Cabinet - Thursday 5 February 2026, 6:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Cabinet
Thursday, 5th February 2026 at 6:00pm 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 
Share this agenda point
  1. Councillor Mike Evemy
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
  1. 03. To approve the minutes of Cabinet held 8 January 2026 with amendments
    Status: In progress
  2. 03. To approve the minutes of Cabinet held 8 January 2026 with amendments
    Status: Ended
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
  1. Public Speaker
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Public Speaker
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
Share this agenda point
  1. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
Share this agenda point
  1. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  2. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  3. Councillor Mike Evemy
  4. Officer
  5. Councillor Juliet Layton
  6. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  7. Councillor Mike Evemy
  8. 09. Asbestos Management Policy - Approve
    Status: In progress
  9. Councillor Mike Evemy
Share this agenda point
  1. 09. Asbestos Management Policy - Approve
    Status: Ended
  2. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  3. Councillor Mike Evemy
  4. Councillor Tony Dale
  5. Councillor Mike Evemy
  6. 10. Contract on Waste Management - Approve recommendations 1-2
    Status: In progress
  7. 10. Contract on Waste Management - Approve recommendations 1-2
    Status: Ended
Share this agenda point
  1. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Councillor Mike McKeown
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Tony Dale
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
  9. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  10. Councillor Mike Evemy
  11. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  12. Councillor Mike Evemy
  13. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  14. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  15. Councillor Mike Evemy
  16. 10. Contract on Waste Management - Approve recommendations 1-2
    Status: In progress
  17. 11. Budget 2026-27 and Financial Strategy - Approve recommendations 1-11
    Status: Ended
  18. Webcast Finished

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:05
Good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting of Cotswold District Council's cabinet,
our slightly reduced in size cabinet where all seven members are here.
So we have no apologies for absence.
Second item on the agenda is declarations of interest.

2 Declarations of Interest

Does any member have any interest they wish to declare about the items we're going to

3 Minutes

talk about this evening. No? Okay. Next agenda item is the minutes starting on page seven.
These are the minutes of our last meeting. I just had one very small tweak that I would
like us to make when it referenced on page 19 minute 186. Second paragraph, if we just delete
the word potential so it talks about public toilet charges standardised with
minor increases. Anyone else got any other corrections to the minutes? No okay so if
we can then I'll move them from the chair we can take a vote on the minutes
of the last meeting, please.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's seven votes.
All of us voted in favour of the minutes of the last meeting.
Is there a seconder?
Oh, you need a seconder, not just from the chair?
Can somebody second those minutes?
Juliette next to me.
Thank you.
Okay.
We'll now move on to my announcements.
First announcement I want to make is just to say a tribute and say thank you to Nigel
Robbins who has stepped down from this council after nearly 13 years service as a county
and district councillor for the Syrinsets Beaches ward and the division as it was named
before.
So I want to recognise and thank Nigel for all the work.
He was chair of the council for two years.
He was chair of the Audit and Governance Committee for nearly four years, has been a very active
member of the council, so I want to put on record my thanks and our thanks to him and
wish him well in his retirement.
Secondly, I wanted just to make reference to a local government consultation, which
has begun today.
So we've had many discussions about local government reorganisation over recent months.
The consultation that started today is going to run for seven weeks.
It's the government's consultation on the three options that were put forward by councils
in Gloucestershire.
So as you'll recall, Cotswold District Council voted unanimously in favour of the single unitary
option.
and that was also supported by the Gloucestershire County Council, Tewkesbury
Borough Council and Stroud District Council and then each of the other two
options that the government's consulting on the East -West splits which was
proposed by Cheltenham Borough Council and the Greater Gloucester model which
is proposed by Gloucester City Council. So that consultation on short is now

4 Leader's Announcements

live. We will be working our communications team to encourage people
to take part in that consultation and let the government have their views on the options
available.
And then we anticipate the government's timetable is that they will make a decision before the
summer recess.
So we're expecting a decision in July from the government about how councils will be
running in Gloucestershire from the 1st of April, 2028.
So more to come on that but encourage everyone to obviously take part in that
consultation. The third thing I wanted to mention and members in the cabinet and
other members may have seen I sent a letter to the government earlier in the
week with about our housing target and asking for a further meeting or asking
for a meeting with a different minister this time to Matthew Pennycook the
Minister for Housing using all the information and feedback that we got
through the budget consultation or much of it not all of it obviously because we
got nearly 2 ,000 responses but really good a level of response and we've used
that in compiling our request to the Minister to have a meeting to talk about
the housing targets and see if we can get the government to recognise that
they're unrealistic for us here in the Cotswold district.
And finally, just wanted to mention a bit of good news
and some members I know have seen,
but members of the public may have also seen
that the council was in the media recently
for some really good work on litter prosecution
and for our officers who worked very hard with that
and indeed one of our members,
Councillor Slater who found himself found the offending literate items and they were able to identify the person who had done it and we then prosecuted them.
So I think that message is just that you know we want a clean and tidy district, we don't want litter.
So you know and we will take action where we have the evidence to prosecute people that do litter both our towns and our countryside and our villages.
So well done to Councillor Slater, Kevin Lee and the staff in that team and to the counter -fraud people that prosecute as well.
So well done to everybody and we hope we would rather not have to do this.
But when we do have the evidence, we will prosecute.
So thank you.
That's the end of my announcement.
So I now move to public questions.

