Council - Monday 23 February 2026, 6:00pm - Vote_events Tab

Council
Monday, 23rd February 2026 at 6:00pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Feedback

Votes

Speaking:

Start of webcast

Share this agenda point

Councillor Mark Harris

1 Apologies

Share this agenda point

Councillor Mark Harris
Nickie Mackenzie-Daste, Officer
Councillor Mark Harris

2 Declarations of Interest

Share this agenda point

3 Minutes

Share this agenda point

Minutes Public Pack, 21/01/2026 Council

03. APPROVE: minutes of meeting 21 January 2026
Status: In progress
03. APPROVE: minutes of meeting 21 January 2026
Status: Ended

4 Announcements from the Chair, Leader or Chief Executive

Share this agenda point

Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Public Speaker
Councillor Mark Harris
Public Speaker
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris
Public Speaker
Councillor Mark Harris

5 Public Questions

Share this agenda point

Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris

6 Member Questions

Share this agenda point

7 Appointments to Committees

Share this agenda point

Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris
08. Appointments to committee - Recomndation 2 - APPROVE
Status: In progress
08. Appointments to committee - Recomndation 2 - APPROVE
Status: Ended

8 Budget Council Protocol

Share this agenda point

Councillor Patrick Coleman

9 2026-27 Revenue Budget, Capital Programme and Medium Term Financial Strategy

Share this agenda point

Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Dilys Neill
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Dilys Neill
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Dilys Neill
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Dilys Neill
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Claire Bloomer
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Craig Thurling
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Nikki Ind
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Len Wilkins
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Lisa Spivey
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Mike McKeown
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Mark Harris
09. Budget - Conservative group amendments 1&2 - REFUSE
Status: In progress
Councillor Mark Harris
09. Budget - Conservative group amendments 1&2 - REFUSE
Status: Ended
Councillor Tom Stowe
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Tony Dale
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Dilys Neill
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Craig Thurling
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Jeremy Theyer
Councillor Mark Harris
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Jeremy Theyer
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Mark Harris
09. MTFS, Budget, Capital Strategy - recommendations 1-10 - APPROVE
Status: In progress
09. MTFS, Budget, Capital Strategy - recommendations 1-10 - APPROVE
Status: Ended
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Mark Harris
10. Council tax 2026/27 - Recomendations 1-8 - APPROVE
Status: In progress
10. Council tax 2026/27 - Recomendations 1-8 - APPROVE
Status: Ended
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mark Harris
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mark Harris
10. Council tax 2026/27 - Recomendations 1-8 - APPROVE
Status: In progress
11. Pay Policy Statement 2026 - Approve
Status: Ended
Webcast Finished

Select an agenda point

Scroll with video

Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

1 Apologies

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:00:00

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:00:04

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of Cotswold District Council's full council.

My name is Councillor Mark Harris and I'm the chair of the council and I'd like to welcome

all members, public in attendance and those watching online. You're very welcome. For

those watching at home, we'll be using electronic voting and we'll broadcast the outcome of

each vote. Should anything go wrong with the electronic voting which cannot be resolved,

will revert to voting by a clear show of hands. So our first item

Nickie Mackenzie-Daste, Officer - 0:00:42

this evening is apologies. We have three apologies Councillor Gina

Bloomfield, Councillor David Cunningham and Councillor Andrea Pellegram. Thank you

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:00:50

very much Nicky and I think that's it. Good. Declarations of interest please.

2 Declarations of Interest

Okay, I draw members attention to section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act which

provides that any member in Council who's in Council tax arrears for two or more months

must declare the fact and cannot vote on the budget or Council tax items.

All members records have been checked and to the best of our knowledge there are no

Council tax arrears, therefore all members are entitled to vote unless you tell me otherwise.

No, that's all right then.

Well done.

3 Minutes

Well item three is minutes, and we're going to confirm the minutes of full council on the 21st of January.

Could I have a proposer for accepting the minutes, Councillor Evermy? Yeah, and a seconder?

Councillor Stowe. Thank you.

He wants to be the seconder on it.

So the recommendations for council accept the minutes of the meeting the 21st of January is a correct record.

Let's go to the vote.

Good, I think that's it. Yeah, we've got 27, 4 and 1 abstention.

Good, thank you very much.

Next item, announcements from the chair, leader and chief executive.

So for me, in order to maximise the use of the time available with the budget on the

4 Announcements from the Chair, Leader or Chief Executive

agenda, I'd like to remind members to be disciplined with their comments, avoid repetition

and be succinct with any remarks made, because we'd all like to get home at some stage

this evening.

And some of us got further to go than others.

The length of the meeting is capped at four hours, so that could be 10 o 'clock, and

after three hours have elapsed, if we get to that point, we'll take a vote on

whether to continue for the final hour. I've got a couple of announcements to

make. The first of all is to welcome our new Councillor Craig Thurley, who's the

new member for the Rizzington.

You're very welcome Craig. It looks like you've got the voting system sorted so

that's hurdle number one out of the way. I should say you have got big shoes to

Phil, but I'm sure you've got big enough feet to fill them,

so you're very welcome.

The second item is, I've been asked to bring to your attention

that the Phoenix Festival in Syrinsester is looking

for volunteers, looking for funding, and so on and so forth.

The reason I raised that is that last year the District Council

was one of the single biggest donors to the Phoenix Festival

and has been over the years and may well be in this coming year.

We'll see.

So if you want to volunteer, get involved or support it,

please, please do look it up on Facebook or the internet.

The other item I'd like to bring your attention to is our unsung

heroes.

We're not holding the unsung heroes this evening and that's

because we have the budget meeting.

But if you know somebody in your communities,

and it doesn't just apply to councillors but members of the

public out there who you think should get a good pat on the

back and the recognition they deserve, then please do do that.

And that applies to young people as well as people my age.

And finally, if you'd like to work with the council or for the

council, we've got a job fair on the 4th of March.

So again, if you know anybody who's looking for gainful

employment or to step up or across, then please point them

in that direction.

That's all from me.

I'm going to ask the leader if he's got any announcements.

Mike.

Thank you. Thank you, chair. I'd like to also welcome Councillor

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:04:45

Thirlings to his place in the chamber. It's great to have you here, Craig.

But I'd also like to note and pay tribute to the work for this Council of Nigel Robbins,

who stepped down as a Councillor at the end of January. He served on the Council for nearly

11 years. He was chair of the Council for two years, including the pandemic two years,

and the online meetings, those of us who were here, remember all of those and he did it

with great aplomb and got us through all of that part of the difficulty, the challenge

that we had at that time. And then he also served nearly four years as Chair of the Audit

and Governance Committee. He also served eight years on Gloucestershire County Council and

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank him for his service to this council and wish

him well in his second retirement because I know he had a first retirement from his

job as the principal of Sire and Cester College but now he's in the second retirement from

serving on principal authorities although I still he still remains a member of Sire

and Cester town council. And then just briefly just wanted to remind members that the local

government reorganisation consultation is open that's the government's consultation

their questions and consulting on the three proposals that were submitted by

councils across Gloucestershire. As you will recall at our November meeting we

supported the single unitary option. Cheltenborough Council proposed the East

West split option and Gloucester City Council proposed the Gloucester and

Greater Gloucestershire option. So those are all being consulted upon by the

on gov .uk website. It closes on the 26th of March.

So just encourage members to take part in that and members of their communities to have their say

and to remind members that we expect a decision from the government before the summer recess. So probably in July. Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:06:52

Thank you very much. Councillor Ebony. Any announcements from the Chief Executive? No, thank you. Okay.

Right, we'll now move on to public questions and I believe we've got, well I don't believe,

I know, we've got a couple of questions from Sylvia Shepherd.

Would you like to come down here and ask a question?

There we go.

Thank you very much.

Public Speaker - 0:07:52

I am very surprised when I come in because my question I thought asked, seeing the site

plans of the Mayfield Park residential homes, and I was expected to be met at the entrance

with the site plans to show me when they first were erected.

And no.

Our problem is we have waste,

and I live in the row of seven new homes

that were built between 1996 and 1999,

but they were only occupied, I believe, in early 1999,

and they did have a waste collection point.

Then for some unknown reason, that was stopped,

and I wasn't living there anyway.

I didn't move there until 2001.

I have a letter that says they've cancelled the waste collection,

and they would all, the SEPO,

have to take it down to the main collection point,

which is downhill and by the main road,

which they all did, and nobody queried it.

They were reasonably young. They weren't old.

at the time, but this is quite a few years back.

And my problem is I find it too hard to do it now.

And I would like the waste collected from where

it was originally told that it would be collected.

But that's it.

Let me see if we can get an answer for you.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:10:01

I'll ask the, Juliette will you deal with this?

Now, if we don't, the answer may not be completely satisfactory at this point,

or it may be, but we'll make sure that we'll follow it up with anything else.

Public Speaker - 0:10:17

Can you just press the button and turn it off?

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:10:24

Well, firstly, I've kind of got to declare an interest because I know Sylvia Shepherd

quite well and I'm best friends with her daughter.

So I know quite a lot about this on a sort of a private level, but I don't think it precludes

me from answering any questions.

But I just want, you know, everybody to know that.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:10:42

As long as you don't have a pecuniary interest in the waste service, I think we're okay.

I do not.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:10:45

So we've had this question that's been asked about the bins.

And one of the answers that came back from the officers was that the site is not suitable,

as you've said, that you have had collections up there.

I know that there has been a site visit, and they've still said that the site is not suitable

for taking the big lorries up.

And they also say, which I've argued with and I will argue, I'm saying again today,

is I know that you have a full collection of the waste bins that we all have in the

Cotswolds.

You've got the white bag, the blue bag, the two black boxes, a grey bin, and you pay for

a garden waste licence.

Now the officers say that nobody on the site has got any of those things and actually quite

a number of people on the site. I don't know how many, but there are a number of people

there with those bins. So that is sort of a bit of my argument with what the officers

are saying because they won't listen to me. So I'm going to take that back and carry that

conversation on. But the site, if it's not suitable because it's a health and safety

risk with the big lorries going up, then maybe the site manager needs to be doing something

in order to assist other people, apart from yourself,

there are other people in this, you know,

we've got members of the public with their own bins,

having the same situation.

So what I'm going to take away and try and work through

and try and make them here,

and Paul Hodgkinson is your ward member,

he fully knows about this as well.

And it has been a little bit irritating for both of us

that policy is one thing,

but actually something else has been happening and we need to sort that out.

I don't know how we resolve it yet but we'll work on it and I can't really

go much further than that, I'm sorry. We haven't got the waste cabinet member

here today unfortunately.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:12:57

So you can ask a supplementary question if you like which is the one where you

the legs from the beneath the answer but no you're welcome to answer a supplement

supplementary question if you'd like

Public Speaker - 0:13:14

I was told I could have two questions thank you well the second question is

that I live in number two Churm Valley View my neighbour in number one when she

moved in, was told she was going to have a decking,

which the owner of the site put in about three months

after she'd moved in.

I'm trying to seal my hole at the moment.

It went up in December 23,

and I'll never sell with this huge decking

that I have adjoining straight up to my garage,

there is no boundary at all.

The only way I could repair the garage wall from number one

is by asking to take away the decking.

