Agenda and minutes

The Leader introduced the meeting and explained that in order to minimise the risk of Covid-19 infection there was a minimum number of Cabinet Members in attendance. However he assured that the meeting was fully quorate. Other members of Cabinet were in attendance virtually via Zoom.

The Leader stressed that throughout the pandemic the Council took every measure to keep people safe, taking the lead right from the beginning on a variety of safety measures, even before the Government intervention. While there had been great success with the vaccine programme there was a rapid increase on the Covid-19 infection rates and admissions to intensive care units. The great majority of admissions were from non-vaccinated people. Therefore, the Leader urged everyone to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their loved ones, as well as to safeguard our economy.

That the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet held on 11 October 2021 be confirmed and signed as an accurate record of the proceedings, and that the outstanding actions be noted.

Apologies for virtual absence were received from Councillor Andrew Jones and Councillor Sharon Holder.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter.  The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

Councillor Max Schmid gave a brief introduction outlining the slight improvement on the previous Month 2 report, presented at Cabinet in September. Having an underspend in the midst of a pandemic and continuing Government austerity was truly astounding. He congratulated officers for achieving such an accomplishment and for delivering high quality services while maintaining ruthless financial efficiency .

The Leader stated that since 2010 the Council’s budget had been reduced by one third. Therefore, he thanked the finance and the senior management teams for producing consistent balanced budgets and saving a vast amount of money while improving and extending the number of services provided. This had been done by eliminating wastage and bureaucracy to deliver cutting-edge services.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY BY THE CABINET MEMBERS PRESENT:

1.     To note General Fund forecast underspend of £2.260m.

2.     To note that the forecast draw down from the Housing Revenue Account general balance will be £0.320m less than budgeted.

3.     To note the in-year Dedicated Schools Grant overspend of £1.810m.

4.     To approve the General Fund virement of £0.310m as detailed in Appendix 9.

This report has one appendix which contains information exempt within the meaning of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 and is not for publication. The appendix has therefore been circulated to Cabinet Members only.

Any discussions on the contents of an exempt appendix will require Cabinet to pass the proposed resolution identified at the end of the agenda to exclude members of the public and the press the proceedings for that discussion.

Councillor Max Schmid reported that as financial uncertainty in the coming years would continue, officers were looking for new ways of saving money. This report outlined a new business solution that would support hybrid working, save money and enable a productive agile workforce equipped with the technology needed to work in a modern and flexible way. Other benefits included energy efficiency, which would benefit the environment, and more resiliency against cyber-attacks.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY BY THE CABINET MEMBERS PRESENT:

That Cabinet:

1.    Notes Appendix A is not for publication on the basis that it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) as set out in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

2.    Approves total one-off investment of up to £1.799m to be funded from the IT and Technology reserve.

3.    Approves Azure cloud hosting services to be commissioned from Microsoft via Trustmarque. These costs are contained in exempt Appendix A.

4.    Approves a Change Control Notice to be issued to BT to procure the necessary exit management services via the Managed Compute Lot 3 agreement. These costs are contained in exempt Appendix A.

5.    Approves the additional technical and project management staff resource to be procured to complete the migration.  These costs are contained in exempt Appendix A.

6.    Notes that a separate procurement strategy has been approved to utilise the GCloud 12 framework to secure an Azure migration and ongoing support partner. The costs are contained in exempt Appendix A.

The Key Decision List was noted.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 - ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Proposed resolution:

Under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they contain the likely disclosure of exempt information, as defined in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the said Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.       

There was no discussion of exempt elements.

Climate Change

The Leader acknowledged the importance of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) which was currently taking place in Glasgow. The conference was being attended by world leaders discussing ways to accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis through collaboration between governments, businesses, and the society.

The Leader stressed that this calamity was the biggest challenge ever faced by any generation. Immediate collaborative action was required to defeat this problem. This Council was sending a very strong message to COP26 for politicians to take action. In Hammersmith & Fulham the Council had declared that the whole borough would be climate neutral by 2030 and numerous actions were being taken to achieve this target.