5 Public Questions

I know we have a member of the public here.
Mr. Gorin, if you'd like to come up to the seats, just two along from
Councillor Wilkinson. Take a seat and when you're ready your microphone
switches on. Oh, Christian is going to switch it on for you. So yeah, I will hand over to
Public Speaker - 0:06:32
you to ask your question. Thank you, Chair. I assure members that there are
questions in here. There's a touch of a preamble first. I've been in correspondence and it
was suggested that I either came to this meeting or a full council and I thought I could come
and put my thoughts, which are about second home premium, to you and then it could be
carried forward, your thoughts afterwards. All the facts that I give are either being
retrieved from Cotswold district papers of meetings or earlier in my research from
Roz Savage and her worker at Parliament who asked Cotswold for information and then
ferried it back to me. So basically over the last year I've been doing research
because my wife and I did buy a small second home in Sarensestor in January 2013.
And I wanted to know when my tax was doubled what the money was going to. I wasn't
averse to paying it. I'd rather not, but I wasn't averse. But I got information that it was to go
towards affordable housing. But I didn't know as an individual what cog I was in a larger wheel.
So my questions relate to the current council tax premium of 100 % on second homes. You will
know that it was provided for in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act of 2023. It was approved by
Cotswold in March 24 and it's at its revenue meeting a year ago in February 25.
That's when it was voted through and it took effect from April.
Question one, are councillors aware that in the first year, 25 -26, 1 ,856 properties were
identified in the papers, raising potentially 3 .66 million,
which seems quite reasonable.
However, Cotswold District Council, I now know,
doesn't have any way of finding out
the true number of second homes.
You're reliant on people ticking on a form to say
that's what it is, so there are a lot, potentially,
but I can't quantify it, that haven't ticked,
and therefore you don't know,
and therefore you don't collect money.
So you can't find out the true number of second homes.
And in any event, something called class one exemptions,
which people will pick up if they can,
subjecting the actual number that were subjected
to the premium fell to about 816.
That is 1 ,040 short of what was in the papers
when you approved it.
And the income fell well below the predicted 246 ,000,
not 3 .66 million, because the Cotswold precept
from council tax is only 7 % of the total raised
in the normal circumstance.
And that 7 % was also applied to the 100 % raise
in council tax. So fewer people paying, less revenue, I haven't got the figure, but somewhere around 120 ,000.
All this, and you got here about 120 ,000, which isn't going to buy you an affordable home.
So it set me thinking, you need to do something about that.
So, when you debate, and it may be you and it may be others, when you debate the second
home premium for 26, 27, can you review the decision, first off, in line with levelling
up and regeneration, which grants you the power to quote vary or revoke a determination,
so that you can then proceed to accurately identify the total number of second homes,
I don't know how you do it, but I think you ought to do it.
And mend the distribution between preceptors,
because most of this is going to Gloucestershire County
Council, not to you and your affordable homes.
And ensure then that any funds that are raised
goes towards affordable homes directly
before you vote to reimpose this unfair and punitive tax,
as I see it, as one who pays it, one of few who pays it.
Finally, the iniquity of the present methodology is illustrated by Cotswolds' decision that
same homes in the Cotswolds' water park are not suitable nor available for permanent residents.
So their sale would not bring additional accommodation onto the market.
Hence Cotswolds Council does not apply the premium tax to them.
They get away scot -free.
It is surely anomalous when the purpose of the premium was to raise money for affordable housing
that if your second home is big or expensive enough, then you don't have to contribute.
Need I say more? That's the final question.
Thank you Mr Coronerne. I gave you the latitude of not cutting you off in time, because you normally had an hour and a minute.
But I will.
Oh, I haven't told three.
But maybe that's another committee.
It doesn't matter.
We've got 15 minutes in total.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:12:33
And I think possibly I'm going to answer the question if that's
OK because I'm very familiar with it rather than ask
Councillor Coleman.
Obviously, I was the portfolio holder last year for finance.
So I'm very, very familiar.
So I was writing notes.
I mean, I think in terms of the numbers and the fact that,
which was pointed out at the time,
which we alerted our member of parliament at the time
to Jeffrey Clifton -Brown,
who's now the member of parliament for North Cotswolds,
that whilst this provision was coming in
to levy extra council tax on second homes,
there was no obligation as your right
for people to self -identify as having a second home.
And he, I know, raised that,
and at the time it wasn't put into the legislation.
So the legislation is what it is.
That isn't to say that we don't seek where we can
to find people's second homes and to ask them,
is this a second home?
And I'll look to the Deputy Chief Executive,
Section 151 Officer to add to what my answer in a minute,
but he may be able to tell us a bit more about
how we do that and maybe answer the specific point
about the numbers that you raised, because I know it was
very difficult when I was working at the time with him
about estimating how many homes might be eligible.
And you've also identified from the information you've had back
in exchanges with us that it's 1 ,000 less than we
originally thought.
In terms of the sort of specific questions around the precepts,
clearly you've identified that, you know, only 7 percent
of the money comes back to us.
The bulk of it goes to Gloucestershire,
some chunk goes to the police,
and an amount goes to the parish and town councils.
So answering, I think, one of your points,
we're unable, that is fixed.
The share of council tax is fixed.
So we can't vary that percentage in terms of who gets what,
because each council levies a preset,
which is constrained by law,
how much the government lets you set a precept and then it's our duty on behalf
of all those councils to collect it. So even if we wanted to and I understand
your point we might want to say the hundred percent that's we're putting on
top can we just have all that for affordable homes or can we can we as
Cotswold District Council have all that unfortunately we can't we'd love to but
we can't. So there is an anomaly that we all we can guarantee that we're going to
spend on affordable housing or on hat is the money that we get and David will be
able to say a little bit about how we've done that but you're right it's a lot
less than the overall number and I know we did initiate conversations at the
time with both our colleagues at Gloucestershire and County Council and
the police to see okay if we put this through what what extra can you do in
our district so at least there would benefit coming back although they're not
housing authorities like we are so they're not directly providing. So I think
what I can say to you is these decisions are taken annually so we've got
discussion later on tonight which is very relevant that you're here this
evening but essentially the decision to set the council tax will be taken after
the decision to set the budget which is in a couple of weeks time on the 23rd of
February. So we can give to you consideration I'll just give a little
bit more of a flavour. I think to answer your last point about the water park and
the the reason why we don't chose not to levy a sorry not to levy the premium on
second homes in the water park is because they are designated holiday
homes. So the point and my understanding and the rationale for doing this is