And the councillors say it's all correct,

the height, the material and everything else. I shall never sell it anyway because of it

and I just can't understand how they can say it because of lease. Lease is an advisory

service that deals with park homes and they advise me to write to the council to say how

How can you explain when there is no boundary because this decking comes up to like garage

wall is not a breach of planning?

How can I explain, please?

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:15:03

The person who can answer that is Juliet because Juliet is a lead member for planning.

Again, she may not be able to answer it now, but she can certainly address it, Sylvia,

5 Public Questions

and maybe answer it more fully down the line.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:15:17

Juliet. I'll try again with this one. I know that we've had the enforcement

team has been out there and looked at the whole site and I think the issue

with the decking that's touching your garage or very close to it which stops

you getting anywhere you wouldn't be able to clean the walls of it because I

think you've got a PVC coating or something on your garage so you could

probably wipe them down but you can't access that. Unfortunately what the

enforcement team found was that they figured it was a civil issue between

you it's not a council issue because it's not a planning it's not a planning

reason it's there we can't do anything in planning or enforcement but they

suggested it was a civil issue about that I know there's a fence there I think

that the materials usually are not allowed to have any wooden decking or

any wooden fencing or handrails because it's a fire hazard but the decking

complies with that. It's metal and some sort of plastic I suppose so the

decking is okay for planning reasons but the fact that it's so close

unfortunately I think is a civil issue that the council can't do anything about.

That was the advice from officers. I mean I can ask legal but the officers would

have spoken to legal team about that, so I don't think there's anywhere else I can take

that. But I'm open to advice from the top table on that.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:16:52

Thank you, Julia. I'm going to look to my left and my right.

It sounds like a civil matter.

Right. It sounds like a civil matter, but can I suggest that we've got a very good Citizens

Advice Bureau in Sire and Chester. I don't know if you've...

Right, okay, but it might be worth mentioning.

Okay, have you raised it with them?

I think it's worth raising it with the CAB, yes.

Because they have legal advice regarding the decking.

They do, but they're, yeah.

Do raise it with them.

Yeah.

That's it, yeah.

Thank you very much for coming along and do keep you surprised of how you get on. I'm sure

Councillor Hodgkinson will touch base with you.

Do are there any other public questions that we have here?

No, okay, and then

6 Member Questions

We'll now go to member questions, and I believe there aren't any member questions, so we'll skip through that now

In your agenda, the printed agendas, there's a bit of a mix -up between item 7 and item 8.

So you might see on your agenda that it says

budget protocol, but

it should be appointment to committee. So I'm going to go to appointment committees now.

If you hop forward one and then we'll hop back, I'll stay where I am and

we'll go to

Councillor Evermy to

7 Appointments to Committees

present this item. Thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:18:31

Thank you, Chair. We have since, as I mentioned in my announcements earlier, just a few minutes ago, Nigel Robbins stood down from the Council back in January.

He was obviously the Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee and obviously has sat taking a seat from the Lived End Group on that committee.

Given that we have a by -election pending and a potential after that opportunity

to look at the political balance of the council and make any appointments that

we need and there isn't a meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee between

now and then so the next meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee isn't until

April. I'm not intending to nominate a member to sit in the vacant Lib Dem

seat on the Audit and Governance Committee at this meeting but I am

intending to nominate and I hereby nominate Councillor Elaine Mansilla to

be chair of the Audit and Governance Committee for the remainder of the

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:19:34

municipal year. Thank you. Thank you very much Mike. Do we have a seconder for that?

Julia thank you. Yes thank you. No I'm delighted to second that. I think

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:19:43

Elaine with her experience and her experience already on the committee will

be an excellent chair. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm slightly mixing up my

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:19:52

order but does anybody have any questions about that? We're all good?

Well if that's the case then we'll move to the vote that and the recommendation

is to appoint for term of office expiring at the next annual meeting of

the council. Councillor Helena Mansella to the position of chair of the audit

and governance committee previously occupied by Councillor Nigel Robinson.

So if you'd like to go to the vote.

Still looking for a couple more folks.

Yeah, that's great.

That's 28.

That's congratulations.

Welcome to the chair, as it were.

And hope you enjoy it.

So that's unanimous, thank you.

Okay, now the next item we go to is,

let me flip back, is the budget, the council protocol for the budget.

8 Budget Council Protocol

So before we begin the budget item, I'd like to remind members and the public observing

the proceedings of the budget protocol, which can be found in the council's constitution, Part G, Appendix D.

Now, I know there was one pack when I looked at it and Councillor Stowe asked me the same

question. It looked a bit muddled up, but I think we're all right now that we know which

way it's going. So it would be the procedure used to debate and confirm the budget for

26 -27. I'd like to inform members that the votes on the budget and council tax resolutions

will be done by electronic votes as usual, as all our votes are recorded within the minutes.

This is in line with the requirements set out in statute. If there's a problem, we'll go to, we'll do a roll call vote as recorded.

For those who present, print a copy of the relevant section of the Constitution on the desk. There should be in front of you.

There we go. Here we go. So, here's the order.

Right. So the proposer is the lead member for finance, which is Councillor Patrick Coleman.

And Councillor Coleman, you have 15 minutes, but as we always say, it's not a target.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:22:25

Thank you, Chair. To be honest, I was in no point expecting to speak for more than 10

minutes. Chair, fellow members, it is my honour to be a cabinet member for the first time

in my local government service that stretches back to 1987 across two district councils

and one county council, and in this new role to be the proposer of the third budget in

the second term of this council's Liberal Democrat administration.

It is now almost seven years since we started working to remodel the council's finances

and invest in our district, while simultaneously meeting many challenges including COVID, the

cost of living crisis, a huge inflation spike and most recently the rapid ongoing transition

to unitary local government in Gloucestershire.

During this time we have benefited hugely from the professionalism and commitment of

9 2026-27 Revenue Budget, Capital Programme and Medium Term Financial Strategy

our staff at all levels who have shown patience and creativity in dealing with the challenges

repeatedly set by central government of various colours and also addressing the aspirations

and demands of elected members. Along this journey many significant savings have been

achieved. Not least the annual £500 ,000 saved in reorganising waste collection rounds which

combined with robust, realistic pricing for services,

such as car parking and garden waste collections,

have helped to fund major investments and improvements made

in services to our residents.

I know that an annual increase of five pound a year,

less than 10p a week in Bandy council tax.

We have completed the appropriate transition

of members of public staff to Cotswold District Council,

helping to improve staff retention and recruitment through better pensions and

increasing effectiveness through shorter lines of managerial control. Many thanks

to those who saw this complex process through, coinciding as it does with the

return of full funding of our local government pension scheme resulting in a

£500 ,000 annual saving. We have continued our significant support for

residents living on low incomes, through our Low Income Families Tracker, LIFT, delivered

in partnership with Policy and Practise, which analyses local data to pinpoint residents

at risk of financial hardship and thus enables the Council to proactively reach out with

tailored advice and support.

In less than 18 months, figures show a targeted pension credit campaign enabled 96 pensioners

to secure more than £339 ,000 in additional income, adding an estimated £1 .9 million

to the local economy over their lifetimes. These claims open the door to other important

supports such as winter fuel payments which help older people stay warm and comfortable

during colder months. The programme has also helped 49 households to move out of fuel poverty

through helping them access the Warm Homes discount, giving money off their energy bills

and also helped 54 households to get their budgets back on track with targeted water

bill support. Direct engagement with Universal Credit recipients led to 181 new council tax

reduction claims.

Turning to the budget for 2026 and the medium -term financial strategy for subsequent years,

I welcome the long -awaited multi -year local government finance settlement, providing for

the first time the prospect of a funding floor for the years 2027 -28 and 2028 -29.

But I certainly do not welcome the extremely late change made to that settlement on 5 February,

which gave us a £700 ,000 reduction in that floor for those two years 2027 -28 and 2028 -29.

We do need to recognise the importance of ensuring a full medium -term financial strategy

is developed, including realistic figures for 2028 -29, so that our successor councillors

have reliable figures on which to base their own medium -term financial strategy.

Clearly, with two years left before reorganisation, our focus must be on preparing for the future,

leaving a positive legacy for the new Council or councils with no surprises.

Most immediately we need to renew the bulk of our waste fleet and pay for it.

Thanks to the careful approach in budgeting, the positive figures in Q1 and Q2 for natural

performance reports and the decision to review and strengthen vacancy management, those positive

trends have continued.

And even with the cautious approach to estimating future income, such as that from extended

producer responsibility, we have been able to plan to finance the waste fleet replacement

programme from existing council funds, and therefore we won't need to borrow to pay

for it.

And we're making it greener too, by using an electric vehicle for the first time and

sourcing hydro treated vegetable oil instead of diesel for the other new vehicles.

The financial resilience reserve that was established in April 2023 at 3 .3 million pounds

has been increased to a forecast 4 .3 million at the end of this financial year through

budget surpluses this year and last, giving us a strong platform as we prepare for the

local government reorganisation and deal with the impact of fairer funding 2 .0.

During this year's budget consultation, December 2025 to January 2026, those residents who

responded showed strong support for the Council's proposals. Two -thirds agreed or strongly agreed

with £5 Council tax increase to help close the funding gap caused by ongoing reductions

in government support. Residents also backed the Council's plans for service delivery in the run -up

to local government reorganisation. A clear majority, 56 .7%, favoured transforming services

to improve value for money, modernise operations and strengthen the foundations for the future

unitary councils. Before bringing my remarks to a close, I want to draw members' attention to

report of the Chief Finance Officer in Annex A on page 113. This is an important statement

where he sets out the Councillors for Natural Position and the risks we face.

In conclusion, I'd like to move recommendations 1 to 10 on pages 41 and 42 to thank the Deputy

Chief Executive, the Finance Team and all the Assistant Directors and Business Managers

across the Council and Publica for their work on this budget and I commend it to the Council

for approval.

But in doing so, I'd also like to express my admiration for the cross -party, constructive

and probing work of members of both the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Audit and Governance

Committee in helping monitor and challenge the financial performance of the Council in

its entirety, quarter by quarter.

This budget continues our work to safeguard the Council's finances and improve its services

as we prepare for reorganisation.

It continues to put Liberal Democrat values into practise and delivers on the priorities

of our administration to leave a lasting legacy for our district through the six main objectives

of our refreshed corporate strategy.

Preparing for the future, delivering good services, responding to the climate emergency,

delivering housing, supporting communities and supporting the economy.

This budget takes forward our work in all six areas and I commend it to all

members.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:30:57

Thank you very much Councillor Coleman and excellent timing if I may say so and

delivery. So the second for this I believe is Councillor Wilkinson. You

may reserve your right to speak if you wish or you can speak now. What would you

prefer to do? Reserve, okay. This is where we now then go to now with the

conservative group who who can respond here or you can respond later in this

substantive budget. Later, okay. And then now in which case we now move to the

Conservative amendment proposal which is again you I'm sure you're more than

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:31:41

aware of. You have five minutes. Yes thank you chair I'm proposing two amendments

which have been circulated in advance of the meeting. Firstly I'm pleased to

propose amendment one which proposes the establishment of the Cotswold District

Council legacy fund reserve to the sum of £190 ,000. This fund would be created

through the reallocation of resources from the existing council's priorities

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:32:02

Capacity Building earmarked reserve. In doing so we are not increasing overall

expenditure but instead redirecting funds to deliver a tangible and lasting

impact for our communities as we head towards LGR and the final days of this

Council. The amendment allocates £5 ,000 to each ward member, totaling £170 ,000,

with £20 ,000 set aside for administration. This ensures that these

reserves will be spread evenly across the districts and allocated a high

local level. Examples might include supporting youth activities, enhancing

the public realm or improving our local environments and biodiversity. These are

practical community focused investments that residents can see and benefit from

directly. Crucially this is a legacy fund. It is designed to support initiatives

that will endure beyond the life of Cotswold District Council. Projects must

align with the council's established priorities including preparing for the

and should leave a positive lasting mark on the district.

