Meeting documents

Members are required to comply with the requirements of the Localism Act 2011 and the Council’s Code of Conduct regarding disclosable pecuniary and other interests.

Check if there is an item of business on this agenda in which the member other relevant person has a disclosable pecuniary or other disclosable interest

 Check that the interest has been notified to the Monitoring Officer (in writing) and entered in the Register (if not this must be done within 28 days

Disclose the interest at the meeting (in accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct) and in the absence of dispensation to speak and/or vote, withdraw from any consideration of the item where appropriate.  If the interest is non-pecuniary you may be able to stay in the room, take part and vote.

For further advice please contact Stuart Caundle, Monitoring Officer, in advance of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To confirm the minutes of the last meeting of Council (previously circulated) as a correct record.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 18 May 2018 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To consider any items of business which the Chair has had prior notification and considers to be urgent pursuant to Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act 1972.  The reason for the urgency shall be specified in the minutes.

There were no items of urgent business.

To enable Members to decide whether NDDC should become a signatory to the Dorset Information Sharing Charter.

Cllr Brown introduced the report advising on the circumstances in which personal data held by the authority needed to be shared with other partners and agencies.  He added that the scheme would ensure that the authority was fully compliant with legislation.`

It was proposed by Cllr Brown and seconded by Cllr Jespersen

Decision

To delegate authority to the Head of Business Improvement to undertake all action in relation to securing arrangements, developing internal protocols and generally ensuring appropriate governance for the sharing of data with other organisations including for the avoidance of doubt:

a)        to determine the terms of any such arrangements and/or protocols; and

b)        to secure appropriate training.

Reason for Decision

To enable the Head of Business Improvement to take all operational decisions in relation to the management of the DISC.

To ‘make’ the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan 2016-2031 part of the development plan for use in planning decisions in the Gillingham Neighbourhood Area.

Cllr Walsh gave the background history on the production of the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan.

He congratulated the Chairman and members of the Neighbourhood Planning Group who had put in a lot of work to get the neighbourhood plan completed.

He thanked Planning Policy officers at NDDC for their support during the process.

The Chairman of the Neighbouring Planning Group addressed the Council.  He thanked the community minded residents of Gillingham for their hard work in the production of the Plan.

He advised that approximately 200 meetings had taken place and thanked NDDC Planning Policy Officers for their support.  He added that harmonious communication had taken place between the Town Council, the neighbourhood Planning Group, consultants and NDDC officers to ensure all parties were up to date on what was happening.

The Town Clerk, Mrs Dobie, thanked the Chairman of the Neighbourhood Planning Group for bringing the neighbourhood plan together.  She thanked NDDC Planning Policy Officers who had always been professional and helpful.

Cllr Chase and Cllr Gould thanked the Neighbourhood Planning Group for all their hard work.  They considered the Plan to be a great working document.

It was proposed by Cllr Pothecary and seconded by Cllr Walsh

Decision

That the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan 2016-2031 be "made" part of the development plan for use in planning decisions in the Gillingham Neighbourhood Area.

The Leader of the Council to present a report on Cabinet activities since February 2018.  Members may question individual Cabinet members on the contents of this report. Members are required to submit general questions, other than urgent ones, in writing to the Democratic Services Team by Tuesday 24 July 2018 at the latest

Members received and noted the contents of the Cabinet reports and updates  from Cllr Carr-Jones and Cllr Piers Brown. 

Cllr Brown asked Member to use the feedback option to report any issue with the new Website.

Cllr Walsh gave the following verbal update:

Corporate / Legal

LGR / vacancies

Work associated with Shaping Dorset Council is now having an impact on various aspects of the legal service particularly among more senior officers and this is likely to increase further over the next six months.  This will give rise to workload challenges within the Unit which will be compounded by the fact that Unit has been unable to recruit to its current vacant regulatory post.  In the short term the only option in relation to seeking to secure the on-going effective delivery of legal regulatory work will be to seek a locum.  Even with reduced hours, this will inevitably cost more that funding an in-house member of staff; it is therefore likely this will give rise to a degree of overspend of the Legal Unit by the end of the year.

Land Charges

Turnarounds / resilience

It is very pleasing to report that turnaround times for the land charges service continues to remain within target times despite us now being within the normal land charges peak season which invariably coincides with increased demands for leave by staff.   This is being achieved as a result of a convergence of a number of different elements including improved working practices, improving digitalisation of various key data and the on-going use of temporary staff.  Unfortunately, the benefits to resilience expected through the introduction of a new single IT system have yet to be felt due to delays in that project being implemented.   It is now unlikely that any demonstrable benefit will be seen much before the end of this current calendar year and possibly beyond.  In the meanwhile, work associated with delivering the new system will be likely to increase workload pressures. 

Looking to the future, work is already underway to consider what resource may be needed to ensure the resilience of the Land Charges Unit both on 1^st April 2019 and beyond.   At present, the unit is delivering acceptable performance with the assistance of temporary staff.  Whilst the need for such staff will be impacted by the introduction of the new single IT system and the finalisation of the data preparation project, it is optimistic to think these measures will provide sufficient compensatory benefit to offset all the work currently being delivered by these people.   The creation of the new unitary council is also highly unlikely to have a beneficial material impact on the resource needs for land charges in the short or even possibly the medium term. 

Development Management update

The Major thing is the IT project – new system procured and in process of being built, it is likely to go live in the autumn this will means all three councils will be on one system.  Officer workshops are looking at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.