to essentially seek to take out, or for people who have a second home, and I accept, I don't
want to go into people's personal circumstances, they're all different.
But if what the aim of the legislation is to do is to say, if you have a second home
that you're essentially someone could be living in as their residential property, we're going
to charge you more tax for that.
So the rationale is therefore not there for charging people in the water park.
And I totally accept your point.
Some of them are very big houses.
They are paying 100 % council tax, just to reassure you.
And some days gone by, they only used to pay 50%.
Now they pay the same as 100%.
But there isn't the rationale to say, okay, so if we tax them more, double, they sold
their house because they couldn't afford it anymore.
that couldn't be you then used for somebody to live in. So that's the the
reason why we are levying it on properties outside of the purpose built
and it's the really importance about those which are designated as holiday
homes and not subject to the levies is for that reason. But no I'm really
grateful you've come here. I'm going to hand over to David to add anything to
what I've said in answer to your question.
Thank you, Chair.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:18:07
So, David Stanley, Deputy Chief Executive,
but also the Council's Chief Finance Officer,
also known as the Section 151 Officer.
So, to address a couple of the points you've raised,
whilst the number of second homes as identified
on our records is around the number you have quoted
around 1800, we are required when assessing
the council tax base, which then determines the amount of council tax
that's collected, to understand how many of those 1800 homes that additional
premium would be collectible from. So taking into account what Micah's leader
has said in terms of some of the exemptions that were afforded, but also
to take a prudent view when the premium was introduced around the collectability
and taking into account that second home owners
may have made representation to the council to say,
I don't think you've got this right.
We took a very prudent view of the number of second homes
that that council tax would be able to be collected against.
That's around the 810 number.
In assessing that same tax base number
for the forthcoming financial year,
that is much closer to the 1800.
I don't have the number off the top of my head,
but we can provide that in writing after the meeting.
And that builds on some of the experience
we've had this year in terms of validating
the number of second homes that are in the district.
Part of that validation involves working closely
with parish and town councils through our ward members,
as it's usually that local knowledge
that helps identify where second homes are.
And as the leader has indicated, in the early stages of the drafting of the Levelling Up
and Regeneration Act, Sir Geoffrey Clifton -Brown, as our MP, was very supportive of there being
a mandatory register of second homes within each building authority area, so for us as
a district.
Unfortunately, that didn't make its way into the legislation, but certainly in conversations
we've had with Sir Geoffrey since in his role as chair of the Public Accounts
Committee who have made that representation again. Now that would be
subject to parliamentary time and the appetite that the government may have in
amending legislation that was put in place some time prior to the current
government taking on that responsibility. The only other point is around having
that continued dialogue with our residents to understand the impact
that's making so that when we're doing this review we are having the types of
questions from from yourselves and other residents as to what that impact is and
that helps the administration understand what the choices are they've got around
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:21:11
the living of a premium or not. Thank you David. Got quite a couple of answers. I appreciate
that. I don't really want to have a discussion. I want to give Mr. Cora
The opportunity just to say one vital sort of thing or ask us anything else and then we need to move on to the next item.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
Public Speaker - 0:21:27
I've realised the complexities of it and I think that was largely what I was expecting.
I'm cheered to hear that you're managing to find more.
That's something.
As I say, it's the linkage between the amount of money that you're taking in off people like myself
and how little of it is going to affordable housing, which was put forward very loudly
as the reason behind it.
The other word hidden in amongst the literature is disincentive.
In other words, you would hope to disincentivise people like myself, but you weren't doing
in 2013, but you would want to disincentivise us to continue owning a house here and put
it back into the market. One last comment, we bought it because we were retired, we were
hoping to move here, but family circumstances, aged parents, Covid and now my wife and links
to Lincoln Hospital have meant we haven't made that move yet. So we will probably have
to keep shelling out near or somewhere over £500 rather than £250 a month until our
circumstances but I'd love to know it was going to affordable housing that's
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:22:54
my point chair. Thank you very much Mr. Goren and just briefly answer that yeah so what we
said is that that's what we can do as I said you know we can't bind the other
authority of the County Council and the you know the situation is that local
government finances you probably know it's pretty tight you know the County
Council has got a massive deficit
in its special educational needs.
So, you know, they're grateful for any money,
but I'm sure the money that you're paying
and the other people are paying.
And I'm aware from our correspondence
that your circumstances are, you know,
it's not a second home that you're buying
because you know, you want to be by the seaside
or something, I do accept that.
But what we do have, and the reason why we really went
with this policy is we have significant problems
in some of our towns and villages where essentially there's the numbers of
people that there during the week particularly is particularly low and
you know therefore some of the communities are struggling in there in
terms of things like schools and stuff so that's why we don't want sort of
villages that are half empty during the week and that's why we went with this
policy not just you know and obviously the opportunity to put some money into
portable housing but but thank you very much for coming and asking your
questions Mr. Goran. Did you want to have something else David? Thank you chair
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:24:14
just to cover off I suppose the level of revenue the council gets that it can
redirect towards affordable housing as you're quite right in pointing out 130 ,000
pounds doesn't buy you much. What the council is doing with the 130 ,000 pounds
there is using that money to support the delivery of affordable housing through
So we have a head of strategic housing, property and assets who works very closely with other
registered providers such as Bronford Housing to identify rural exception sites that those
registered providers could help develop to deliver more affordable housing.
So rather than having a direct intervention saying we'll buy a property or two, even over
a period of three or four years, three or four lots of 130 still won't get you very
far.
it's utilising that individual's time and resource to have those conversations
with other providers to bring forward those sites that will deliver over time
more affordable housing within the district. Thank you very much Mr. Goren
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:25:16
for coming in and asking your questions. We're now going to move on so I don't
think we have any member questions at all so we will go on to the next item. We
since our last meeting, so that's no discussion
or anything on that.
Agenda item eight, issues arising from overview
and scrutiny and audit and governance.