Secondly, I'm proposing amendment 2. This proposes a reduction in the

communications budget from £380 ,000 to £300 ,000 a year.

We accept that communications is an important aspect of any organization's

operations. It's no secret that we feel that the current budget is

disproportionate to the size of this council, particularly when certain

departments are clearly under -resourced. This still leaves a substantial pot to

run the communications team and focus on the basics of getting our residents up

to date. However it could well mean that we may need to go without the frightening

videos of the Chairman dancing about dressed as a witch. This £80 ,000 is then

reallocated to add extra resource of £40 ,000 to strength from the planning

enforcement team. This could either be used to create a customer service team

within the department to handle inquiries and updates or to provide extra

funding for existing roles to aid with recruitment and retention. The other

40 ,000 pounds is used to create a new Cotswold specific role in the land

drainage and flood defence team. With persistent and heavy rainfall leading to

more frequent flooding and major development on the horizon across the

district, the work of this team is becoming more and more important. This

will go some way to ensuring that the team is properly resourced and able to

carry out their duties to best effect. I urge all members to support these

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:34:22

amendments. Thank you. Thank you very much Councillor Stowe and I hope you enjoyed the

video. The seconder for that is Councillor David Fowles. Councillor Fowles, would you

like to speak to that?

Councillor David Fowles - 0:34:35

Thank you, Chairman and Members. I'm delighted to second both these amendments. The first

amendment in respect of the allocation and creation of this fund, I'd like to quote the

portfolio holder for finance in his statement earlier where he said we would like to leave

a positive legacy to residents of the district as we head towards local government reorganisation.

After nearly 50 years of service to residents, this council under various administrations,

not just the Liberal Democrats, have contributed significantly to the district with lasting

legacies such as in Sirencester a wonderful museum, internationally renowned and the leisure

centre facilities and we have other examples of that. Historically we used to have a council

of community fund and during the year when we were celebrating the 100th anniversary

at the end of the Second World War we allocated some monies that could be used at a local

level and that's why I feel it's really important as we have plenty of money in the reserves

to consider the idea of actually allocating ward members a sum of money which can be used

at a local level to create a lasting legacy.

This is not in any way criticising the wonderful

crowdfunding process that's brought lots of benefits

to our communities at a local level, but I know from

my own experience and shared with my colleagues that

there have been situations where crowdfunding has been

too difficult for certain people to try and exploit

at a local level.

As far as the Second Amendment is concerned,

and I'm delighted to second that.

Currently we have a very significant communication budget

of 380 ,000 pounds, which if I remember correctly,

equates to about 7 % increase in council tax,

whereby it used to be that 1 % council tax

equated to about 50 ,000 pounds.

Historically, we may have been over critical

of the money that was allocated to the communications budget

and we would acknowledge that the significant work

that's been done by the administration and by that team,

particularly with the local government reorganisation.

But we feel that much of this work has now been undertaken

as we head towards LGR.

And we are now in a situation, as was stated earlier,

by the leader where the government is now actually

taking on the role of consultation.

And we feel that it's perfectly reasonable

to reduce down the communications budget

and to reorganise that department

and to actually use the opportunity to look at the two areas that have been mentioned

by the leader of the conservative group. One is to strengthen our planning enforcement

team and the second obviously is to look at local flood resilience. We have lots of examples

in the district of planning enforcement issues. Depending upon which list you look at, last

time I looked there was over 600 outstanding enforcement issues. In my own ward and in

my neighbouring ward I know of examples whereby people are building without applying for planning

permission because they say Cotswold District Council are never going to enforce this building

work so they don't even bother to put in an application and they're prepared to take the

risk. As far as flooding is concerned I think we all experience that on a regular basis.

we all know that climate change is a major issue for us. Your administration

talks about that very significantly and we think that it's a very important

role and we could strengthen that local flood resilience team. So I'm delighted

to second both the amendments proposed by the Conservative group and hope that

we'll get some cross -party support. Thank you very much.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:38:29

Thank you Councillor Fowls and I hope you report those people who are building with our parliament.

Now, do we have any amendments from Greens or from Independence?

No.

Okay.

Right.

We move now to points of clarification on amendments.

And this is where if people have questions for clarification on that.

No.

Oh, Councillor Neill.

Oh, sorry.

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:38:58

That's my mistake.

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:39:01

I'm sorry. Did you have any idea about which areas for the communication budget could be cut?

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:39:12

Yes, thank you council Neil and at the moment the budget is around

380 ,000 we're looking to reduce down to

300 ,000

Ultimately that would be up to the service lead they'd be given their new budget and they would have to restructure the team and work

Out how they would make it operate within the budget and still deliver what they need to deliver just as any

organisation across the country, any business, they have to look at budgets

occasionally. When times get harder they need to reduce them, they need to adapt

and evolve to make it fit the new budget. So at the moment I believe it's about

£300 ,000 of that budget is salary and £80 ,000 is other

sort of promotional things and software and that sort of thing. So they would

have to, the Service League, given their new budget of £300 ,000, would have to adapt

it and make it fit.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:40:01

I have a question myself. We heard, I think it was the last meeting, that our head of

comms would be leading the work stream for local government reorganisation amongst the

collected councils and I think that's because of the seven councils. We've shown that we're

probably the strongest on comms there. I was a little bit concerned when the seconder said

that the government is taking over cons on that. I suppose my question is do you

trust this government to provide good communications that we can all rely on

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:40:41

on that matter? Yeah I mean I understand that the officer in question is

reading the whole county's cons regarding the LGR so I think the

county council are picking up therefore some of the bill for that

So maybe that is somewhere where there could be a saving potentially.

And yeah, I mean ultimately what it would come down to is we need to look at what comms we need to get out

and and we and you need to judge whether you think 380 000 a year is good value for taxpayers.

Could it could a similar arrangement be delivered with 300 000 pounds?

We believe it could do we think that private sector companies would not be spending anywhere near that amount of a budget on a

of a for an organisation this size. So ultimately that is up for members to judge.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:41:26

Thank you Tom. I've got Joe and then I've got Claire and then Councillor Jenkins.

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:41:32

I've got two questions of clarification if I may. The first on the

communications budget. So is that a one -off saving or is that an ongoing

revenue saving? So that would be an annual revenue saving. Okay and then on the on

the £40 ,000 from the planning services budget to work on in enforcement, how do

see that making a tangible difference because all the professionals, the local

government association and councils up and down the land are telling us that

actually this problem is a recruitment crisis, it's not an issue of cash. We have

cash in the system here I believe allocated to enforcement. The issue is we

can't get planning enforcement officers to stay. So why do

you think, I'd just like to know why you think £40 ,000 is actually going to

make a difference when we know this is a wider recruitment issue?

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:42:22

Down to supply and demand so you know you need to generate you know make it

more attractive to work here one way of doing that is to pay more money that

£40 ,000 goes towards enhancing the paid offers pay pay offer for those those

roles and hopefully it retain and recruit new people. Thank you Tom okay

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:42:42

I've got Councillor Jenkinson and then we've got Councillor Leckin. Thank you

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:42:50

On the second amendment, the proposal has three elements to it.

Is it the case that if we do not agree with one of those three elements,

for example, we might disagree that communication was the right place to find money,

or we might disagree with one of the other two, or the amount of it.

So if one piece of that was something we couldn't agree with, would that presumably mean that the whole proposal should fall?

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:43:29

Council Jenkins will be aware that any amendment that we put forward has to be fully funded and agreed by the section 151 officer.

So we've looked at areas of weakness or perceived weakness where we think that there's under -resource.

We've therefore found somewhere to fund it in a simple way

now of course council Jenkinson if he wants to

Hire extra enforcement teams or land drainage experts and you thinks that's a good idea

Then you could have I don't know if you could have amended put forward your own amendment

But you haven't done so so I assume you're happy with the current status quo in both of those departments

Thank You councillor Stowe council Layton

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:44:04

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:44:09

Thank you. I might be being a little naive here, well, for now. You mentioned

comms in terms of if we were a corporate body, you know, public sector, no that's

the wrong word, but private sector, they would be cutting their cloth according

to their finances, but we're a public body and we need to get information out

to everybody in the district in the best way possible.

And I think with all the things that are going on

with the council at the moment,

we've got consultations from the government

that we're advising people on, like the MPPF,

we've got our local plan, we've got LGR,

and we've got our budget and our taxes and everything

that we have got to get that information

in a really clear, good way, in a multitude of ways

so people can understand it.

and I therefore don't think we can equate what we do here with our fantastic

cons team actually they have been so supportive and incredible in the work

that we've been doing I don't see how we can equate it to to the private sector

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:45:21

so that's my query. Often tempting though isn't it particularly when you're

yourself. Right, do we have any more points for clarification? No? If not, I

will then turn to the Chief Executive who will announce the Deputy Chief

Executive's views on the budget amendments.

Would you go? Pass straight across. So I can confirm that the opposition group

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:45:43

did submit a budget amendment that was in accordance with the budget protocol.

They had engagement with me as the section 151 officer and I provided advice around the

use of earmarked reserves given the section 25 statement makes specific reference to the

adequacy of the reserves. So I'm content that the amendment as proposed does address the

issue of looking to be fully funded and it does address the issue in terms of the rebalancing

of the council priority reserves rather than looking at the adequacy of reserves overall.

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:46:25

Thank you very much David. I'm going to look to Councillor Evermy and say do you want to

adjourn for 20 minutes or do you know where you stand?

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:46:39

Thank you Chair. I think in the protocol my understanding is Councillor Coleman

formally should tell the council what the view of the administration is to

these amendments. As and when he does that I think given that we have seen

these amendments and thank the Conservative group for sharing this with

us in advance we have had the opportunity to consider them and we

don't feel there's a need to adjourn the meeting to consider them further. Thank

you councillor Overmute and my apologies for that force of habit given your previous

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:47:07

over many years. Councillor Coleman would you like to advise members

where the administration has accepted budget amendments or otherwise?

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:47:23

Thank you chair. Yes we've considered this these amendments. Thank you very

much. I echo that thanks to the opposition for providing them in good

time taking proper officer advice. We also have consulted officers of course.

We've looked and discussed them with seriousness but we are not in a position

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:47:51

to support either amendment. Thank you very much Councillor Coleman. Now we now

move to the debate on the amendments where we... amendments not accepted so any

member may speak on this and I'm going to give you five minutes each. You get

one chance to speak on this okay and then you can't come back and speak

although you can come back and speak in the substantive debate and I've got

Councillor Joe Harris first, I've got Councillor Evermy, I've got

Councillor Hodgkinson, Councillor Neill, Councillor Bloomer. Keep writing.

We'll catch up. If I haven't called your name, hold your hand up and we'll get you

down. So we'll go to Councillor Joe Harris first.

Could I just ask, are we going to debate each one separately or are you wanting us to address

our comments to both amendments at the same time?

