Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Louie O’Leary and David Tooke.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 18 September 2025.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 18 September 2025 were confirmed and signed.

To disclose any pecuniary, other registrable or non-registrable interests as set out in the adopted Code of Conduct. In making their disclosure councillors are asked to state the agenda item, the nature of the interest and any action they propose to take as part of their declaration.

If required, further advice should be sought from the Monitoring Officer in advance of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

Representatives of town or parish councils and members of the public who live, work, or represent an organisation within the Dorset Council area are welcome to submit either 1 question or 1 statement for each meeting.  You are welcome to attend the meeting in person or via MS Teams to read out your question and to receive the response.   If you submit a statement for the committee this will be circulated to all members of the committee in advance of the meeting as a supplement to the agenda and appended to the minutes for the formal record but will not be read out at the meeting. The first 8 questions and the first 8 statements received from members of the public or organisations for each meeting will be accepted on a first come first served basis in accordance with the deadline set out below.  Further information read Public Participation - Dorset Council

All submissions must be emailed in full to [email protected]  by 8.30am on 17 November 2025

When submitting your question or statement please note that:

•         You can submit 1 question or 1 statement.

•         a question may include a short pre-amble to set the context.

•         It must be a single question and any sub-divided questions will not be permitted.

•         Each question will consist of no more than 450 words, and you will be given up to 3 minutes to present your question.

•         when submitting a question please indicate who the question is for (e.g., the name of the committee or Portfolio Holder)

•         Include your name, address, and contact details.  Only your name will be published but we may need your other details to contact you about your question or statement in advance of the meeting.

•         questions and statements received in line with the council’s rules for public participation will be published as a supplement to the agenda.

•         all questions, statements and responses will be published in full within the minutes of the meeting.

A written statement was received from Unison and read out by the Chair.

To receive questions submitted by councillors.  

Councillors can submit up to two valid questions at each meeting and sub divided questions count towards this total.   Questions and statements received will be published as a supplement to the agenda and all questions, statements and responses will be published in full within the minutes of the meeting. 

The submissions must be emailed in full to [email protected]  by 8.30am on 17 November 2025 

Dorset Council Constitution – Procedure Rule 13

There were no questions from councillors.

To receive the report from the Corporate Director, Transformation, Customer and Cultural Services  

The Committee Chair introduced the item and invited questions and debate from members. The committee discussed the following topics:

·         The direction and approach to delivering transformation in the council.

·         Consultation with employees and unions, including carrying out Equality Impact Assessments and providing accessible documents.

·         Changes to the delivery of the Our Future Council programme compared to how it was being delivered initially, including how the appointment of the permanent Chief Executive has changed it.

·         Financial savings targets and how they would be met with slower staff reductions, including additional financial controls being implemented.

·         There would be an ongoing cost of £3.3m until these savings could be found. It was expected that the new Transformation Management Office could have a more efficient and organised approach to support savings proposals, compared to how transformation was operated previously.

·         Former involvement from PwC in initialising Our Future Council and the value that the council received from their involvement.

·         Centralisation of transformation staff in a new Transformation Management Office and the number of redundancies made to transformation staff.

·         Data and monitoring contacts and communications through the new Customer Hub, including how demand would be managed for peak times of contacts into the council.

·         How Our Future Council was using technology and the effect this would have on digitally excluded residents accessing services.

The Chair outlined a set of recommendations as a result of the discussion:

1.    The Place & Resources Scrutiny Committee receive Our Future Council progress reports with quantitative data on a 6 monthly basis.

2.    There should be clear, simple and consistent language through future committee reports.

3.    The progress reports should include comparisons with KPI’s.

4.    Data collected on communications and contacts through the Customer Hub should be presented to scrutiny through a future report.

At 19.53 the committee adjourned for a short comfort break and reconvened at 20.00.

To consider the report by the Sustainability Team Manager, Environment, Policy & Partnership Manager and Corporate Sustainability Officer.

The Sustainability Team Manager introduced the Climate and Nature Progress Report. The report had a greater focus on quantitative information and nature recovery. The committee received a presentation which outlined the progress towards climate targets.

Committee members discussed the report and asked questions of officers. The following topics were discussed:

·         The local and national target dates for decarbonisation and why they were different.

·         Progress towards county-wide decarbonisation and measures to get back on track for council emission targets.

·         Concerns about meeting targets for certain emissions where the council has limited or no control over them.

·         How carbon emissions are estimated and measured.

·         How the council could compare its progress towards reducing emissions with progress by other councils.

Following the discussion on climate, the Environmental Partnerships Manager outlined the council’s nature recovery work and the relevant parts of the progress report related to nature recovery. In relation to this part of the report, committee members raised and discussed the following topics:

·         The definition and criteria for doing nature recovery.

·         Community projects for nature recovery and the use of a map for tracking these initiatives.

·         Opportunities for involving town and parish councils in nature recovery projects, such as tree planting, and which organisations and groups were already doing nature recovery projects.

·         The scope to include nature recovery in the local plan.

·         The risks to continuing nature recovery work if funding from central government was cut.

·         The DEFRA reporting metrics for nature recovery and the frequency for reporting these metrics locally. It was suggested that these metrics were included in the progress reports.

Following the discussion, the Chair set out the recommendations raised during the discussion:

1.    Including more comparisons to KPI’s in the next quantitative Climate and Nature progress report.

2.    Ensuring it is clearer where progress is being made towards a climate target.

3.    Including nature recovery and the nature recovery map in a future member webinar.

To review the Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee Work Programme.

The committee noted its work programme.

To review the Executive arrangement forward plans.

Forward Plans are provided to members of the Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee to review and identify any potential post decision scrutiny to be undertaken, by scheduling items into the work programme to review after a period of implementation.

The committee noted the Executive’s Forward Plans.

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 recorded in the minutes.

There were no urgent items.

To move the exclusion of the press and the public for the following item in view of the likely disclosure of exempt information within the meaning of paragraph x of schedule 12 A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended). The public and the press will be asked to leave the meeting whilst the item of business is considered.  

There are no exempt items scheduled for this meeting.

There was no exempt business.