Issue - meetings

That the Committee notes the representations made and awaits the further report. 

The Corporate Finance Manager introduced a report on investment in Flintshire’s County towns and how this might be developed.  He provided background information and explained  that the report addressed the issues arising from a Notice of Motion at County Council in December 2017 and the agreement that reports on certain types of expenditure would display expenditure broken down by  town.  The report suggested a basis for the definition of ‘town’ for this purpose only and identified the areas of spend within the 2018/19 capital programme which could be included in the reporting process whilst explaining some of the difficulties in obtaining the information.  The Corporate Finance Manager reported on the main considerations as detailed in the report.

            Councillor Richard Jones expressed concern that the report did not provide the information he had requested and emphasised the importance of identifying the spend on each town and the need to ensure all towns were treated equally.  He asked for details on the spend per capita/per head to understand how the funding was aggregated between towns and where it was spent.

Councillor Aaron Shotton supported the points raised by Councillor Jones and suggested that the matter also be referred to Cabinet for consideration.He gave assurance that the report was a first draft of work in progress and that further detail would follow.

Councillor Paul Johnson said the report did not provide a definition of ‘fair’ and ‘need’ and commented on the need to look at communities on the basis of ‘need’ and what was being defined as a ‘fair allocation’ to meet the need.

 The Chief Executive concurred that more work needed to be undertaken around defining the ‘county towns’ referred to in the notice of motion.  He advised that there wasn’t a single definition and said the report should indicate where the Council was spending money and why.  It was agreed that a further Member workshop on the Growth Bid would be arranged and that a further report would be submitted to the meeting of the Committee to be held in June. 

Councillor Arnold Woolley referred to the first sentence in paragraph 1.02 of the report and suggested that the word ‘easily’ be replaced by ‘accurate’.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee notes the representations made and awaits the further report.