Issue - meetings

Arrow Valley Countryside Centre

Members paid tribute to Richard Fellows, the young man who had lost his life in 2014 at the Arrow Valley Country Park and to his family.  It was noted that his family had worked hard to raise awareness of water safety matters and had raised funds for this.  The Council had worked since the incident to address water safety issues in the park and the measures proposed in the report would help to make the weirs in the park safer as well as enhance the ecological vitality of the waterways.

Finance System

Members noted that the Council’s existing finance system had been in place since 2007.  The new system would make the Council’s budget management procedures more efficient and enable the local authority to take advantage of opportunities to work with robotics and artificial intelligence.  The cost of the system was considerably more than had been anticipated and the Portfolio Holder provided some explanation as to why this was the case to Members.  It was confirmed that Bromsgrove District Council had already approved the proposals detailed within the report.

The Budget Scrutiny Working Group had scrutinised the proposals to introduce the new finance system in detail and had welcomed the new system.  A briefing had also been provided in March 2019, to which all Members had been invited, which had provided an opportunity for Members to observe a demonstration of the system.

Financial Monitoring Report - Quarter 3 2018/19

Members noted that the report detailed the Council’s budget position as of December 2018.  At this time there had been an overspend of over £200,000.  Officers had worked hard to address this budget gap and it was anticipated that the position would be more positive at the end of the financial year.  This gap had in part been due to the inclusion of unidentified savings in the budget for 2018/19.  Members were asked to note that the same problem was unlikely to occur in 2019/20 as no unidentified savings had been included in the budget for that year.

Executive Minutes – 26^th March 2019

During consideration of the minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee held on 26^th March Councillor Pattie Hill questioned whether an update should have been provided by the Council’s representative on the Worcestershire Corporate Parenting Board.  Specifically, it was noted that a co-ordinated pilot scheme for children and young people had been referred to at a recent meeting of the Board and questions were raised about the extent to which Redditch residents would benefit from this scheme.  Councillor Gareth Prosser, the Council’s representative on the Board, undertook to investigate the matter further and confirmed that he would write to Councillor Hill about the matter.

RESOLVED that

the minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee held on Tuesday 26^th March 2019 be received and all recommendations adopted.