8 Issue(s) Arising from Overview and Scrutiny and/or Audit and Governance

So we do have a recommendations from overview
and scrutiny committee, which met earlier in the week.
And that was to talk about retail and hospitality sectors.
There are five recommendations that they made
to us as a cabinet. We're proposing to agree with four of them. There is a
document which I'm sure is going to be put live at some point soon onto the
website but I'm going to go to Councillor Wilkinson as the Councillor
responsible with the responsibility for the economy just to talk through our
answers to the recommendations from the overview and scrutiny committee.
Tristan.
Thank you, chair.
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:26:32
So this is a result of quite significant work and also the response to a very real and very
kind of quite fast changing environment.
We are seeing a lot of businesses in our high streets around the country struggling for
a whole number of reasons.
Pubs seem to get all the headlines.
They've got a brilliant sort of PR machine behind them, but we shouldn't forget that
the high streets all across our Cotswold district are made up of a huge variety that pay a fantastic
local dividend to our communities.
Personal storey, my mother -in -law's just moved to Lechlade aged 82.
One of the reasons she moved there is that she can literally walk out of her front door
and get access with very limited mobility to almost everything she needs on her daily,
kind of day -to -day kind of requirements in terms of food and doctor surgeries and so on.
And if we gut out our high streets, then those communities that are struggling to be served by public transport,
lack of cash machines and other things will become dormitories where people will be getting into their cars
or just working from home and not seeing their neighbours anymore.
So ONS has given us a challenge on five elements.
We've accepted four of them.
Very happy to be writing to local MPs to get them to support the challenge to the pretty
arbitrary way that business rates are being applied at the moment, very similar to the
government's kind of housing policy in terms of numbers.
there seems to be a kind of a sledgehammer approach to everything.
It really doesn't bear any sort of relationship to the ability on top
of minimum wage increases and national insurance.
And we're just seeing businesses piled on with more and more costs.
And it really does make a difference.
I work with a local business.
Their costs, like for like, year on year, have gone from 14 to 21 ,000
pounds a month. And that's without any increase in income or anything. That's just money going
out of the door. And that means less people to hire, less reinvestment in the community.
And it genuinely makes the running of the business questionable as to somebody wants
to work 60 -hour weeks for pretty close to minimum wage. So I think it's really important
we pay attention to this, particularly given the diversity of the sort of area we have.
I think it's really important on point two that we continue to engage with that community,
really understand what's going on. So that's something we do well. I think we've got some
really good officers across the Cotswold District Council area, and I think they have a really
good understanding of what's happening within a really diverse group of communities. So
that's something we will continue to do.
And again, point three, many people when they think about the Cotswolds, they think about
the areas that get the headlines, Broughton on Water, Stowe, Bybury, Sire and Sestra.
Yes, they're important, but actually the Cotswolds is made up of many hundreds of really small
community environments, many of whom only have a very small handful of shops.
You take them away and they completely change.
So I think it's really important that we encourage investment and deter to the extent that we can
those shots being taken away and turned into houses.
Every shot that's taken away from a high street and turned into a house,
you've got maybe two extra cars in that high street taking up parking spaces,
it means that it's more and more difficult for the other shots to survive
because people have got nowhere to park.
You know, you get to a tipping point, it just gets harder and harder.
I think on point four, I think this is something that I think is dealt with as part of other
work that we are doing, so I don't think we need to have an explicit focus on that. And
I think with point five, happily right to the government as well to point out the particular
consequences of some of the government policies that just appear to at best be clumsy and
at worst are vandalising local communities like ours.
So yes, four of the five, happy to accept.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:31:11
Kristin, anyone else want to say anything on that?
Do we need to formally vote on that?
We'll just accept the recommendations.
No, okay.
So thank you very much, Kristin, on that one.
So we now move on to the Asbestos Management Plan,

9 Asbestos Management Plan

page 27. We have Stan Ackhurst here if we have any questions that I can't answer
which will probably be most of them as I'm not an expert in this area but
essentially I think what the report is telling us is that we do need to have a
policy and it specifically talks about under our obligation under the control
of asbestos regulations 2012 and then explicitly then this policy will meet
our requirement under that regard and obviously we're the health and safety
team have worked on this and just making it the policy clearer for them to go
forward with. So it's be good practise to do this. There's minimal cost because
they've done some surveys that they needed to do to understand obviously the
extent of the asbestos within our estate and then from page 33 onwards you can
and see the report which runs up to page 59, the actual, sorry, the policy rather
than the report. So there any sort of questions or observations on this
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:33:01
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:33:02
policy? Patrick. Thank you very much, Chair. Yes, I think that there was a the
main principle is if there's some asbestos there don't disturb it and I
I think we all learned that some decades ago probably.
But the question I've got at the back of my mind is,
how will the staff who carry this responsibility
get practical experience of dealing with asbestos
when we're not certain if we've got any at all
in the buildings that we're responsible for?
And how far does our responsibility stretch?
For instance, can we be happy to leave social housing's possible asbestos to
the professional care of Bromford rather than getting involved ourselves? I'm just
trying to get a feel for how people are going to get, I can't say hands -on
experience, but develop their own professional skills in this area after
we've written a policy for them, but there's nothing to practise on. Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:34:01
I think Stan's gonna give us an answer to that question.
Okay, thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councillor Coleman.
Officer - 0:34:08
Firstly, I would like to credit my colleague
that works with Amy.
I think she might be online now from Forest.
So she's actually done a lot of the development work
on our policy that we see today.
So to answer that question, Councillor Coleman,
we do have a plan to communicate this
and others across our partnership out
through our comms team in the first instance so that everyone
is aware of the asbestos policy.
And with regard to specific, you know, awareness around it,
we do have quite a good training package that we have within our
IASCO training that has gone out to all relevant members of our
team across our portfolio that have done that and have passed.
So we've identified individual officers that will need that training.
Some don't, but we have identified those that do.
And within premises where that is, we do, again, we have our,
we do have an option to ensure that we have our comms team and
put a little bit more training together with regards to what they do.
Recently we had a, very recently, the Monday before this last one,
We had more of an in -depth training session in this very building.
We actually borrowed your committee room.
And we had that carried out for four hours with an asbestos expert.
So training is ongoing to have that awareness piece.
We do need to do a comms piece around all of this so that everybody is aware that needs to be aware.
We also included, just for interest's sake, Kevin Lee, our environmental prime on that training,
because he might well deal with that flight tipping aspect
where panels, et cetera, might get,
we just hope they don't, but they do in other areas.
That's been very recent as well.
So we included him on that training as well for Cotswold.
Is that kind of helpful, Councillor Coleman?
Yes indeed.
Thank you, very, very helpful, Stan.
Thank you. Andrea.
Yeah, then Andrea.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:36:18
I was just going to say I'm really pleased to hear you've included ERS and
Kevin because that is one of the real dangers of the guys that go and pick up
fly tips is they've got to be able to identify really quickly and I know that
we have to get specialised contractors to come in and deal with it but it's
it's not you know it's for those guys that go out there and open up the bags
or go and look at the demolished sheds or whatever that's you know somewhere in
lay by so it's good to know that you've included them. Thank you. Andrea. Thank
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 0:36:55
you chair. I just want to second this and support this policy. It states in the
executive summary that the current policy isn't really as good as it needs
to be and I'm very happy to see that this one is in place now or will be in
place as property owners and as employers. I think Councillor Layton has
explained why. It's a nasty thing, it can cause cancer, it needs to be dealt with
in a very specialist manner. So I fully support this and commit it to my
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:37:27
colleagues. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else want to say anything else or
we'll go to the vote? I think we're going to go to the vote.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:37:41
Thank you colleagues. That's seven votes in favour. So we'll now move on to agenda item 10, page 65,

