Venue: Multi-Location Meeting - Gloucester Room, Guildhall / MS Teams. View directions
Contact: Scrutiny Officer - 01792 636292
No. | Item |
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Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests Minutes: There were no disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. |
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Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: None. |
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To receive the minutes of the previous meeting(s) and agree as an accurate record. Minutes: Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed. |
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Public Questions Questions can be submitted in writing to Scrutiny scrutiny@swansea.gov.uk up until noon on the working day prior to the meeting. Written questions take precedence. Public may attend and ask questions in person if time allows. Questions must relate to items on the open part of the agenda and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period. Minutes: There were no public questions received. |
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Cllr Rob Stewart - Cabinet Member
for Economy, Finance and Strategy Ben Smith –
Director of Finance / S.151 Officer Additional documents: Minutes: Cllr Rob Stewart and Ben Smith
attended. The following was discussed. ·
Overall, the budget demonstrates financial
challenges in 2024/25 and into the medium term financial plan. ·
Whilst there is a focus on savings, an £80m of
additional finance is being added to the budget over the next four years. ·
The Council does not have control over local
authority and teachers pay awards therefore estimates are included in the
budget. ·
Officer advice is that current borrowing rates
are not advantageous and to delay borrowing till the end of the medium term
financial plan. ·
Previous years have resulted in an underspend in
capital spending. Officer advice is to draw down on this in 2024/25. ·
The budget includes drawing over £8m in reserves
for 2024/25. This breaks down into just over £1m from the Capital Equalisation
Reserve and £7m originally earmarked for school IT upgrades. This £7m will be
used for Schools only and will be used fully in 2024/25. ·
The contingency fund will be reduced from £5m to
£3m to allow for an additional £2m to go towards services. ·
The Council is in a strong position as regards
to reserves, however long-term drawing on reserves is not sustainable. ·
No decisions on Council Tax rates have been made
yet. ·
A UK Government budget is due in March however
if there are any additional gains from this, they would be too late for the
2024/25 budget setting. ·
The fire Service levy is likely to be over £1m.
This is paid for out of council budgets. |
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Revenue and Capital Budget Monitoring Report 2nd Quarter 2023/24 PDF 339 KB Cllr Rob Stewart - Cabinet Member for Economy, Finance and
Strategy Ben Smith – Director of Finance / S.151 Officer Minutes: Cllr Rob Stewart and Ben Smith
attended. The following was discussed. ·
The second quarter demonstrates an overspend of
around £7.5m. ·
There is a commitment within directorates to
achieve a balanced position by year end. ·
Some earmarked reserves have been effectively
reclassified as a provision. This still allows it to be available in the short
term for cash usage should this be required by Council but there is an
important accounting distinction between the two classifications. ·
Various avenues are being explored to deliver
school transport in more cost-effective ways. |
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Quarter 2 Performance Monitoring Report 2023/24 PDF 168 KB Cllr David Hopkins – Cabinet Member
for Corporate Services & Performance Richard Rowlands –
Strategic Delivery & Performance Manager Additional documents:
Minutes: Richard Rowlands attended, and the following was
discussed. ·
The officer took Panel members through
the new layout of the report. ·
The Panel praised the new format and highlighted
areas of improvement within Social Services. |
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Tourism Destination Management Plan Update PDF 1 MB Cllr Robert
Francis-Davies – Cabinet Member for Investment, Regeneration, Events &
Tourism Steve Hopkins – Tourism and Marketing Manager Additional documents: Minutes: Steve Hopkins attended, and the following was
discussed. ·
The Destination Management Plan 2023-26 was agreed by Cabinet in October
2023. ·
The Panel praised the report and overall were pleased with the outcomes. ·
There is a growing confidence in tourism that the industry is recovering
from the effects of the Pandemic. ·
The officer talked through several findings through research carried out
in advance of the Destination Management Plan including a visitor survey, a
local business survey and a hotel demand study. ·
In 2022 4.2m visitors visited Swansea. ·
Strategic priorities are, quality, creating an all-year-round
destination, encouraging sustainability, and working in partnership. ·
Hotel room occupancy in Swansea exceeds the Wales average. The hotel demand
study indicated that Swansea needs a further 3 hotels to meet demand. ·
Visitor survey responses overall demonstrated high satisfaction. ·
Visitors placed the highest importance and lowest satisfaction on the
availability and cleanliness of public toilets. Signposting of public toilets
was also discussed. ·
The site visitswanseabay.com exists to promote events to tourists and
residents and a new website is also in development. |
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Minutes: The work plan was noted, and reference was made to next months meeting which will be pre scrutiny of the annual budget on 13 February prior to it going for Cabinet approval on 15 February. |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Economy, Finance & Strategy (Leader) PDF 167 KB |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Corporate Services and Performance PDF 223 KB |
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Letter to Cabinet Member - Investment, Regeneration, Events and Tourism PDF 147 KB |