Go for both for the ease of time.

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:48:46

Thank you, Chair. Well, crikey. I mean, I've seen some pretty lacklustre opposition performances

in budget meetings over the last few years, but this takes the biscuit, doesn't it? After

weeks of build up, you know, the budget, the centrepiece of every council's year, you know,

the opportunity to put forward those things that your residents want you to champion and

this is what we get. This is the sum total of the Conservatives' alternative budget.

At least Reform UK at Shire Hall got Chat GPT to do their donkey work. It's embarrassing.

No vision, no strategy, no answers to the financial pressures that councils face and

this council faces just for a handful of small tweaks

made by moving funding around,

moving the deck chairs around the margins.

Let's call this legacy fund what it is.

It's a councilor's slush fund dressed up as a legacy.

5 ,000 pounds per member with 20 ,000 pounds

on administration.

That's taxpayers money diverted into political projects.

That's what it is.

They're proposing to strip money out of capacity building.

the very funding that helps the council function effectively.

So while services face pressure in this council,

their priority is award member giveaway scheme.

If this is about legacy, the real legacy should be handing

over strong finances and sound services

to a new unitary authority, not commemorative benches

and notice boards.

And, you know, in terms of governance,

what's the criteria?

Who signs this off?

Where's the transparency?

It's our hard working officers who are already stretched

at the minute.

It risks politicising funding allocation rather than targeting need, but we know the Conservatives have got form in that area unfortunately.

So let's look very quickly to the planning enforcement amendment.

Well listen, I don't think anybody on this side of the Chamber would disagree we need better planning enforcement. Nobody would doubt that whatsoever.

But as is always the case with the Conservatives at this administration, they've done absolutely no homework.

They produce no workforce plan, no recruitment strategy, no detail, no communications plan

on how we're going to implement any of this.

We have a recruitment crisis in planning.

So throwing 40 grand at it is not going to solve the issue.

It's naivety of the highest order.

It really, really is.

And again, we look at flooding, an incredibly, incredibly important issue, and particularly

at the moment with high water levels.

And we know that many communities are rightly concerned.

But that's my work is already happening in this administration and perhaps if they

Dain to speak to the cabinet member or the leader

They understand some of the work that is going on at the minute with respect to with respect to flooding

But listen a single assistant post with no operational framework behind it is not the solution to

Our problems here what we lack in this

district when it comes to flooding is large capital schemes and therefore the funding for them.

That is what we learn. It's not a flood strategy, it is a job title that the Conservatives are putting forward.

And here we go, isn't it? We all know that quote, don't we?

The definition of insanity is just repeating the same old thing, doing the same old thing.

And here we go again with communications. How many times have we been in this budget meeting?

We've got our friends over there, oh communications, communications, you're all about PI, you're all about this.

And then we get, oh, actually, they've done quite a good job on the local plan, haven't they?

Oh, yeah, our head of community is actually quite good.

Well, you know, listen, proof is in the pudding, isn't it?

And here we go again. Let's cut the communication budget.

I say no, that communication budget is the thing that makes sure vulnerable people are supported.

Communities are empowered to have their say on things like the local plan.

It is incredibly, incredibly important.

Cutting communications may save penalties, but ultimately it undermines the fundamental public accountability

accountability that all of us here should strive for.

So listen, let's be honest.

This is about silencing council communications,

not about saving money.

This isn't a budget alternative.

It is a parish council wishlist.

No proposals on the housing crisis and pressures we face.

Nothing on the cost of living.

Nothing on climate or infrastructure

and no long -term financial sustainability.

That's what you get with the Conservatives.

They had years to deliver these ideas

when they were administration

and all they did was cut council tax.

Well, look at the pressures we face now

because of their decision to do that.

All the council housing got flogged off

and they spent all the money.

Say listen, I'm incredibly proud

of this Lib Dem administration led by Mike,

supported by Patrick on the finances.

This administration has produced

a balanced strategic budget,

investing in the future of the Cotswolds,

making sure we have something fit for purpose

to hand over to a unitary authority.

The conservative alternative is a reallocation exercise with a press release attached. It's not serious

It's not what residents need and for goodness sake

Let's hope these lot never end up back in power. Thank you

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:53:47

Feisty

Council I'm gonna go to council Neil now. Thank you very much

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:53:58

Thank you very much. Yeah, Councillor Fowles, you and I were both on the previous administration,

well you were on the previous administration and I was in the council with you, when we

did have, as you mentioned, we had historical funding where councils, each individual member

was given a certain allocation. I think it was about two and a half thousand was it?

I can't remember.

But I have to say, I did sometimes

struggle to find in my ward appropriate ways in which

to use that finances.

And I was sometimes scrabbling around

and trying to make sure all the money was spent.

But I can't help feeling that it was just

on the basis of I must spend this money.

I must get this money spent within my ward.

Whereas I think out of the change of us

not getting that individual allowance for members.

Gru, the idea of the Crowdfund project,

I hear what you say that some people may find it difficult,

but I've got a big project coming up in stone.

And we're looking at having a bike park,

you know, with trucks and what have you.

Please come and have a look at it when it's built.

And obviously, crowdfunding is the way to go to that.

I mean, if I had a 5 ,000 pound allowance,

I would clearly give it, but it seems to me that pushing crowdfunding, using the

offices that we have behind the crowdfunding to support and help people

who want to do it is a better way to move forward for community projects

which will give us a lasting legacy. I hope, you know, before I resign that

before the council ends that we will have our bike park in stow. Yeah. I won't

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:55:43

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:55:44

comment on the other amendment because um Councillor Harris has said enough I

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:55:51

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:55:54

think nothing more to say he's sort of step that he said everything there is to

say it is what it is my thing thank you Councillor Neil I appreciate I look

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:56:02

forward to coming to the bike park as well yeah yeah I've got Councillor

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:56:10

ever be next. Thank you chair. So in terms of the two amendments, so the first one

Joe has sort of explained about some of the down pitfalls of it but I think I

have a perspective that when I came and took over as the cabinet member for

finance that it was my job to make decisions on some of this ward funding

and I know how much work had to go on behind the scenes from officers to

administer all of that. Administratively it's quite complex. There's 34 of us. There

were allocations to 34 of us and actually it was very small amounts of

money. Yeah as Dilly said I remember it being a little bit less than that and

actually it was just the council in often ways giving money to projects that

in many times could have been funded by parish and town councils. What we have

done in our award -winning crowdfund Cotswold is we've used our money to

leverage more money to come in to support these projects.

There's some fantastic Crowdfund Cotswolds projects

all over the district from Chipping Camden in the north

to Tettery in the south to Fairford.

The skate park was a very recent one that has been done.

So this amendment fundamentally undermines

Crowdfund Cotswolds, just to let you know that.

Because essentially what this is saying is

we'll have 190 grand that we'll give out

through some different metric than the money

that we're putting into Crowdfund Cotswolds.

It's not as much as 190 ,000 and when maybe in a year's time we might be able to put a bit more in for that for the final year.

Next year the allocation for Crowd1 Cotswold for money to give out to communities is 55 ,000 pounds.

So there's money there for people to come and bid for for community projects.

And we can have a look at in a year's time whether we think and obviously in discussion with the Chief Finance Officer there is more money available.

But fundamentally at the moment, we don't, this would undermine that.

The other thing about this amendment is it's suggesting that the money comes from the capacity building reserve.

The capacity building reserve is a million pounds reserve that's been put by to enable us to find our way to the end of this council in two years time.

the Deputy Chief Executive has already allocated almost half of that, just under half a million pounds,

for staffing requirements in the next financial year. So there really is only half a million of that unallocated.

And if we do this proposal and we vote for this, there'll be, you know, 310 ,000 of that half a million left.

So on both grounds, I would urge members to reject that. And just to point out as well that the examples that are given in there,

those things can be funded through Crowdfund Cotswolds.

So if people want to support projects

that support youth activity, public realm,

local environment and biodiversity,

the Crowdfund Cotswolds is the way to go for that.

Moving on to the Second Amendment.

Clearly, you know, we all, planning enforcement,

we acknowledge is an issue,

but it's the issue of getting the staff,

it's not having the budget to pay for them,

it's not the issue.

So chucking more money at something

when the staff isn't there doesn't change the problem.

Similarly and the former leader referred to this in terms of where we are with the flood team

Members on the opposition may not may not be aware

But you know in terms of where we are flood risk management will be moving back from public to the council

So currently discussions going on with staff to that vein

So we will be having dedicated staff some of whom that we will be familiar with working for us in this council

And so if we do feel that, you know, there is a need for more resource there,

then we can put it by, but at the moment, I don't think in terms

of where the needs are and capital projects that are largely completed,

there isn't the demand, I don't think, to allocate another job.

And just picking up on the final point about communications, and I know we talked about this,

those of us who were here 12 months ago.

I want to point out to members, though, that, you know,

The debate we had then, we said we're not going to change the budget and we agreed the

budget.

In the budget you've got coming forward, there is a saving of £62 ,000 in the communications

budget based on what's being spent, what was allocated this year, because the new head

of communications who came in in April looked at the team structure and there was a role

there, campaign manager that he decided he didn't need to fill.

So we've already had a £62 ,000 saving in communications.

If you vote for this amendment, essentially what's going to happen is someone's going to lose their job

or we won't be able to do the communications that we need to do.

And I think we've all heard how good our communications team, how they're doing a fantastic job.

So I think we need to support them and reject both of these amendments.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:00:59

Thank you very much. Mike, next we've got Councillor Jenkinson.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:01:07

Thank you, Chair. In the process in which I was asking questions, my name was then mentioned

in response from the opposition. Therefore, I'm rising simply to confirm that his assumptions

about my position were quite false. I've made my position very clear. They are in line with

the points you've already heard, that we do have concerns about enforcement and other

issues but this is not the right way to go about it.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:01:37

Thank you, Councillor Jenkinson for that clarification. Councillor Hodgkinson.

Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 1:01:43

Thank you, yeah. I mean, I think it's quite interesting listening to the Conservative

amendments that if you look at all the things which, when people are polled across the country,

the most important things for them, usually what comes out top is the cost of living crisis.

then it's health, often there it's something to do with crime and safety

and protecting the environment. So I'm disappointed that in the conservative

amendments we're not looking at those things which matter to people on the

ground. And in this budget which Patrick so eloquently proposed, you know there

are there is a substantial investment in helping people with the cost of living

crisis and I know my colleague Claire Blima will talk about the excellent work

that she's done there. There's substantial investment in health through

leisure centres and the health and wellbeing team. There's investment in crime and safety

through the community safety partnership and of course there's a massive investment in

getting to net zero, which I know the Tories don't like anymore. You used to like it and

now you don't like it. Well, we're still committed to it because we've just, if you hadn't noticed,

we just had the wettest winter on record. After the driest summer on record, something's

going wrong here. So we have to tackle that. Now just the other point I wanted to make

about the suggested Legacy Fund reserve.

You know, at the county council last autumn,

I launched what we call the Grassroots Neighbourhood Fund.

Every county councillor gets 20 ,000 pounds to spend

in their community on grassroots neighbourhood projects.

A really good fund.

So please do, what I suggest instead of this amendment,

please do lobby your county councillors.

And there are, among us, there are county councillors here.

There is a conservative councillor

who I don't think is here today,

so do lobby the county councillor

because actually each county councillor has that fund.