10 Contract for Waste, Street Cleansing and Grounds Maintenance Services

contract for waste collection, street cleansing and grounds maintenance services.
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 0:37:59
Back to you Councillor Pellegrino. Thank you Chair. This report seeks to get cabinets agreement
to go into a common service agreement with Yubico. Our current contract expires in March 2027
and it's time to agree how we proceed with the delivery
of our statutory waste collection functions.
This agreement will replace the existing separate agreements
with the other Yubico shareholders' authorities
creating a single contract for Gloucestershire.
There will be subsidiary arrangements
under the main contract where Cotswold District will be able
to specify its own requirements.
As we move towards unitary status, however,
the entire waste service will need to be redesigned
and unified across the partner authority areas.
This unified contract will make that transition a little bit simpler but will still allow
for service refinements and adjustments for us when the time comes.
So I commend this to cabinet for approval.
The recommendation is that we enter into a common service agreement with UBCO
and that we delegate authority to the director of communities and place in consultation with me
to agree the final terms of the agreement with Yubico.
Thank you.
Thank you, Andrea.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:39:13
Any other members want to say anything on this
before I come in?
Yeah, Tony.
Thank you, Lida.
Councillor Tony Dale - 0:39:24
Yes, I mean, I think this all makes considerable sense to me
because I've experienced over the years
the challenges that Yubico have faced
in bringing together incredibly diverse council requirements
for waste collection and recycling.
And I must admit, Beth does have my admiration as the chief
executive for somehow making sense out of very complicated
multiple contracts that are shared across councils.
The move to a common services agreement makes a lot of sense,
it seems to me, because it gives them the chance to begin to
negotiate with all of the exit councils, if you like,
and the inbound council under local government reorganisation
for a more streamlined and efficient service.
And all I would ask, I would beg, of the executive officer,
so, Helen, I think that's you, is to make sure that this is in
both parties' interest, that both Yubico and Cotswold
district council and the forthcoming unitary share the benefits of a common
efficient service agreement where hopefully our shared recycling approach
our common approach to waste collection becomes a much more efficient operation
as a result of the council's coming together so everyone benefits not just
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:40:57
single company. Thank you, Lida. Thank you, Tony, and I think that was the point I was going to
make sort of follows on from what you've said because clearly our current
contract ends on the day that this council is due to end. Oh no, sorry, it's
a year earlier. Apologies, it's a year earlier. But in essence what we want to
is be focusing on the future to your point Tony and going through a
renegotiation of our current contract would be a big distraction on that so
what we as the Yubikey shareholder when we have discussion about this was it
made sense that we moved to this common agreement and then as both yourself Tony
and Andrea have said when board they will be able to work off a common
agreement and they'll be able to think about what's the service they want to
design with all the points that both of you have made about how do we make that
more flexible more efficient because it will be obviously covering a larger
footprint we don't yet know how big that footprint will be but it will be at
least you know essentially Cotswold plus Chixbury plus Cheltenham and it may
possibly be bigger than that and therefore the opportunity to remodel
the services is there and you know it'd be a huge amount of work as well looking
over our offices at the back, you know Peter's here as well. So yeah that will
be a lot of work but hopefully by doing this we're not spending time working out
contract with UBCO that will then run for another seven years and then the new
unitary's got to have to try to unpick that and you know they will have a
something common across Gloucestershire that they can take and then use that
work off that to develop the service going forward so yeah I think it's a
very sensible move to make. Anyone else got anything to say on that before we
moved to the vote I don't see anyone else so we'll move to the vote then oh I
was seconding it yes thank you for pointing that out and yeah yeah so
thanks everybody that's seven votes in favour right now we come to the the final

