Agenda item

Michaelstone y Fedw Village Hall – Urgent Decision - 22 March 2018

Members were made aware that at the last meeting it had been agreed to call in the Head of RIH in relation to SO24 Urgent Decisions.  It was understood that he was not available to attend today but had nominated two Managers to respond on his behalf.

The Chair confirmed he had no objections to the managers responding on behalf of the Head of Service.

The urgent decision to grant lease to Michaelstone y Fedw Village Hall had been listed from page 113 onwards in the papers.   The Welsh Government had provided funding for installation of High Speed Broadband for communities at this location (MyFi).  The project was underway and would entail installation of service hubs and 25 kilometres of cabling by the end of 2018.  At Michaelstone y Fedw, the location of the server hub was within the subject land.  This was the first element of the construction project and installation must start during the first week of April 2018.  Based on discussion, the MyFi project had committed contractually and facilitating work would start physically before the end of February 2018.  To protect both parties and to facilitate the Broadband installation, it would be necessary to complete the new lease before the facilitating work commenced.  

The Chief Internal Auditor had commented that there was no clear justification for the urgency of this decision recorded in the papers presented.   A timeline of key events for the project programme was not included in the papers

A briefing note had now been prepared and included in the papers on page 117 setting out the timeline of events.  The Chief Internal Auditor now believed this was better.  The Housing and Assets Manager had been asked to attend the meeting by the Head of RIH to answer any queries members may have.

The Housing and Assets Manager explained that the justification for the urgent decision was on the basis that there had been insufficient time to use the normal course of action.  He had tried to capture the situation in the timelines of the briefing note.  Ultimately the broad band was required in village hall.  In order for the upgrade to take place, Virgin Media required details of the lease.  They wished to have certain terms agreed and the decision had to be taken by the Cabinet Member hence the need for the urgency of the report.

Members raised the following queries:

·         Was it a funding issue? – No it related to the lease.  There was a deadline of 12 February 2018 which was then brought forwards to 9 February.  The risk could have been taken to operate on the previous lease but it was felt that it was more appropriate to update the lease so there was no liability for any further costs.  It was felt to be more appropriate to follow the urgent report process as the normal process would have taken longer.

·         Michaelstone won an EU Award for this system as it showed how communities worked together to get things done.   Members felt it was a great scheme.

·         The Chair asked if the Committee was satisfied the urgent process had been followed but that there was a need for more information at an earlier stage? – The Chief Internal Auditor had now contacted corporate directors to emphasise the need for valid reasons why an urgent report is required to allow the Audit Committee to decide whether it was due to external factors (as in this case) or whether it was due to internal systemic issues. 

Families First Programme – Urgent Decision 16 May 2018

The reason for urgency was that in October 2017 Newport discovered it was to become an early adopter of Welsh Government’s new grant funding initiative Flexible Funding from 1 April 2018.  Little information however, was made available on how this new fund was to operate and the recommissioning of Families First, which was already in progress, was put on hold until a fuller understanding of how the funding would impact the service was understood.  The current Families First contracts were due to expire on 31 March 2018 and as all extensions within the existing contract terms were exhausted it was being requested that Contract Standing Orders be waived so an extension for a further year be granted.  This extension would allow a further review of the programme in accordance with the Flexible Funding guidance and result in either recommissioning services or commissioning new services from 1 April 2019.

The Chief Internal Auditor had stated in his report that there was no appropriate justification within the report to support the CM’s decision to waive the Council’s CSOs. However, there is very little justification in the report to support the urgency of the decision.  The report was dated 16 May 2018, as was the CM decision even though action was required by the 1 April 2018; there is no valid reason within the report why the CM was asked to make a retrospective decision. The report clearly states that WG issued new guidance in April 2017 to become effective from April 2018 and that NCC had been notified of their Pathfinder status in October 2017.  This would give ample time to request that the CM waive CSOs for the reasons stated in the report and therefore the need for an urgent decision was not required.  The request to make an urgent decision should be justified.

The Families First Programme Manager explained that Families First came to Newport in 2012 with the contract running until April 2017.  The then Cabinet Secretary, Carl Sargeant, decided to refocus the Families First Programme and gave the deadline of April 2018 to refocus.  All throughout 2017 Families First recommissioning group meetings took place looking at assessing the needs of Newport in terms of the Future Generations assessment.  In October 2017 it was announced there would be pathfindiner for flexible funding.  Families First has had £2.4m of flexible funding which would join together 10 grants – £16 -17 mil to one large grant.  In October the only information was that there was an intention that this was going to happen.  In October a series of meetings took place with Welsh Government.  It was necessary to meet to discuss duplication of work and funding between the 10 programmes.  Then it was commission a full review in 2018/19 by an independent consultant (currently ongoing).  The new flexible funding framework would then be introduced.  Although it looked like there would be a lot of time it did not happen that way.  A great deal of work had taken place at the end of October to Spring 2018.  External contracts with all projects were expected to be recommissioned.  It was necessary to tell them the Programme would be rolled over under the refocussing that the Cabinet Secretary had put into place occurred.  One of the projects had to be decommissioned.

Members raised the following queries:

·         At what stage in the writing of the report was it known that it would be necessary to waive standing orders? – January/February.

·         In the summary it felt like there was a possible lack of planning in the process. Normally there was a robust planning process to avoid going outside standing orders.  Was there a lesson that can be learned around the planning of these things? – This would be taken on board.  There had been conflicting information from the Welsh Government and flexible funding.  

·         Timelines with dates would have been very helpful.

·         With regards the decision taken to extend the programme for a year, were those processes now in place to ensure the Council would not be in the same position again?  Consultation was due to go back next month to the Community Board and processes were now in place.

Agreed

To note the reasons for the urgency/waiving of contract standing orders reflected in the documentation supporting each decision and from the officers in attendance.