Now some may have spent it already, but a lot haven't.

So, and we, and that particular fund

does address some of those points.

It can support youth activity.

It can improve the public realm,

public health, health and wellbeing,

and minimising health inequality.

So it's a great fund that you could potentially tap into

in a different way by lobbying your county councillor.

So I would just urge you rather than voting for these amendments. I would urge you to go down that track. Thank you

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:03:59

Thank you very much council Hodgkinson council Layton. I think is next

Thank you. Thank you

well, yes, I just

The money to be allocated to each board member

I think this we were on about two thousand pounds and as you rightly said it was very difficult to find

something that we could be spending that money on and I do know that within this council neighbouring council wards

Were pooling their money to make a bigger pot

I'm trying to imagine what five thousand would do per ward member to

Councillor Juliet Layton - 1:04:34

Leave a lasting legacy after CDC exists and I can only really think you could have a few benches

Maybe with some you know plaques on because what is going to be lasting from that?

it's not a lot of money. So I couldn't quite work out what that could be. Also it

says about improving the local environment and biodiversity which is

something that this council does very actively. It's part of our corporate plan.

It's in all our planning, I thought any application that comes in all of that is

taken into consideration. So biodiversity and environment are really on our

strategic thoughts here. The Second Amendment, we've heard about the lack of

people that are coming forward with qualifications suitable to do

enforcement. We have got the money you're suggesting is would be a fairly sort of

not maybe junior role but it wouldn't be a principal enforcement officer or maybe

a senior officer, we recruit and we've recruited more than once and it's a continuous thing

and I want to just assure Councillor Julia Judd and Len Wilkinson who ask me on a very

regular basis whether or not we go to Career Transition Partnership which works with people

retiring out of the armed forces and yes we do and we are still not getting people suitable

to fill those roles so I can't support this either. Thank you. Thank you

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:06:12

Councillor Layton. Councillor Bloomer. Thank you chair. Yeah I just wanted to

Councillor Claire Bloomer - 1:06:17

just make a few comments really. I became a councillor because I really want to

represent the people that live in my ward and I'm really proud of the fact

that through our communications we've actually run 17 campaigns through the

programme which has supported 9 ,000 residents, actually over 9 ,000 and it's

also brought in over 340 ,000 pounds and that's just in this year. So I really

support the communications that this office has done and also on your

amendment one about the ward funding which was a bit before my time and the

Crowdfund Cotswolds which has been award -winning and it's also again a

great way of residents to actually support projects that they want in their

wards, not what's dictated to them by councillors. So I won't be supporting this.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:07:11

Thank you, Councillor Bloomer and maiden comments. Councillor Firling.

Councillor Craig Thurling - 1:07:20

Yes, thank you. So although I'm the member for the Risling

Centre, I live in Moreton in Marsh where you probably know the river even though it causes a lot of

flooding issues.

So I'm also the chair of the Flood Action Group.

And I think from my point, with the, about the funding

for the flood assistance role, it's not necessarily

about that, it's more around working and aligning

with the agencies.

So the problem that we've had in Morton was that there

was no communication between various agencies

like County Council, CDC, environment agency,

Thames Water.

So what we're doing from a multi -agency approach

is working together and speaking to the landowners

to try and implement some natural flood management.

So the crucial bit for us is to reduce the,

well to slow the flow of the water.

It's not necessarily about having an additional person

to help out, it's the overall strategy

and the process that we're trying to implement.

So, and we're starting to see some improvements.

I mean the proof will be put in in the future,

but we're hopeful that the changes that we're implementing

are gonna have a real impact.

So if your residents within your wards

are concerned about flooding,

you know, I'm happy to sort of share the ideas

that we've had in Morton if they want to settle their own flood action group so

feel free to contact me accordingly and I can sort of help out if you want.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:08:37

Thank you. Thanks Craig. Do you have any comments here?

Or part of debate? Yeah go for it. Are you going to do it to the end? Okay well I've

got... Councillor End. Yeah. Thank you chair just really a couple of comments. One is

Councillor Nikki Ind - 1:08:51

about Crowdfund Cotswold which has been, as Councillor Bloom said, very successful and

award -winning. And for Councillor Fowls talking about he knows people who find it quite difficult.

I attended one of their training sessions when they first started, so I think if you've

got projects in your ward or in the district where people are finding it difficult, please

attend one of those training sessions and they've got lots of support to help people

set those those projects up. And then just the other thing was on the capacity

building fund I noted it's 7 .23 on page 93 the recommendation that we have a 1

million pounds budget in there as Councillor Evongle has said already half of

that's gone and that is all about establishing you know making sure that

we're staff resourced we're about to enter a real period of change and a huge

shift not only for the council as a council but for our staff and for our

teams and I would just be very wary of spending money out of there which is

clearly vital for the future going forward. Many thanks.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:10:02

Councillor Len Wilkins - 1:10:06

Thank you councillor and councillor Wilkins. Thank you chair. Crowd -fundering

is great it works. Try doing it in a rural ward where you've got a few hundred

houses. It's much more difficult to do but I accept it works in the large

conurbations and the other thing just to clear up Councillor Layton's confusion

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:10:32

Tristan Wilkinson bats for her side then Wilkinson doesn't. It happens. If we've got if we

haven't got any more comments before I go to... Oh I'm so sorry Councillor Spivey.

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 1:10:41

Thank you very much. So just a couple of points I wanted to pick up on just for

clarification that is really important. So just around the comms and LGR in

particular, so just to be really clear that we're all funding this and so it's

not the County Council that's picking up the budget for comms, we are sharing in

fact we made a 45 -55 split on all of the work that's happening across the

the entire of the local gun reorganisation programme. Ongoing Council will be paying

a sixth of that 45%. Unfortunately, you can't just palm us off. Absolutely. I have to say

that Matt is doing an absolutely outstanding job. I was very pleased that he got the lead

to sponsor the programme. He is leading on it. He is doing an absolutely fantastic job

of ensuring that all stakeholders are being kept informed, that the communications are in plain

English, are very visible, they are also very eye -catching and engaging. So I think he's doing

an absolutely brilliant job and I really hope that he'll be continuing in that role throughout

this process. The other thing I just wanted to pick up on as well was on Crowdfund Cotswold,

as somebody who represents a rural ward, I can say that has been absolutely hammered

by everybody in my ward, but they really, really have used it to its complete, very

good effect. So we've had from the solar panels in Antecrusis to the electric lawnmower in

Colton to the guides in Maisie Hampton to, you know, playgrounds galore.

Down the amni crisis.

Yeah, exactly.

So many, many areas have used that really to excellent effect.

And what they've done as well is it's really galvanised the community.

So it's not just been about handing out money.

And that should be our legacy.

It's not about just being this sort of patriarchal system where we hand out a

a dosh here and there. What we want to do is build communities. That is our legacy. That is what the

Cotswolds is all about. And crowdfunding, galvanising a community to get behind something, to really make

the most of it, for them to have their voice and their say and what they want is exactly what we

should be doing. So let's not take away from capacity building. Let's make sure that we are

building a legacy which is about communities in the Cotswolds. So I will not be supporting

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:13:21

either of the amendments. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Spivey.

Councillor McEwen. I just wanted to say a few words and support really a

Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:13:28

crowdfund cost more than the amendments just to really echo your points about it

really works it can get a galvanising community and it does work in rural

areas. I'm in the Kemble Ward, very rural you know we raised 16 ,000 pounds for a

community energy project with a whole bunch I think it was over a hundred

sorry 50 residents and local businesses.

We raised 10 ,000 pounds for the beautiful Campbell community gardens and

galvanised the whole community behind saving those lovely gardens.

That was super support.

Another 30 ,000 in Campbell for their play area for the kids.

Again, massive support from the community.

But there's also small stuff.

I mean, we did little fun things like in Rob Martin, they've just raised,

think it's about two thousand pounds just to restore the Nacogne red

phone box which is a sort of bit of a part of the community and put an AED in it.

So might save a life perhaps one day and you know looking over there at the King

we raised I think it was only like three hundred pounds we just did a

little tiny one in my village for the King's coronation where we just

wanted to raise some money for a street party and some bouncy castles and stuff.

it's great there's lots of things you can use it so I'd encourage everybody to

tap into it because I completely agree it's not just the money and it is a nice

thing that it multiplies but it's just a great way of getting the community

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:14:54

involved and organised. Thank you, thank you Councillor McEwen. Well before we go to

Councillor Doherty, just a couple of things I'd like to point out. I mean one thing that

will still be around in 20 years time and a reminder of Cotswold District

So, you know, gone but not forgotten, although I'm afraid I seem to remember the former

leader was deeply criticised by some people from it.

The other thing is I've worked, and I'm sure some of my council colleagues who also

work in marketing, when you're advising clients, you know, how much they should be

spending as a percentage of their turnover, in the sort of B2B area, it's around sort

of 6 to 8 percent.

I think last year in the UK averaged around 7 .7 % across the piece.

Before COVID it was 11%.

But on that basis for this organisation,

that should be around between 1 .3 and 1 .8 million pounds

that we're spending on communication.

So I think we're getting good bang for buck.

Anyway, I'm going to go to Tom now,

who's going to sum up the debate on the amendments.

Not accepted.

And you have five minutes, Tom.

Thank you, Chair. I won't need that long. First of all, street signs. I mean, I love

Councillor Tom Stowe - 1:16:09

the street signs. We just had one installed in Mickelson at Ballard's Close. It took 18

months from it being ordered. So we could probably do a bit of an improvement there.

I mean, I think what we've done here, clearly these amendments haven't passed, but what

we have done, if we can take a positive out of it, is we have highlighted a couple of

areas which are clearly under -resourced and all members seem to accept that. So I look

forward to hearing from the leader over the next 12 months and what he's going

to do about enforcement the flood teams Councillor furlings it sorry furlings

yeah so you mentioned the CDC you know bringing together the agencies and that

was the requirement needed to really make a difference that is actually what

CDC's main role is in flood flooding flooding they don't have those you have

the lead local authority they can also have enforcement powers they can make

farmers clear ditches for example and that sort of thing so you know I felt

that actually having another Cotswold specific flood officer would have been a

very valuable role in doing that and helping them across the district but as

again as you say now that is moving back in house it'll be interesting to see how

that develops and what happens in the next 12 months and once that new team

that's moved over the Cotswold District Council has settled in and that's all

I'm going to say thank you chair. Thank you councillor Stoeck appreciate the brevity

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:17:29

and now the cabinet member for finance has a right to respond to the

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:17:38

Conservative amendment if he so wishes. If he so wishes. On this occasion I will

take that opportunity thank you very much chair. What a wonderfully

comprehensive debate we've had. Thank you all for taking part and most of it was

very, well all of it really was very good -natured and I was particularly

struck reflecting on the difference between the system where each of the

councillors had the same amount of money to spend on a local good cause,

possibly attaching their own name to it to help them get re -elected. The MPs did

that from time to time I think. You can't really call it pork barrel

because it's as they do in America because it's not really that big but it

is so much better if it gets the seal of public approval like

Crowdfund Cotswold does by putting people not only saying I support it but

putting some money in and if it you've got only small amounts it just takes a

bit longer but most of it gets there in the end if it's got public support.