11 Budget 2026-27 and Medium Term Financial Strategy

item on our agenda also the one with the most pages and it's the 26 27 revenue
budget capital programme and medium -term financial strategy and yet for me a
pleasure to not be presenting this but to hand over to Councillor Coleman to
present it as my successor as the cabinet member for finance so Patrick
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:43:49
over to you. Thank you chair. First my heartfelt thanks to the officer team and
particularly David Stanley leading it and our chief executive overseeing it to
some degree for producing again an answer to some of the most complicated
challenges that we face. One could have said that probably every year for the
last 15 years. Always gets a bit more complicated or it seems to. One of the
things that is going to become simpler this year is the long -awaited
introduction of fair funding 2 .0 which I think was first promised pre -pandemic
but certainly there was always a good reason to put it off and I think some
One small credit should go to the current government for having an early go at this.
And in the process, making the overall system looked at from a national point of view, ever
so slightly simpler, a number of different funds have been merged.
I won't go into any more details than that this evening, but I mean, that sort of approach,
I think is helpful.
The more special funds you have for a complicated organisation, the less consistency and the
more anomaly you will get.
I think it's almost a mathematical truth.
I think the next thing I need to do is turn to Appendix I, which is where we – Annex
I, which gives the results of our budget consultation, because I'm pleased that people have taken
And I'm grateful that people have taken the time
as members of the public to respond
to our budget consultation, even though many of them
are probably aware that if they're in a Bandy house,
it's gonna be five quid.
And that's been the same, at least that's been
the upper limit for over a decade.
And indeed, we've got a lot of agrees and strongly agrees
to some of the questions.
We've got some interesting ideas, some of them creative.
I hasten to confirm that on page 227 we will not be pursuing the option of abolishing Teprytown
Council, which was put forward.
However, I'm not here to entertain, unfortunately.
So you'll see next, I think, that highlighted are the two annexes still in preparation.
You will perhaps be aware that the overview and scrutiny committee were genuinely and
warmly appreciative of the fact that as things stand, and that is a big proviso because the
Government has not yet produced its final settlement for councils, but as things stand,
we no longer believe, I say we, our officers believe, that we will no longer need to make
significant borrowing for capital investment into our waste disposal vehicle fleet. And
everybody, I think, no matter their political background, knows it's better to be without debt
than to be with it. Although I believe there's some advanced finance people who believe the
opposite and I can't follow them. Coming back to the pressures and savings that we've got,
I think we're all aware of the various pressures on local government. The extra work that we've
to do at the same time as running the shop in getting ready for local government reorganisation.
The need to attract and hold on to the best possible quality staff. The government has
given us some money, will be giving us, I think it's a gift, sorry, a grant towards
the extra staffing costs involved in local government reorganisation and I think that's
very reasonable and the reason I mention it is that it's a huge credit to the council
Cotswolds staff have proved they are the best in the county because three of them have been
chosen selected to carry out these most important tasks of getting us through local government
reorganisation. I think that is probably all the main points we need to make here. As far
as I know, we've got no significant cuts being proposed. We have got some modest and prudent
increases in some charges and I think I'll just take another opportunity to
highlight something that I don't think many councils will be doing across this
country which is to introduce a new two -hour free parking period important
on the water between 8 and 10 in the morning so that local people have a
chance to visit shops before the tourists descend. Thank you chair.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:48:27
Thank You councillor Coleman and just pour a hand over to David Stanley to add
anything to your introduction just as you mentioned Tepry Town Council I want
to shout out because Councillor Inda was here earlier but she said she was going
home to watch it online so I'm sure she'll be reassured that by your
response that you're not phrasing to abolish Tepry Town Council I'm sure the
other members for Tepry will also be reassured just a couple of things where
I had over to David and I want to just mention I think was picked up by ONS
But we've got the questions missing in the, that we had
in the report that were asked.
But I think it's, and Patrick you referred
to the budget consultation and the responses that we got.
But I was pleased to see that, you know,
we got substantially more than we got last year,
despite the fact that we were running
in a pre -election period.
and despite the fact that we had the local plan consultation running for a
fair chunk of the same time and that had priority obviously. So thank you
really to everybody who responded to the consultation and I think if you're
looking at the results I think and I tend to is to compare with how they've
mirrored some previous years and from my memory without having done the detailed
analysis, two -thirds of people agreeing or strongly agreeing with our general
approach and the five percent council tax rise is pretty much where we've been
in previous years. I think it's worth noting what the responses were to the
other two questions that we specifically asked. One was about transformation of
services and you know we asked people do they think that we should in our last
couple of years ahead of LGR, transform services so they're more cost effective
or customer focused or should we maintain services they are so the new
council can take them over easily. It was interesting to see that obviously given
that we've been talking about transform we wanted to get a sense of that and
actually we got sort of 57 % versus 39 % in favour of transforming rather than
steady as she goes so that was useful and specifically then the as we talk
about the capital and David might talk more about capital, the answer to the
capital question about we asked the question should we focus on delivering
capital projects that are necessary and with our current capacity and finances
or should we consider further investment in capital projects that could deliver
benefit to Cotswolds residents and in that case 65 % went with the former,
30 % with the latter so that's pretty much where we are I think in terms of
last two years make sure what we do we do it well and we hand it over to our
successors but I will stop there and invite David to add any more illuminated
commentary to that which Councillor Coleman has. Thank you chair I'll try to
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:51:41
keep this relatively brief this is a snapshot position as it was on the 28th
of January, so the report will be updated ahead of publication of the council report
next week. That will include an update to the forecast for business rates, so there's
an extra 178 ,000 included in that forecast, which comes from the way in which the renewable
energy schemes is retained as a whole by the council that wasn't included in the figures
in this draught of the report.
The second main change is coming from the reconciliation
of the public contract sum.
So members may recall that the detailed transition plan
for phase one and phase two of the public transformation,
transfer of services included within the decision
that the overall contract sum of the services that remain
with Publica would be re -based for the 26 -27 financial year.
Alex Phillips in the finance team at Publica and Frank in
particular have been working very hard over the last few
months on a very whizzy spreadsheet that
has achieved that.
We've been working through with the finance team,
making sure that the individual service lines reconcile to that
overall position.
and as it stands today the numbers in terms of the bottom line for 26 -27 will
be a better position than what is currently shown in this report and that
was largely what I expected. The only caveat to this is what may or may not
happen on Monday. So on the 9th February the government is due to finalise the
government finance settlement. In prior years, the original settlement, December, final settlement,
generally late January, at the very latest, first or second of February. The ninth is
very late. And generally speaking, as far as I can remember, there has been very, very
little change between the figures published in December and the figures published in February.
However, there is an increased risk this year of a change because of the fair funding review
in the way it has allocated particular business rates pooling benefit to particular councils.
So there is an Institute of Fiscal Studies article that was published yesterday that
has been picked up by the District Council's network and they've emailed round DCM members
highlighting this particular risk.
That IFS report was questioning the way in which that pooling benefit has been
allocated to councils. Some councils have gained very well out of that, some
councils haven't. I think what the IFS were highlighting was given the pressures
on certain types of council, largely the Apatia authorities, where they haven't
had that gain, there is some risk that the government through the final
settlement change the numbers for 26, 27.
My view as the 151 would be that is way too late to put
