Cabinet Members will be asked to make any declarations of interest in respect of items on this agenda.  A flowchart providing guidance on interests is attached to assist councillors.

To sign and confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 08 February 2022.

The minutes were agreed as a true and accurate record. 

To receive questions from the public in accordance with the Constitution.

Questions, of no longer than 50 words, can be submitted to the Democratic Support Unit, Plymouth City Council, Ballard House, Plymouth, PL1 3BJ, or email to democraticsupport@plymouth.gov.uk. Any questions must be received at least five clear working days before the date of the meeting.

There were no questions from the public.

To receive reports on business which, in the opinion of the Chair, should be brought forward for urgent consideration.

Councillor Nick Kelly, Leader of the Council provided an update for cabinet members in relation to the Budget 2022-23 and highlighted the following key points:

The decision made by Council at the Full Council, Council Tax setting meeting in February reduced the amount of funding available by £2.124 million each year moving forward compared to the administration’s budget proposal;

The budget had shown a £3.65 million shortfall which could’ve been closed by adopting the maximum precept for adult social care and Council Tax increase of 1.99%. The administration had proposed an adult social care precept of 1% and a Council Tax increase of 1.74%. The resultant £305,000 would have been covered by unallocated general contingency of the same amount;

The amendment proposed a 1% increase in the adult social care precept and a nil increase Council Tax. Additional savings of £2.142 million would be required every year. Over the next 5 years the Council would have forfeited £10.5 million in Council tax income;

The Council had needed to find £19.5 million for 2023/24 but this had now increased to £21.7 million;

The removal of £10.5 million for the budget over the next 5 years, would provide a risk of service reduction and staffing levels;

An establishment of a cross party working group had also been agreed which would review the capital programme to establish a community improvement fund.

Cabinet noted the report.

Dr Ruth Harrell, Director of Public Health provided an update to Cabinet and highlighted the following key points:

Prior to the implementation of the Living with COVID plan cases of COVID in Plymouth were high although had been declining;

Testing at Plymouth’s Seaton Barracks site had ceased due to the implementation of the plan. Residents would still be tested in cases which had been more severe in hospital and also for routine sampling of the population;

The rates had become more difficult to interpret due to the changes due to fewer people testing;

There had been an increase in positive test results in Plymouth, the South West and nationally. Admissions to hospital had increased in Plymouth and the South West;

Tests continued to be provided for free and could be supplied by accessing those online.

Councillor Nick Kelly, Leader of the Council made the following announcements:

Plymouth as a city stood in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and sent sympathies to them. It was horrifying to see what was happening and the invasion of Ukraine had been a clear violation of international laws and threatened human rights and democracy;

70% of the administrations commitments outlined in their manifesto had been delivered in 9 months;

Plymouth hosted SailGP which had showcased Plymouth’s beautiful waterfront to a global audience of millions. Plymouth had won a bid to host the event again in 2022;

Plymouth had won the heritage lotteries national funding twice with £10 million funding for the National Marine Park. The Council had appointed an interim CEO for the National Marine Park who would take the project forward. The Council had also launched a public engagement programme which would take place at the National Marine Aquarium in April 2022;

Plymouth had secured a Freeport status for the region and had been working to submit a full business case for April 2022. From June 2022, the Freeport would unlock £10 million investment in the first two years, working with Babcock and Princess Yachts;

The Council handed out over £100 million in grants supporting 8,000 businesses;

The Council had completed an industrial development at Beliver and would be starting another at the Plymouth International Medical Park and Technology Park which would see another ten commercial units created. A residential scheme had been worked on with the purchaser of the Debenhams building. Work had been started on the third phase at Hearder Court on Langage Business Park. Substantial investments had been secured in the city with the supply of a new home for the Valuation Office Agency which opened in September 2021. Marks and Spencer and Aldi had been secured as tenants at Plymouth’s new district shopping centre on the site of the former Seaton Barracks at Derriford;

Plymouth had secured the opportunity for a County Deal which would provide councils across Devon, Plymouth and Torbay with extra powers and influence to improve economic and social conditions in communities.

The Leader of the Council had opened a new multi-million pound additive manufacturing facility at the Science park which would manufacture 3D printed titanium and steel.

The Council would been beginning works on the Civic Centre and Guildhall development working with Urban Splash. Work has also started on Old Town Street and New George Street as part of the multi-million pound investment in the City Centre.

Work had started on Mutley Plan with an extensive cleaning programme which would include a full power wash of the pavements, new bins complete with recycling facilities, new seating and a refurbishment of the historic benches outside the Swarthmore Adult Education Centre. Street lighting would be improved and lamp mounted flags hung to give more colour;

The Council had been expanding plans for the regeneration of the West End and turned attention to Colin Campbell House for renovation in order to bring in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 250.

Councillor Mark Deacon, Cabinet member for Customer Services, Culture, Leisure and Sport gave the following announcements:

The Library service had made a successful bid the Reading Agency as part of the national quick read programme and to celebrate World Book Night on 23^rd April. The Council would be donating 500 copies of The Black Mountain by Kate Mosse;

Libraries across the city had been reintroducing more activities that had been suspended for two years during the pandemic. The Library service had hosted a craft activity at Central Library and restarted Lego play in all libraries;

Armed Forces day would return to Plymouth Hoe again on 25^th June 2022 and would include a dedicated parade of veterans to recognise the 40^th anniversary of the Falklands War.