At one point I was thinking I would be able to at least go as far as Harold

Macmillan did in 1961 when there was one of those early and brief liberal

revivals and I see that he was speaking to the the Conservatives in London

and probably they were more numerous then than now.

And at that point, he was a very witty man.

Most of you should look up what he said

when Khrushchev banged the table.

Anyway, the answer is there they were in the United Nations,

rather emotional man, was very angry,

he was President of Russia, Communist Russia,

banged the table, and Mr. McMillan,

who was on his feet at the time, said,

And, um, translation please.

And as the translators translated that, the ripple of laughter went round the General

Assembly.

So, what did Mung say?

He said, at least, as usual, the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas.

Unfortunately, none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is

sound.

And, yes, um, unfortunately, I have to say that the amendments don't quite meet that

criteria. The original ideas aren't sound and there aren't any sound ideas. The new

ideas aren't sound either. The old ones aren't. But they were worth doing because we need

to be challenged. We are going to continue to be, I hope, a cooperative administration

wherever appropriate. And I hope that we see a continuing move in this spirit as we go

through working this budget out because going back to the main theme there's

still a lot of tough decisions and prudent savings that need to be made to

keep us on track not just for this year but the two years of the medium -term

financial strategy. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Coleman. Right we're going to

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:20:32

go to the vote now and well I think we'll take them both together that seems

easier unless you have a burning desire to split them. No? Good. So if we could

fire up the voting system that'd be great.

We will go on to the next one.

Do you want to remind them what you what they go to and for?

4 is for the amendments.

Yeah, 4 is for the amendments against is against the amendments, just to be clear.

before we accidentally...

I think that's it. So that's 21 against those amendments and

7 for. Thank you very much.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:21:33

Right, we're now going to...

We're all good? We're all happy with that over there?

Yeah that seems to be some the judges seem to be chatting amongst themselves

and there's a big VAR going on. Andrew is everything okay? Right we're going to move now to the

substantive budget and what we're going to first thing we're going to do now is

we're gonna have questions on the substantive budget. A member who's asked

question thus far may ask a supplementary one and the cabinet member for finance will respond.

So questions on the substantive budget.

Okay, I'm actually very clear. So if there aren't any questions I'll then go to

conservative groups to respond to the substantive budget if the right was

reserved prior to amendment. I can't remember now. No it wasn't. It's already spoken.

You've already spoken Tom on it.

Yeah I tell you what I'm going to let you speak on this on the substantive.

Yeah yeah go for it. Yeah yeah. Thank you chair. First I want to thank Deputy CEO

David Stanley and his team for the huge amount of efforts that goes into

preparing the budget. I couldn't quite believe that this is my fifth Cotswold

District Council budget meeting. Time really does fly in the world of local

government finance. It seems for reasons outside this council's control that

there won't be many more of these meetings as we head rapidly towards

local government reorganisation and the swallowing up of this council into a

currently unknown entity. It is peculiar to be presented with the MTFS which in

is running beyond time when this Council will exist.

However, it is important that we hand over the finances

in as good a state as possible,

despite the uncertainties and major issues

that have become apparent

that some of the other lower tier authorities

that we are potentially going to be merged with.

The implications of this will not become clear for some time.

It would be remiss of me not to congratulate

Councillor Coleman on delivering his first budget

in the finance portfolio role,

the first budget that I've attended,

not delivered by Councillor Ebermann.

However, it's clear that his fingerprints

are all over this document in his role as leader.

There does seem to be a slight shift away from the excess and extravagance of the previous

leader's reign.

It seems that the impending LGR and other happenings have focused the minds, but there

is still certainly a hangover from those times.

I believe this to be the seventh Liberal Democrat budget.

Despite the ever increasing pressures on residents' pockets, CDC's proportion of

council taxes once again increasing by the maximum permitted amount without holding a

A £5 increase doesn't sound much, but if we look at it cumulatively, since 2020 has

increased by 27 % to £164 per year based on a Band D property.

They all claim they have had no choice, but budget decisions are a result of political

decisions.

If we compare this to neighbouring Wychhaven District Council, a council of similar size

and type of authority, they have increased theirs by just 6 % over the same period.

From a similar starting point position, CDC Council taxpayers now pay 28 % more than our

neighbours in Wychhaven.

The contrast is stark.

Of course, Council tax isn't the only cash cow favoured by this administration.

Once again, the green bin tax is increasing by £4 .73.

Since 2020, this represents a staggering 143 % increase and of course, they halved the collections

during that time.

It's a similar storey with car parking charges and all other discretionary fees.

Other than a few pre -election gimmicks with temporary freezes along the way, the cost

of this council to residents has only gone one way.

This time last year we were staring down the centre of not one but multiple black holes.

The uncertainty and gaps in the MCFS were a severe worry and the spectre of the replacement

bin fleet which had been on the horizon for several years was generating a significant

gap in the capital budget. Fortunately the government funding settlement

landed very favourably for this council ending up considerably better

off than was anticipated. This has alleviated some of these pressures and

given some degree of future certainty. Although as of everything

associated with this government it didn't come without a company drama and an

Councillor Tom Stowe - 1:26:05

inevitable blunder resulting in having to plug a £700 ,000 gap for a

one -off grounds. The total cost of this blunder nationwide was 115 million

It does make you who on earth is accountable for this.

This has allowed the council to shift some pots around and proceed with the procurement

of the new bin collection fleet without the need for borrowing.

This capital investment is welcome.

A lot of these reserves and balances in the budget are ultimately just lines on spreadsheets

until they are realised and there's a danger that some of it will be swallowed up during

the LGR process.

By investing in the new fleet the residents of the Cotswolds will be left with something

tangible – some real assets providing a service each week as we move through the LGR

process and beyond. Under service delivery the fallout from the Publica

transition continues to have an enduring impact on the finances of this Council.

We recognise the potential benefits of the process however this group raised

significant concerns from the very start that the future financial impact of

delivering these services in -house had been grossly underestimated. This has

proven to be the case delivering these services in -house is now costing six

£640 ,000 per year more than it did via Publica.

This in itself is acting as a huge drag on our operational agility and our ability to

deliver services to the highest level.

Some departments, such as planning enforcement and environmental protection, are heavily

under -resourced.

The Council spends four and a half times more on communications and spin than it does on

the flood defence.

Despite the change in leadership, we know where this administration priority lies.

While we recognise the hard work of officers, we cannot support a budget that continues

to rely on hiking council tax fees and charges and continuing to place the burden on residents

while failing to properly address the council's underlying issues.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:27:53

Thank you Councillor Stowe. So now into a general debate on the substantive budget so

if you'd like to put your hand up if you'd like to debate I'm going to go to Councillor

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:28:04

me first and then Councillor Dale. Thank you, Chair, and I want to stand to support the

budget proposed by Councillor Coleman and address a little bit of what Councillor Stowe

has just said to us. Absolutely, I'm involved in this budget like I was involved in the

last six that I presented in this Council because essentially this is the biggest decision

that we're going to take and the leader and the director of the cabinet member

for finance are always heavily involved in the budget and certainly Joe was when

he was the leader and I was the cabinet member of finance. So I think it's

interesting you tried to nuance some sort of difference because ultimately this is

our administration. It's the seventh budget that we've presented to this

council and I'm incredibly proud of it. Incredibly proud of the work on lift

that Councillor Bloomer has talked to us about.

I'm really proud that the decisions that was criticised

by Councillor Stowe that we took

that weren't necessarily gonna be popular

are why this council has sound finances.

Because we have raised the council tax,

we're not in the situation that some of our colleagues

like Somerset are facing because of the neglect

of the Somerset County Council

when it was run by the Conservatives for years and years.

And they're now in financial difficulty

because they didn't put the council tax up.

And so we do.

We have put the council tax up, but it's a very small amount.

And every year we've gone out to the residents.

We've done a public consultation.

Every year, at least half, and this last year,

two -thirds of those people responding agreed with us

that the modest increase in council tax was reasonable.

And as I'm sure members are aware, council tax,

the government now assumes that we're going

to put our council tax up by the maximum.

If we don't, you've lost that income for the future years,

and you just put yourself in a weaker financial position.

And I think the most important legacy for this council

that we can leave to our successors is sound finances.

And this is a budget of sound finances.

The fact that we don't need to borrow money

to pay to renew our waste fleet, 6 million pounds,

is down to the work that Councillor David Stanley has done

and the work that I've done previously

and Councillor Coleman has taken on and our finance team

to look at how we can ensure that we as a council are running things financially in

a sound way. And that investment is really, really important. It will mean that the, as

acknowledged by Councillor Stowe, it will mean that our waste service can continue into

the new authority running efficiently and then the new authority can decide how they

want to organise it. But our residents will continue to get a good quality of service

because we're making that investment.

And I think it's really, really important.

I want to address the point around Publica.

We made a decision to bring staff back to our council

because we believed that was going to deliver better services.

And I think we can see that that is what is happening.

We have senior officers that we can fill permanent positions.

We just talked about how good our communications team is.

That's a communications team that came back from Publica.

And now we've got a really strong communications team who did a fantastic job on the local plan,

and they will continue to do a great job, I'm sure, going forward. So part of that, yes, it

costs us some money to have some officers come back to the council because the pension contributions

have gone up essentially for those people. But I think when you look at the quality of the service

and the way in which we're delivering services to residents, that is money that we did budget for.

It wasn't grossly underestimated. You can look at the figures that David Stanley provided,

and we are delivering in terms of the performance

against the costs that we were looking at.

So I want to finish off by just saying to members,

this is a continuation budget,

it is the seventh budget

that we have proposed as administration.

There's lots of good stuff in there,

as Patrick has talked about,

and I would urge all members to not listen to

what the leader of the opposition has said to us,

and I think it's about a third or fourth one of these

that he's done in responding to the budget.

And I know that's a difficult job to do

because I've done it myself in the past.

But this is a really sound budget.

It's robust, it balances.

The fact that we have had two years,

we've put nearly a million pounds into our reserves,

which we're now planning to how we can spend those reserves.

We've just had that conversation in the last two years

of this council to support our finances.

There is still more work to do, as Councillor Coleman said,

looking in the year after next and the year after that in the medium term financial strategy.

So we won't, we'll continue to need to make savings and efficiencies, but I would urge members to support this budget.

I think it's a really prudent budget that delivers on this administration's priorities. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ebony.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:32:56

Little ripple of applause there from behind you.

Councillor Dale.

Councillor Tony Dale - 1:33:07

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I actually had three things I wanted to talk to about on this budget, and they

were substantive items in the main budget in the sense that it's very rare for a council

of our scale simply to be able to underpin a new, brand new, really great waste collection

service, potentially for the next five to ten years, with capital from our own reserves.

That puts us in an almost unique situation in the United Kingdom.

I think that harks back to the prudent management of money over the last five or six years of

this administration.

I am so pleased for our residents and our businesses that it means their bins will be

collected by lorries that will not be breaking down and will be very positive for the environment

in a way that no one else is going to get that guarantee over the coming years.

I mentioned prudent and one of the things that's very prudent about this budget is the

business rates collection.

That's been an omnishambles quite frankly.

There are now businesses out there across the Cotswolds which are struggling with ludicrous

changes to their business rates bill. I will quote you just two. A two man business, two

person business who's had their business rates bill go from zero to 10 ,000 pounds. It's inconceivable.

