was any connection to the many criticisms of NNDC and the events of May 2019 made by the Council’s external auditor, Ernst & Young, in their Annual Report for 2019/20.  The Monitoring Officer advised Cllr Dixon that his question may have to be rejected as it was not possible to provide an answer without the disclosure of confidential exempt information. The Leader confirmed that as the questions concerned matters about staffing it could not be discussed in public session.

Cllr C Cushing asked the Leader to what extent he was involved in the discussions resulting in the ‘no notice’ resignation of the Director of Resources and whether there was any extraordinary departure deal agreed to enable this to happen, and whether the Leader had any involvement in such a deal. The Monitoring Officer advised that the question could not be answered without the disclosure of confidential exempt information and must therefore be rejected. The Leader referred Cllr Cushing to his previous response.

Cllr J Stenton asked the Leader whether the residents of North Norfolk would be told the details of any departure deal and any disciplinary action that had been taken. The Leader reiterated his previous response and said that such matters would not be discussed at any local authority and he did not intend to discuss them now.

Cllr M Taylor asked the Leader whether members, who had a collective responsibility for the governance of the Council, would ever be told the contents of any extraordinary departure deal and if it was a confidential agreement, would there be a provision for members to be told confidentially. The Leader referred Cllr Taylor to his previous response.

Cllr G Hayman asked for a point of clarification. He said that the Leader had declined to answer a range of questions, some of which didn’t ask for any confidential information to be disclosed. He asked whether the Leader could confirm whether he was involved in any discussion regarding a departure deal as that was not confidential information. He said that he was concerned that the Leader was trying to avoid responding to a straightforward question. The Monitoring Officer said that if Cllr Hayman was raising a point of order then the Constitution required that he state the council procedure rule which was being breached. Cllr Hayman replied that he would expect the Monitoring Officer to have knowledge of the constitution and assist him with this but he would hope that requirements around responses to questions would be set out in the Constitution. The Chairman suggested that Cllr Hayman received a written response to his query. Cllr Hayman agreed to this.

Cllr S Penfold commented that Cllr Hayman had raised a question rather than a point of order and it should have been treated as such and dealt with in sequence as there were other members waiting to speak. He referred to Cllr Gay’s report and the reference to the North Walsham street feast in May and said that he wanted to encourage all members to attend the next one in July.

Cllr T FitzPatrick said that he would not put a question to the Leader as he believed it would not receive a response and that this in itself demonstrated a lack of compliance with the Nolan principles. He asked Cllr R Kershaw, Portfolio Holder for Sustainable Growth, about a leaflet that all members had received outlining the benefits of Equinor. He said as local member for Walsingham , it ‘rubbed salt in the wounds’ to hear about all of the opportunities being created by a new UK hub and operations centre being established in Great Yarmouth, when over 100 jobs had been lost in his ward due to inaction by NNDC. He said that he was concerned about the wider impact of the loss of good jobs for young people and in the hospitality sector. He said that he wanted to ask again what was being done to replace those 100 jobs in Fakenham and Walsingham. Cllr R Kershaw commented on the length of Cllr FitzPatrick’s question and Cllr FitzPatrick replied that he had asked it politely and wanted a simple, straightforward response. Cllr Kershaw said that a lot of the jobs referred to by Cllr FitzPatrick had gone over a period of time not just in the last year. He added that the folly of creating a hub in a place which had just 3 hours of high water a day, meant that it was not suitable for serving large vessels. The industry had moved to Great Yarmouth because the larger fields were being serviced by hotel ships. He went onto say that he had visited Walsingham on several occasions but there had not been any interest in the site but that, as Local Member, Cllr FitzPatrick was advised of any new jobs in his ward. Cllr FitzPatrick said that he had not been notified of any.

Cllr V FitzPatrick asked Cllr Fitch-Tillett, Portfolio Holder for Coast, about the suspension of the demolition of a property close to the cliff edge in Happisburgh. He sought reassurance that a full risk assessment had been carried out and that there was no risk to the public and that the building would be monitored over the coming months to ensure there was no danger to the public whilst in remained in a precarious, semi-demolished state. Cllr Fitch-Tillett replied that it would be demolished in due course following a delay due to sand martins nesting in the cliffs. Work would continue once they had flown in the Autumn. She asked whether Cllr FitzPatrick had visited the site, he replied that he had not and that was not relevant to the question he was raising regarding public safety. Cllr Fitch-Tillett said that she could assure him that the site would be monitored and the final demolition would be undertaken following full health and safety checks. She referred to the demolishment of 11 houses in Happisburgh 12 years ago, which had been done with full checks throughout the entire process. The Council’s record was excellent reagarding such work. Cllr FitzPatrick replied that he had not received a response to his initial question which was an outline of the steps that had been taken to ensure public safety at the current site in Happisburgh. He said he would be content to receive a written response if the Portfolio Holder could not reply now. Cllr Fitch-Tillett said she did not to provide a written response. She confirmed that the site was fully fenced in and was satisfied that it was safe.

Cllr T FitzPatrick said that members’ behaviour during portfolio holder reports was unacceptable and did not reflect the Nolan Principles.

Cllr N Pearce said that he wished to ask Cllr Shires, Portfolio Holder for Organisational Resources a question regarding customer service. He read out a letter that he had received from a resident which set out, in detail, their recent experience of trying to speak to an adviser regarding a financial matter. It had taken a lengthy period of time and a lot of questions to reach the right department. At this point he had been advised it would take a further 15 minutes to speak to someone. Eventually he was told that there would be a further wait and advised to call back the following day. Cllr Pearce went onto say that the correspondent had approached him for assistance, asking when the Council would provide an efficient and caring service for those that could not use the internet. The experience had been frustrating to the point that he had given up. He concluded by asking Cllr Shires how she intended to address such problems – especially as he had raised a similar issue at the previous meeting of Full Council.

Cllr Shires thanked Cllr Pearce for raising the matter with her. She said that the call he had outlined could be traced forensically as it seemed an unusually long time to take to get through the options menu. Cllr Pearce said he did not feel it would be appropriate to ask for more detail from the caller and that the matter should be taken at face value. The Chief Executive said that the customer services team would investigate the matter and provide a response.

Cllr Dr V Holliday said she wished to ask Cllr Shires a question. She referred to the Council’s performance management database, InPhase, and said that it provided information on the average  customer services call queue time. However, based on her recent experience of a 21 minute wait for switchboard, she said that she would like to see the median call queue time and the outlier data. She then asked that having looked at the service level percentage and calls resolved whether would it be possible to also chart  the number of calls unanswered or unresolved. In conclusion, she said that the charts on webforms and online queries only plotted volume, not processing time and she wondered whether it would it be possible to chart the  latter. Cllr Shires confirmed that the data was available and she would look into it and provide a written response to Cllr Dr Holliday.