through any change, whether it's a few thousand pounds
or a few more than that.
And I would be strongly advising members to make
representations to the government if that
were the case.
I think it is far more likely that they would look
at making changes in future years, whether that's in
future years of the three -year settlement period or in the three -year period that follows
28 -29, which is in another spending review period.
But that is a risk and is a concern, but we won't know that until, I would guess, late
on the 9th.
I can't see that that final settlement will be published at 8 o 'clock in the morning.
I think it's more likely to be early afternoon.
So there will be very little time for us to understand what impact that would have, but
as it stands, I think that the risk is relatively low of change
given the impact that would have on the ability for the councils
across the country to make any changes at the very late stage.
But it is worth highlighting that.
In terms of the rest of the report, I think you'll find
most of sections three, four, five and nine will stay pretty
much affected by any changes.
but because of the way numbers tend to flow through the report any changes we
make to tables then flows through all the other sections but happy to take any
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:56:38
questions that members may have on the report. Thank you David. Members have questions or
observations? Mike and then Tony. One more observation and questions. I had three
Councillor Mike McKeown - 0:56:47
things, first of all just to thank David which I'm sure all my colleagues
would join me in and you've just done a brilliant job in managing this.
Local government is in very difficult situation. You look around the
country, you know, some are on the brink and we're a well -run council, you know,
that's come out actually more better than we were expecting I think and you
and your team have played a big part in that, so thank you again.
And that's helping us, my second point is, it's helping us to do things for our residents.
In my area, on the climate side of things, it's allowed us to fund for another year our
excellent home energy efficiency officer, Justine, who's out right now in town and village
halls telling people about how they can save energy, cut their energy bills and their carbon
footprint and make their homes more a nicer, a pleasant place to win, to live, which is
you know, a great thing that the council was able to do.
She's into people's homes.
We've loaned her a thermal image camera to help her do
that with community energy partnerships.
So it's just allowing us, and that's just one area.
I know there's plenty others as well.
And then the last one, I guess, with my digital hat on,
I was delighted to hear what you were saying, Mike, about the,
you know, back for transformation.
I know Tristan, who we've worked closely with on that, is keen.
I think there's just lots of opportunity to, you know,
to do good stuff even more so with things moving.
You know, I have a bit of a reputation for AI
because I work in it.
It's in my day job.
I'm part of my job as an AI transformation director.
It can do more and more.
I know we're already making quite a lot of use of it
in the council now and have got more pilots
and more stuff that come up.
You know, and that has tangible effects for our residents.
You know, one, internally it allows officers
spend less time doing an administrative stuff and more time doing things that
impact residents and I think there's huge potential for us to improve you
know resident services you know rather than only being able to call us you know
a few hours a day speak to us 24 -7 soon become quite possible I'm sure so
there's lots we can do to make our big collections more efficient with UBICO
so I think lots of opportunity so we can leave a great legacy at the at the end
as we hand over to the unitary.
Thank you, David.
Thank you, Mike.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:59:12
And just picking up on that last point.
Yeah, so I think we've got to have a policy
coming through to cabinet.
I think it's next month from memory about AI
and how we use it as a council.
But absolutely, you're right, the benefits could be huge,
but you obviously have to make sure that that's framed
in a way that's safeguarding our residents as well
and our staff.
Then, so Tony and then Andre.
Tony Smith -Smith - Thank you, Mike.
Councillor Tony Dale - 0:59:44
Yeah, I've got three key points I think I'd like to make.
And the last one's a little bit rambling, so I'll try and keep it focused.
The first one is easy, which is to reflect on and rejoice in the fact that we're making a substantial capital investment
investment in our waste vehicle fleet going forwards, which will secure our waste collection
service for Cotswold District residents into the future for a considerable number of years
to come. Many, many councils struggle with this area. It is brilliant not only that we
are able to make that capital investment through this budget period, but that we know it's
fully funded and we will not be lending on it. My thanks go to Andrea, my cabinet colleague
member and to David for working out the finances around how we've really made that possible
for our residents to be protected for at least the next six, seven, eight years with a really
good high quality brand new waste collection fleet that is to follow our ethics, green
to the core. Fantastic, number one. Number two, we have a budget here which would have
been easy to be very hard and very difficult to pull together.
And it is incredibly complicated.
But there is detail within it which is profound and important
so that even with the small details where business rates
which are not a major element of this particular budget for us as
a council, but which are I think undergoing so much change,
so much transformation, so much lack of clarity, dare I say it, from government, that we have
compiled this budget and made it balance with the very minimum prudential bottom line of
business rates collection.
And I applaud you, David, in taking the most prudential view of our business rates collection.
And I know our small businesses suffering at the hands of this will be very grateful
indeed for that. They are the life and soul of the employment across the Cotswolds. We
have 9 ,000 micro businesses. They will rely on their ability to get business rates right
and work with you to collect it properly, but it will take time, I'm quite sure, to
sort out. And then my final point is, and it is particularly for the benefit of perhaps
cabinet members who have not been on the cabinet for the last six, seven years, Mike and I
I have sweat a lot of blood over this over six or seven years.
There is a lot in the detail which makes this budget good
because of things we did in the past.
Things like reviewing fees and charges,
many of which hadn't been touched for 20 years,
they were so far out of date there were still fees and
charges for being a hypnotist, for God's sakes.
We really needed to take the budget by both hands and do some
profound work on it, which I have to say David has led really very well. I am in
great debt to David's expertise in knowing his way around council budgets
and the way that as a cabinet all of us and our predecessors have worked over
the last six or seven years on behalf of our residents to get the fees and
charges right for their customer demand. If it's resident services that they want
from us and they are happy to have them and pay for them, whether they are green bin licences,
pre -application requests or anything else, I think we are now getting this right. I pick
up my cabinet colleagues point, Patrick, about the free parking for a couple of hours in
Borton on the water. Perfect example in Borton, very, very heavy visitor experience load you
have in Borton on the water. But we've listened to our residents there and said if you can
go into your town and shops early, park for a couple of hours free, get your day -to -day
living done and then move along before the charges come in for the visitor experience.
Then we've listened to our residents and we've done something for them and our businesses.
It's a perfect example of what this council has done really well and made the budget numbers
add up. I couldn't commend it more. Thank you for a brilliant budget this year.
Thank you, Tony.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:04:12
Yes, seven years ago, almost.
Then we first came here, wasn't it, to the cabinet table.
Other people?
Andrea.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 1:04:26
Much of what I was going to say has been said, so I'll try to keep it brief.
When I started here last May, I was warned the budget was going to be desperate,
and we were going to have a cliff edge.
And I was thinking, oh, my goodness.
and I was so happy when I read this report
and there is no cliff edge and everything that is paid for.
So if we see in table 14 on page 144,
we see that the waste fleet renewal is,
well in total, it's almost eight and a half million
over the years of this projection up until 2030.
And that's a lot of money.
and I was rightly scrutinised last January
by the overview and scrutiny committee
about the purchase of our 31 waste vehicles.
And the questions they asked rightly were,
are we gonna have to borrow money for this?
What happens if the hydro HVO fuel becomes more expensive?
How are we gonna deal with this?
And I asked David to make sure that this report covered it
and he did, thank you, David.
So just if any of my colleagues from Scootney are listening, if we look at page 96,
the good news is that no money needs to be borrowed for the vehicle fleet or the bunker.
Yes, that's great because there was a concern that we would have
to borrow money but we don't.
On page 119, we see that there's a 76 ,000 pound contingency fund
in case this fuel is more expensive so that we can be agreeing to the core.
without having to jeopardise any of our other budget.
And I just want to point out that enhanced producer responsibility,
which is money that we get back from the government on behalf of people
who produce packaging is contributing 1 .721 million to our budget next year
with very cautious projections which are probably low, I hope, for future years.
So that that is all, you know, helping to cover those costs for those important services.
So thank you very much, David.
Glad to have good news.
Thank you, Andrea.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:06:43
I'm just picking up on a couple of points there.
You know, the extended producer responsibility, it's great.
Now we've got people who are producing the waste are giving
us money to collect it and recycle it,
which they weren't before.
So, you know, we were doing that off our own bat, you know,
and the amount in that, if I look at the 8 .9 million
in Yubico from memory, a goodly chunk of that,
getting on for half of it, is on the recycling.
So, you know, we're actually getting a significant chunk
of that cost now back, and that means that, you know,
we are able to be able to spend that money on other things.
And it means that we're able to do the things
that we want to do and maintain our financial position.
Just to pick up on your point about the cliff edge,
I think David might say it's moved.
It's actually moved about three years in the head, and it's moved
because the government have given a three -year settlement.
So, but obviously that period is beyond the existence,
potential existence of this council.
So, but having been, done the portfolio holder job for finance
for six years and every year talked about the cliff edge,
It's nice not to, for Patrick, won't be able to, needs to get up and tell us that at the budget meeting in a couple of weeks time.
At least it's not next year, which has been next year since I got elected to this council in 2019, as you referred to, Patrick, earlier about fair funding review.
And it was always coming and always coming.
So the certainty of a three -year settlement.
providing it doesn't, as David was talking about earlier, it doesn't get
sort of messed up next Monday right at the end when the government gives us our
final figure. I'm gonna hand over now to Councillor Wilkinson, Tristan.
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 1:08:43
Thank you, Chair. I'm really happy to second this. I think listening to all of my
colleagues, you could sit here or be watching this or listening to it back on
replay, God help you, and think, go on, we're lucky.
But this isn't luck.
Anyone that's sailed will understand the
principle of tacking.
And tacking basically means that you go in a zigzag to get
to where you need to get to.
And that's what we do on a daily basis.
And David and your team do an excellent job of tacking
through headwinds and rain and unpredictable circumstances.
We are in this situation not because of luck, but because
of really, really hard work every single day.
I'm looking at the comments, which I encourage everybody
to look at in the consultation we just did,
because there's some really interesting ones in there.
Some are a bit disappointing and point to maybe people
that aren't as informed as we would like them to be.
So I think, you know, a little bit misguided.
Spending is too high.
Must cut costs significantly.
Reduce waste.
Avoid unnecessary projects.
I just sticked to core remit.
Whoever wrote that, I'd love them to come in here
and just spend an hour with Dayton and his team
and see if they could do a better job
because I suspect they couldn't
because these are really hard decisions.
When I meet my local parish councils
and I knock on doors as I do occasionally,
I hear the same thing all the time.
Services aren't good enough,
but I don't wanna pay for it.
And we are in the middle of that equation.
people expect really really good quality services but they don't want to pay more
money and on a daily basis the officers led by the fantastic Jane here and the
councillors in terms of accountability we have to navigate our way through
people's expectations of high quality services and low taxes and I think we do
a really really good job in fact the way in a position today compared to many of
our other councils who are not in such a fortunate position is down to hard work
and the ability for us to make some tough decisions so I'm very happy to
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:10:57
second this. Thank you Tristan I think you absolutely and Tony mentioned it as
well it's sometimes you make the decision that some people are not going
to like but we recognise that financial stability and balancing your budget is
prerequisite and when councils get that wrong they don't take the difficult
decisions it ends up costing them and their residents an awful lot more not
just financially you know in terms of what the services that councils can
provide so I will sort of finish it I think finish it up there or I can come
back to councillor Coleman if he wants to sum up on the discussion thank you
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:11:36
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:11:37
Thank you very much colleagues. It's really helpful to hear all those comments and points.
I'll just add the last bit of history which was the other day I found a piece of paper
from the early days as finance lead. It was about 35 lines and these were all the different
reserves that we found were small ones of course. All kinds of different reserves. I
I thought, I wonder what's happened to these?
So I checked with David and he said,
yeah, we dealt with that.
And you'll find, actually it's in here twice,
both in the introduction and further on.
We're now down to what looks like,
I think nine reserves, but in that list,
you'll see one of them is a reserve that's being abolished.
So it's only eight in the significance reserves,
an LGR transition, capacity building,
local plan, climate emergency.
Already you can see those are the important things
those are four of them, I'm not going to go through the rest. So a lot of the things that
are difficult to do, keeping things simple for instance, keeping things understandable,
is being achieved and that's really important I think. We want us, as I think we've all agreed
informally, to be the council about if it is remembered, is remembered as well. We had no
problems from Cotswold. They weren't in debt and their houses, their social
housing stock was in good nick and they had the best recycling rate in the
county. I've got to cheque that, but I'd be amazed if it isn't because I did see a
bit of data from DEFRA the other day which I've got to cheque up on.
But all kinds of things we lead the way in and finally of course that
Simon's List has been chosen as one of the top ten places in the world. Even I
that's a bit of a stretch I shouldn't have said that on recording should I
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:13:33
thank you very much indeed thank you Patrick for that so I think that was
your proposing it on you propose formally interest in your second name
yeah so just go back so the recommendations are the bottom of page
81 I will just sort of briefly read those out be they're quite significant
this because we as a cabinet are then recommending on to council to make this
decision when it meets on the 23rd of February and this is our formal role as
cabinet is to propose the budget to the council to consider so we are approving
for recommendation to council because we've considered it the medium -term
financial strategy in annex B the budget pressures and savings in annex C the
Council tax requirement of 7 ,419 ,716 for this council.
The level of council tax of 163 pounds 93
for a Band D property in 26, 27,
an increase of five pounds for Band D,
which is obviously pro rata for the other bands.
Capital programme in Annex D,
the annual capital strategy 26 -27 in Annex E, the Treasury management strategy and non -Treasury
management investment strategy 26 -27 as it's set out in Annex F. Those were both considered
also by the Audit and Governance Committee at their last meeting. The strategy for flexible
use of capital receipts set out in Annex H. The two million is set aside in a new earmarked
reserve council priority LGR transition by taking £2 million of the balance currently
held in the financial resilience reserve and that the balances and reserves forecast for
26, 27 through to 29, 30 as set out in section 7. And importantly, particularly given the
discussion that we had about the final settlement from the government, that we approved the
delegation to deputy chief executive in consultation with the chief executive, myself, and the
cabinet member for finance to agree changes to the general fund summary arising from the
final local government finance settlement and the business rates retention scheme estimates
prior to submission to council.
That last bit there is so that essentially whatever is proposed to the council from this
cabinet is legal essentially it's the cabinet proposing we have agreed the
delegation for any final tweaks as a result of the budget sorry the
settlement for David to make those in consultation with Jane Patrick and
myself so those have been moved and seconded we'll go to the vote now
Thank you colleagues. That's seven votes in favour. All in favour. So thank you very much
for that and for the debate and obviously David for all the work that you and your team
put into that. Next and final item on the agenda. It just says to advise members of
the next meeting of cabinet on my agenda paper. Next meeting date. I haven't got it in front
of me but I think it is in early early March so yeah I don't know if there's
any Nicky's frantically looking now now I've said that I thought it would be on
the agenda it's the 5th of March 6 p .m. in the meeting so thank you everyone for
your attendance and contributions this evening wish you all a safe journey home
thanks very much
.

There are currently no votes to display