Another one that's had their business rates bill go from seven and a half thousand pounds

to 25 ,000 pounds. How on earth does that emerge from a government that says the average will

40%. It's absolutely ludicrous. It's going to be chaotic all coming out of work, I believe,

the VOA have done in reassessing businesses and deciding for some reason that I cannot

fathom that micro businesses of which remember we have 9 ,000 somehow seem to shoulder the

burden. Well, I just don't think it'll work, quite frankly, and I absolutely applaud the

work of our Chief Financial Officer and our Deputy Chief Executive in setting an incredibly

prudent budget on the business rates collection, which I think will be really difficult, and

the fact that we already have policies to support our small businesses that may well

be struggling with that business rates collection. Those are the two substantive points. The

third point I wanted to make was going to be about the fact that we wouldn't be in this

place if a few of us hadn't been in this council for the last six or seven years, trying to

make head nor tail of the budget and figure out how on earth we make things balance after

years of cuts. Well, actually, guess what? I really thought we now had residents who

were incredibly supportive of our strategy and really liked the fact that we'd done such

a good job. And then I suddenly felt rather guilty when I heard about witch haven residents

that might be getting the same outcome for rather less money. I thought I'll cheque that

just a minute. Excuse me. Um, problems, Groven, which standard

letters, chaos and incompetence causing problems at which even

this week's problems, Groven, which standard letters, the

chaos and incompetence at the heart of this government is

causing real problems for families in which haven here in

which haven we're receiving 7 .5 million pounds less support from

central government. It's putting our families under real pressure. So I rather fancy, actually,

sorry Tom, that our residents and our businesses are getting sorts of services and council

services they not only deserve but have paid for over the years. I think we've done a great

job balancing this budget, I really do, and I absolutely applaud it and I hope that all

members will consider voting for it will be one of the very few balanced budgets

not using reserves not particularly creating any debt across the whole of

the United Kingdom I think quite frankly our cabinet our officers are senior

officers and David in particular he's done so much work on it should be

applauded and supported for it thank you very much members thank you very much

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:37:30

thank you very much Councillor Dale Councillor Neil and then we Councillor

Jo Harris.

Yes, thank you very much.

Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:37:37

I just wanted to commend everyone who's been involved

in bringing us this balanced budget.

The reason I'm saying this is it's not just about numbers

because a balanced budget, a financially sound council

clearly benefits residents.

And I can say this because I recently went to visit

my friends in Woking, where as you know,

the council did not.

It was not so financially prudent

and the financial difficulties that that council

has found themselves in has led to a drastic reduction in services for residents. That

hasn't happened here because we've been prudent and continue to present a balanced budget.

So I'd just like to say that it's about people, not just about numbers. And congratulations

to everyone who's been involved in preparing it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Neill. Councillor Jo Harris.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:38:24

Thank you. Some of you know I've got a role at the LGA, so I just wanted to offer some

Councillor Joe Harris - 1:38:29

Views if I may on the wider situation we face and it strikes me that budgets are about choices, aren't they?

They're about priorities and perhaps most importantly of all they are about honesty honesty about what we can afford

Honesty about the pressures we face and honesty about how we got here because no council be this district council or a county or unitary

Sets its budget in isolation

We do so in the context of the national funding system that has over many years become increasingly strained

Let me start with the previous Conservative government.

Over 14 years, local government funding was reduced

significantly in real terms.

Revenue support grant, once a cornerstone of council finance

was steadily withdrawn.

The assumption that councils would make up the difference

for efficiencies, transformation and growth.

And to be fair, councils did all three,

including this council.

We shared services, we commercialised where

appropriate, we digitised and we streamlined.

We delivered better value for money than most of the,

than almost any other part of the public sector.

But there is a limit, and there's a hard limit

to how far efficiency alone can bridge

structural funding gaps.

And at the same time, demand rose.

At county level, social care, SEND and children's services,

but also at district level, the pressures are no less real.

We are on the frontline here of the housing crisis,

homelessness prevention rising,

temporary accommodation costs escalating,

planning demand increasing,

waste environmental services and community provision under constant strain.

These are not optional services. They are essential to residents quality of life

and to the functioning of our local economy. So yes, councils tightened belts.

But belts can only be tightened so far before services really begin to feel the

strain. Now we have a Labour government elected on a promise of renewable.

Renewables and renewable. But that feels like a very long time ago, doesn't it?

doesn't it?

They were elected on a promise of partnership

with local government, of long -term thinking.

And I welcome that tone because local government works best

when national and local tiers pull in the same direction.

But warm words must now translate into financial reality

because councils today are still grappling

with short -term settlements,

still bidding into fragmented funding pots,

still unable to plan properly beyond the immediate horizon.

And the truth is this, you cannot plan housing supply

on a one, two, or even three year settlement.

You cannot tackle homelessness through short term funding rounds.

You cannot invest in prevention when financial uncertainty dominates decision making.

Meanwhile, inflation has driven up contract costs, pay awards have increased expenditure,

demand, particularly in housing, has continued to rise.

So when we debate council tax levels or savings proposals in this chamber, let us be very

clear.

These choices are not made lightly.

They are choices shaped heavily by the national funding

envelope of which we operate.

This administration, like administrations up and down

the country, is doing what responsible councils must do.

Balancing the books, protecting core services,

investing where we can and saving where we must.

Taking difficult decisions today to ensure financial

sustainability tomorrow.

Because unlike national government, councils cannot run deficits.

We can't borrow to fund day -to -day services.

We must set balanced budgets by law, not necessarily by choice.

So while it's right that budgets are scrutinised,

while it's right that amendments are debated,

let us not lose sight of the wider financial picture.

A local government system carrying ever greater responsibility

with ever less financial flexibility, and that's a key point.

So, if this new government, if we can still call them new,

wishes to mark a genuine turning point, then the asks from local

government, and indeed this council, are very clear.

Multi -year settlements.

We've had initial announcements, but I think that's given us

cold comfort so far.

Fair funding reform.

That abomination that they announced just a few months ago

was hardly fair for Gloucestershire.

Sustainable social care solutions.

We still don't really have any answers on how we're going

to solve the care crisis and meaningful fiscal devolution.

I cannot tell you how important that is.

We could raise money, couldn't we, by raising cancer tax

beyond the five pounds, but we don't have the power to do that.

Strong local government, and I honestly believe this,

is not a cost for the Treasury.

It's an investment in prevention, growth,

and community resilience.

So this budget reflects realism, it reflects responsibility,

and it reflects the difficult national context in which we are all operating.

Not a budget anyone would design in ideal circumstances, but a budget

designed to protect residents, safeguard services and maintain financial

stability in the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. And that

ultimately is the duty for any responsible administration. Thank you.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:43:40

Thank you. Joe, I think I've got, I think that's it in terms of debating.

Councillor Thurling. Yes, so just want to highlight. I think you mentioned about 25

to 27 percent increase cumulative since 2019, if that's correct. Just a quick search, depending

on which RPI measure you take whether it's CPI or RPI it's risen by 28 to 40 percent so I don't

think it's I think you sort of stay net neutral really by increasing by around that amount.

So it's just a highlight that really rather than making a physical point. Thank you sometimes these

Councillor Craig Thurling - 1:44:22

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:44:24

numbers can be used in all manner of ways can't they always worth checking. Right okay

Councillor Jenkinson I think you've already spoken in this debate so you're allowed once but unless

Unless you're going to turn everything round and change the debate.

That was on the amendment.

Go for it, Councillor.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:44:44

A little while ago, just a few days ago, I came across this presentation that was being given on how seniors could avoid falling down, stay healthy and well.

And the secret apparently turns out to be the way that you walk.

And there are seven tips that are given for how you can walk in order to avoid tripping

over, breaking limbs, and at the same time keep your well -being high.

I won't burden you with all seven, but they're very interesting, and all seven are relevant

to this particular issue.

I just want to highlight two of the seven.

The first is that you do not walk gazing down at your feet,

which is apparently one of the problems that seniors have.

They tend to look too much down right at the foreground of their feet.

What they need to do is keep their eyes up and look into the distance.

I would commend the fact that over seven years we have been looking into the future

and seeing what we need to do, and in that way we have been able to manage the present

as we go along and avoid falls.

And the second is that as you walk,

keep your arms in motion as well

and put a bit of energy into your walking.

And I think that the way that we have been doing

this management of our finances here

has indeed been to encourage energy,

activity, forward motion, and achievement.

You can look up the other five

and see how they're relevant to you.

Thank you, Councillor Jenkinson.

And I know that one about,

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:46:22

look I ride a motorbike and if you look down at your wheel you'll surely fall

over but if you look look where you're going rather than where you are it's so

Councillor Jeremy Theyer - 1:46:36

much better. Councillor Thayer. I'm not sure who to target this at if it's Mr. Coleman or Mr. Stanley.

I'm just on page 105 I'm going back to audit and governance a bit here. It says

on point nine point two our total when including the current financial year was

twenty two point eight and estimated is nineteen point four for the twenty nine

thirty I need to get some new glasses but there is seems to be a bit of a gap

of three point three million and I just can't seem to find it in the papers

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:47:18

where that monetary amounts come from. I'm going to let Mr. Stanley, David answer that

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:47:27

if you're happy to do that. So thank you chair. The table on page 105 shows the proposed capital

programme from the future financial year. The differences in the current financial year

25, 26 is where the difference is.

That's not shown in the table.

Do you want to ask a supplementary to that?

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:47:45

Sorry.

I was just wondering where we conjured up the 3 .3,

because it seems a lot of money to me.

Sorry.

Councillor Jeremy Theyer - 1:47:56

So the 3 .3 is in the current year's capital programmes,

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:48:00

so if members refer to the Q2 financial performance report,

that Cabinet received in January. There's details of the capital programme in there and there will be the Q3 report

that Cabinet will receive in April.

Thank you David and thank you for that question.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:48:19

Right.

Any more questions or any more debating points? No. In which case I'm going to go to the seconder of the budget

who's Councillor Wilkinson who reserved his right to speak if he remembered what it was he was going to say.

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 1:48:37

Thank you chair. Councillor Jenkins and I've been on this planet for over 50

years and I've been walking wrong all that time. I'm sure a few of us

afterwards if you'd like to give us some tutorials on how to walk properly I'd be

I'd be very grateful of that. Colleagues, councillors and to my mum who I know is

watching live at home. Tonight we mark an important moment for Cotswold District

Council, the successful planning of our annual budget and the passing, hopefully, of that.

This budget is more than a set of spreadsheets.

It is our shared plan for how we will protect vital frontline services, invest in our towns

and villages, and keep the Council on a sound financial footing in the face of real national

and local pressures.

Reading out loud is clearly not something I've done for a while, so you're going to

have to bear with me.

In challenging times for local government, we have met our legal duty to set a balanced budget

while continuing to fund the services that residents rely on every day.

From waste and recycling to planning, environmental protection and support for vulnerable people,

no mean feats given the extraordinary pressure on spending across the country.

We've listened carefully to residents through our budget consultation and their feedback has helped shape the choices we have made,

including our approach to council tax and the savings and efficiencies built into this plan.

The result is a budget that protects core services, continues to back our priorities on climate action,

affordable and sustainable housing and thriving market towns,

and uses our reserves responsibly so that we can safeguard the council's long -term financial resilience.

As we prepare for LGR, in the uncertainty that brings, it is essential that we head into that process

with a sound and secure financial footing and this budget provides that security.