The Rehabilitation Triathlon hosted by the Royal Marines would take place in the city for this first time with outstanding athletes, Paralympian’s and Invictus Games competitors among them. Plymouth’s military history would be celebrated with a freedom of the city parade and include serving regiments and veterans to mark the 60^th anniversary of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery in Plymouth;

In August 2022, the British Fireworks Championship would return;

The Jubilee bank holiday weekend would see the one big summer music festival take to Plymouth Hoe and include a line up of Years and Years, Basement Jaxx, The Libertines and Supergrass;

Sunset Live in Central Park would host most global music superstars and include Paloma Faith, Simply Red, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe;

There had been a new exhibition at The Box which launched on 3^rd March 2022. ‘Another Crossing – Artists Revisit the Mayflower Voyage’ had been developed in partnership with the Fuller Craft Museum and Plymouth College of Art and had brough together artists from the United States of America, UK and Holland to create a cross-cultural examination of that moment in history;

There had been a continued focus on the growth and development of core projects such as the Detached Youth Work team who had focused on developing their wider offer within the city to combat increased anti-social behaviour reports;

The Young Carers Project had been offering increased levels of support for young people as requests for the service increased. The project had been working with the Time 4 U partnership and continued to run five sessions a week, working with 75 young carers and one-to-one sessions supporting young carers that had been struggling with their mental health/caring role/relationships at home;

Councillor Jonathan Drean, Cabinet member for Transport provided the following updates:

The Plymouth Highways teams in 2021 had completed a full renovation of seven complex subways, repainted six footway bridges, laid 50,000 m2 of carriageway re-surfacing, 9,000 meters of pre-patching, 3,200 pothole repairs and 2,000 street lighting column replacements;

Plymouth City Council had introduced a new AI a new digital surfacing replacement;

The Council had been on track to deliver the Safer Streets programme and had installed six CCTV, 54 lighting and 12 help point  ...  view the full minutes text for item 251.

Councillor Nick Kelly, Leader of the Council introduced this item and Cabinet updated commitments which had been achieved.

Cabinet agreed to:

1.    Endorse the completion of twelve commitments in February; 36, 38, 55, 66, 67, 32, 20, 65, 58, 43, 73, 71, 18

2.    Note the progress made on the 25 remaining commitments

Councillor Nick Kelly, Leader of the Council presented this item to Cabinet and made the following key points:

Quarter three covered the period October to December 2021, this had been a highly accessible document and enabled the public and the Council’s own system of scrutiny to review performance against the Corporate Plan;

The percentage of pupils achieving the basics at KS4/5 including English and Maths was 51.9% and sat above the validated and published national and statistical neighbour averages. This showed an improvement from 2020 where pupils achieved 47.1%;

Streets graded at an acceptable standard had seen consistent improvement in 2021/22 and there had been another improvement in the last quarter of 88.7% in quarter three compared to 86.8% in quarter two and 82.4% at the end of 2020/21;

Children’s Social Care had seen further reductions in the number of repeat referrals;

98% of those people subject to an adult safeguarding enquiry had seen there making safeguarding person outcomes fully or partially achieved;

Children subject to multiple Child Protection plans continued to miss its target, although showed signs of improvement;

Sickness rates for the Council had increased in quarter three which was inclusive of COVID sickness;

Cabinet noted the report. 

Councillor Nick Kelly, Leader of the Council presented this item to Cabinet and made the following key points in relation to month 10 which covered the period to the end of January 2022:

The Council had been able to report a near balanced position and an underspend of £3,000;

Customer and Corporate services continued to show improvement and reported a nil variant. In September 2021 the directorate had shown an overspend of £765,000 and in December had reduced to £24,000;

The Place directorate had shown an underspend of £123,000;

The Children’s Directorate had an overspend of £1,091,000, this had increased to £1.123 million. The net movement continued to show adverse in planned savings from the Adolescent support team, Fostering and placement review which together had totalled £409,000 but had been offset by the savings from management actions which totalled £377,000;

Cabinet agreed to:

1)    Note the current revenue monitoring position

2)    Note the setting aside of resources to the value of £2.845 million

Councillor Dave Downie, Cabinet member for Education, Skills and Children and Young People and Emma Crowther, Strategic Commissioning manager presented this item to Cabinet.

Plymouth City Council had a legal duty under Section 22G of the Children’s Act 1989 to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient local accommodation which met the needs of children in the care of the Council. The Council commissioned and provided a range of different types of placements in order to meet the sufficiency duty and the paper described proposed activity for 2022/23 to increase the quantity and quality of local placements which were commissioned.

Cabinet agreed to:

1)    Approve the business case

2)    Delegate the award of contracts to the Director of Children’s Services

Councillor Mrs Vivien Pengelly, Cabinet Member for Homes and Communities presented this item to Cabinet. 

Cabinet members discussed:

In line with climate emergency action plan the documents would be made available for the Plymouth City Council website for residents to access the diversity action plan.

Cabinet agreed to:

1.    Note the progress made by the Council towards mainstreaming equality and diversity within the Council.

2.    Endorse the updated Equality and Diversity Action Plan for 2022/23.

Councillor Patrick Nicholson, Deputy Leader of the Council presented this item to Cabinet and made the following key points:

The Plymouth City Centre Conservation Area had been designated in 2019 was the first nationally to designate a post-war heritage city centre area;

The City Centre conservation area appraisal management plan had been the City Council’s material document that would consider planning applications that would come forward in assessing planning applications;

Cabinet agreed to:

Approve the adoption of the City Centre Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan.