Agenda item - Member Involvement

To consider the following matters raised by Members:

(a)           Petitions: To receive any petitions;

(b)           Written Questions: To consider any written questions;

(c)           Letters: To consider any letters;

1.    Councillor Hill - Annual Infrastructure Funding Statement for Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 developer contributions

(d)           Notices of Motion: to consider any Notices of Motion referred from Full Council or submitted directly to the Committee.

44.1 Councillor Hill summarised the letter which can found on page 21 of the Agenda.

44.2 Councillor Robins gave the following summarised answer, but confirmed a full version would be sent to Councillor Hill, all Committee members and would be included in the minutes of the meeting.

I am sending a full, written response to Councillor Hill as well as all committee members in due course, which covers: 

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·       The plans and processes that Families, Children and Learning have in place to take forward the expenditure of accumulated s106 funding

·       The technical queries raised around s106 and reporting expenditure to this committee

·       The timetable to fully deploy the Exacom system which will transform access to information for officers, members and residents

The Full Letter sent is as follows:

Response from Councillor Robins to the letter submitted by Councillor Hill re Education S106

Although significant sums have been accrued from s106 agreements secured, the council has a good track record in ensuring monies are spent by the requisite deadlines. We have never had to refund any monies received to a developer. Each agreement has it’s own refund period, which often can be 5 years, 7 years or in some instances is unlimited.

Of the sums currently held for Education purposes we have plans to spend approximately £850k of these on facilities to increase Alternative Provision in our secondary schools.  If more projects come forward from schools that will enhance this provision these will be added to the scope of the works. 

In light of the current financial climate, and in accordance with good practice Families Children and Learning have recently set up a Capital Programme Board to look at all capital projects and expenditure.  Part of the remit if this group is to consider appropriate uses for S106 funding.  

Each year a report is taken to Children Families and Schools Committee and Strategy Finance and City Regeneration Committee regarding the funding for schemes in the forthcoming year.  This includes detail of where S106 funding has been used in the previous year.  S106 funding has been sought where the housing development concerned was considered to be likely to result in an increased demand on school places that could not be met locally.  The funding secured was generally small amounts that individually would not have facilitated additional school places.  As a result of this expenditure of this funding sits with the LA rather than individual schools to allow the funding to be used to meet the strategic priorities, any expenditure will be agreed with schools.    

 The mechanism to report expenditure incurred across the council is the Annual Infrastructure Statement and the published version addresses the presentational issues which affected the appendix attached to the committee report.

As mentioned at the November committee, the council is populating the Exacom system, which is the system used by Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils, with s106 data for over 200 agreements where obligations are still live or sums are still to be expended. The exercise is also populating against those agreements information on where sums have been allocated to future projects, including at schools. It is anticipated that this exercise will be complete by the end of March 2024 and work will be taken forward with the supplier and our ICT service to enable service directorates, councillors and the public to have phased access to the public facing module for CIL and s106 information.

A detailed report on education s106 monies and obligations would need to be produced by the same officers who are dealing with the population of the Exacom system and I think that the priority and focus is better placed on completing that work as quickly as possible at this time.

RESOLVED:

An officer report would be brought to a future Committee meeting.