I want to add my thanks to the officers and everybody working on this.

This is a really, really important and substantial piece of work.

And I also want to extend my thanks to the opposition and the other side of the house

for the scrutiny they bring that makes the people on this side of the house and the officers

work that little bit harder to make sure that, you know, the budget that you see before it

is of the quality that we see.

By passing this budget, we send a clear message,

despite funding uncertainty and rising costs,

the council will continue to be prudent,

it will be ambitious, and it will continue

to put the residents of the Cotswolds

at the very heart of every decision we make.

Together, we now move from agreeing the numbers

to delivering the outcomes, stronger communities,

a greener district, and a financially secure council

for the years ahead.

Tristan, thank you very much.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:51:33

Okay, Councillor Coleman will now sum up and then we'll go to the vote.

See if you got the 1960s and 1980s in and you get the 1970s in.

Don't take it too long.

That's not a problem with Patrick.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:51:54

The 1970s were just as bad as people say they were.

Really, really, it is an honour to be able to take part in this democratic discussion

and listen to such an interesting and wide range of points and points of view.

And I think that not only ourselves, but also Gloucestershire, seem to be moving towards

a slightly more respectful way of operating as councils.

I was particularly struck, I wanted to get a chance

to mention this, by something I saw posted

by I think the county council's Green Party leader explaining

and taking issue on, engaging on Facebook, that's the word,

with people who possibly know about 1 % of what she does.

But in the process, she re -described the Liberal

Democrats County Council budget from our Councillor Spivey as a solid budget and

I thought that's a good word to use when it comes to cooperation and I think what

I've seen over my years here is a steady overall increase in the amount of

engagement, the amount of respect and people bringing their various talents to

bear on the work of the council. I really can't go any further without saying how

and presto was by the opposition leader, Tom Stowe's,

a recent direct action to remove a very serious

flooding issue by calling upon, I think,

his family's own resources to dig the stuff

out of the gully that was causing the floods.

We used to talk a lot about direct action

in the Young Liberals.

We used to talk about free public transport,

most of us have got that.

We used to talk about think for yourself,

don't follow leaders, that was my slogan.

And the one that I'm still proud of said,

amnesty for illegal immigrants, which of course is common

in America until recently after a few years,

rather than just keep chasing them all down.

They realise that once people have committed themselves

to a society, they'll engage more

and produce more and give more.

We haven't got to that stage here,

and I don't suppose we will.

Coming back to the budget,

this is a really tough thing to do, isn't it?

To go through all these pages, particularly want

to say thank you to Jeremy for doing that work so thoroughly

as to spot something that I missed in those numbers,

although it's okay when you know where it is.

But there's no limit to the complexity you can bring

to local government finance.

I mean, look how many pages are in here about capital

and how many pages are in here

about satisfying all the government's controls.

It really is quite something, and it's, I think,

all our teams, particularly the chief officers,

but also the other members of our team's work is to be commended in getting us to this stage.

And yeah, we are one of only coming back to poor old Wychhaven. I think there are only 17 councils

left who are compelled to only increase by no more than five pounds bandy. I've got a nod there from

Chief Financial Officer. And so I'm really impressed that one of my colleagues has confirmed that

that is still resulted in a rate of increase significantly below that of inflation. So

you could argue this proves that you get good volume from our council and I hope

that next year is as straightforward as this but somehow I have my doubts.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:55:25

Thank you very much Councillor Coleman. Okay we're going to go to the votes now.

While you're voting I'll read it out. The council resolves to approve the

medium -term financial strategy set out in Annex B. You can start voting now.

budget pressures and savings for inclusion in the budget. Council tax

requirement is 7 .419716 million for this Council. I'm in favour of it, yeah.

Council tax level for Cotswold District Council purposes 163 .93 for a Band D

property and 26 .27 that's an increase of five pounds a year folks. The capital

programme set out in Annex D. The annual capital strategy set out in Annex E. The

annual Treasury Management Strategy, non -Treasury Management Investment

strategy set out in annex F. The strategy for the flexible use of capital receipts

set out in annex 8. That 2 million is set aside in a new earmarked reserve council

priority local government LGR transition sorry through the releasing of 2 million

of the balance currently held in financial resilience and finally the

balances and reserve forecast for 26 27 to 29 30 is set out in section 7 of the

and I see that all the votes are in and that's 21 in favour we have six against

and one abstention so this budget is passed. Well done Councillor Coleman for

your first budget.

Now Councillor Coleman we need to set the council tax and precepts for 26 27

So this is item 10. We're approaching two hours. Are we happy to carry on until the

end? I think we should be about caught apart. So Councillor Coleman is going to

propose the recommendation to set the council terms and precepts. Thank you very

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:57:21

much chair. This is one of the longest recommendations. In fact it would take me

longer to read it out than I hope it will take to agree the decision because it's a

legal essential. And it begins on page 209 and it finishes on page 213. I'm pleased to

say that the last of the parish councils have clearly supplied the figures that were needed.

They were mostly very prompt, I'm sure. That's one of the fiddles. And we've got no late

amendments or corrections to any of these pages. I'm sure that if you

examine the detailed amounts per parish and town council it won't be at all

difficult to find the town or parish council with the highest council tax

and that's all I'll say. Thank you very much and I hope we get a unanimous vote.

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:58:16

Thank You councillor Coleman. Are there any questions for clarity on this?

Going to her right. No. I'm seeking a seconder on this and I'm trying to make the best

Councillor ever me. You may reserve your right to speak or you may speak now.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:58:34

I think I'll just speak now just to add to what Councillor Coleman has said and

particularly for those members who haven't sat done this before. Councillor

Hall -Wilson, Councillor Bridges and Councillor Thirlings. This will be your first

time voting on the council tax. So I'm sure you'll be able to see there the

amounts as Councillor Coleman has said for each parish or town and that goes

from band A up to band H and you can see the multiples at the top there from six

ninths which when I was at school was two -thirds up to 18 ninths which was two

when I was at school and that was a long time ago but the legislation I think

requires it to be done in nights. So and as members most if not all members be

aware we reference it off the Band D so we've agreed just now for a five pound

Band D equivalent for Cotswold District Council and that therefore adds into the

number so the Band D for Cotswold District Council is then shown as 163

pounds and 93 and if your band A it's a hundred and nine pounds 29 and if your

band H is 327 pounds 86 so this is the formal resolution I'm happy to second

and assist Councillor Coleman in answering any questions thank you very

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:59:57

much Councillor Ebony now we go to debate do we have any people who'd like to

this looks like no I think we've probably broken the back of that in the

previous item okay you didn't preserve it right Councillor Coleman would you like to sum up now for us?

Thank you chair I formally sum up.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 2:00:23

Councillor Mark Harris - 2:00:24

That's about the best summing up I've heard from you. Okay we're going to move to the vote now and we'll take a

vote on the block of recommendations that's items one to eight for I'm not

going to read them out but for those people who are watching from home it can

be found on the council's website

and let's go to the right. Okay, yeah, go for it. If you'd like to vote now, if you

haven't already. That's 28 in, so we've got 28 in favour of the Councillor. Thank you

Councillor Mark Harris - 2:01:13

much everybody for that. Okay we'll now go to item 11 which is the paid policy

statement. This is to consider the council's paid policy statement for 26

27 and council Ebony is the proposer for that. Would you like to introduce a

Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:01:35

Thank you, Chair. Members, you're asked to approve the pay policy statement for the

next financial year. We need to do that by the 31st of March in each year. This

time what's different is that now we have approximately 120 employees who

have obviously come back from from Publica. So it's a substantial, applies to

substantially more employees than it has in recent years.

We have that duty to approve it under the Localism Act 2011

and we have to approve it and publish it

set by the 31st of March in each year.

That act says that we need to do this,

promote transparency, fairness and local accountability

so that our residents can see

how we're remunerating our staff.

staff. You can see the amounts paid to senior staff. You can see the relationships across

the workforce, how we determine pay, and it demonstrates that we comply with the equal

pay legislation. Clearly, how we remunerate and pay our staff and reward them is an essential

part to ensuring that we're legally compliant and that we have fair

immigration practises. So I would commend the the policy to members to agree. I

think it starts on page 233 and finishes on the last page of your papers on page

Councillor Mark Harris - 2:03:13

244. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Councillor Ebony. And do I have a seconder for this?

This is Councillor Layton. Thank you very much. Would you like to speak to it now or do you want to

Councillor Juliet Layton - 2:03:23

reserve your right. I'll just say I'm gonna be as brief as Patrick and I'm seconding this proposal, thank you.

Wonderful seconding if I may say so. Would anybody else have any questions for

Councillor Mark Harris - 2:03:30

clarity? Sorry I should have done that first. No? As soon as we got the seconder

already I'll jump to to has anybody want to speak in debate? Can you argue the toss on

No we're good. Excellent. Councillor Ebbing would you like to sum up?

I'll take that as summed. We'll go to the vote and the

resolution is that we approve the paid policy 26 27. And that's open.

That's 2028 they're all in and that's unanimous. Thank you very much.

Okay so the next item is motions and we don't have any motions. Item 13 the last

item is next meeting so I'd like to let the public, presidents and those watching

know the next meeting will be the full council on the 18th of March 2026 at 2

Thank you all very much for a civilised meeting and enjoy the rest of your evening, whatever

it holds for you.

Thank you.

Please provide any feedback/comments relating to the live webcast here. Any feedback submitted will be received to the Democratic Services team.

Required field

Name

Comments

Need an accessible hCaptcha?
Check available options.
Sign up to hCaptcha or Log in to hChaptcha.

By clicking Send feedback, you agree that Cotswold District Council and Public-i can use the information above to review your feedback and contact you about it. See our Privacy Policy for more details.

There are currently no votes to display

Council - Monday 23 February 2026, 6:00pm - Vote_events Tab - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

CouncilMonday, 23rd February 2026 at 6:00pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Feedback

Votes

1 Apologies

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:00:00

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:00:04

Nickie Mackenzie-Daste, Officer - 0:00:42

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:00:50

2 Declarations of Interest

3 Minutes

4 Announcements from the Chair, Leader or Chief Executive

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:04:45

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:06:52

Public Speaker - 0:07:52

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:10:01

Public Speaker - 0:10:17

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:10:24

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:10:42

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:10:45

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:12:57

Public Speaker - 0:13:14

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:15:03

5 Public Questions

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:15:17

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:16:52

6 Member Questions

7 Appointments to Committees

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:18:31

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:19:34

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:19:43

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:19:52

8 Budget Council Protocol

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:22:25

9 2026-27 Revenue Budget, Capital Programme and Medium Term Financial Strategy

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:30:57

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:31:41

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:32:02

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:34:22

Councillor David Fowles - 0:34:35

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:38:29

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:38:58

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:39:01

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:39:12

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:40:01

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:40:41

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:41:26

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:41:32

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:42:22

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:42:42

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:42:50

Councillor Tom Stowe - 0:43:29

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:44:04

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:44:09

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:45:21

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:45:43

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:46:25

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:46:39

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:47:07

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:47:23

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:47:51

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:48:46

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:53:47

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:53:58

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:55:43

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:55:44

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:55:51

Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:55:54

Councillor Mark Harris - 0:56:02

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:56:10

Councillor Mark Harris - 1:00:59

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:01:07

Council
Monday, 23rd February 2026 at 6:00pm