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1 ATTENDANCE Councillors: Rose Seabourne (Chair) Stuart Ashley Huw Bevan Ron Burnett Glyn Caron Richard Clark (Deputy Leader) Lynda Clarkson Veronica Crick JP Fiona Cross David Daniels Kathy Evans Steven Evans Stuart Evans Joanne Gauden Elizabeth Haynes Jon Horlor Anthony Hunt (Leader) Gaynor James Gwyn Jenkins Mike Jeremiah Fay Jones Janet Jones Nicholas Jones Peter Jones Robert Kemp John Killick Sue Malson Jason O'Connell Richard Overton Amanda Owen Norma Parrish Jessica Powell Kelly Preston Emma Rapier Louise Shepphard Alan Slade Chris Tew Colette Thomas David Thomas David Yeowell
2.1 Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Leonard Constance, Giles Davies, Keith James.
3.1 The Monitoring Officer and Assistant Chief Legal Officer (MO&ALO) advised Councillors Kathy Evans, Steven Evans, Joanne Gauden, Sue Malson, Rose Seabourne and Lynda Clarkson, that they had a personal interest in relation to Agenda Item 9, Council Tax Reduction Scheme as either they or a close personal associate were affected by the scheme. Members confirmed their interests. 3.2 The MO&ACLO advised Councillors Elizabeth Haynes and Steven Evans that they had a personal and prejudicial interest in relation to Agenda Item 14, Motions on Notice, as they were directors of a limited company and they would therefore need to leave the meeting for Agenda Item 14. Members confirmed their personal and prejudicial interests.
4.1 Council confirmed the minutes of the Council meeting held on 14 December 2021 as an accurate record.
5.1 Council noted the action sheet.
6.1 There were no petitions submitted.
7.1 There were no public questions
8.1 The Leader conveyed his condolences to friends of family of Ivor Davies MBE, former Mayor, Councillor and Chair of Torfaen Museum Trust and a dedicated servant to the people of Torfaen. He thanked staff and volunteers at the Mass Vaccination Centre in Cwmbran, and also GP surgeries for their hard work over Christmas and the new year. He commented that he had witnessed their hard work firsthand whilst volunteering himself before Christmas. He also thanked staff for their hard work in keeping council services running through a challenging period which had seen increased absence rates due to the Omicron Variant. 8.2 The Chief Executive informed members that this week was Cyber Awareness Week. He commented around the potential costs to the council, significant disruption to services when goes things go wrong and the importance of a quick and coordinated response where an attack was successful. He encouraged members and officers to attend the awareness sessions on offer to help keep people cyber savvy. He also informed members that the Council would be supporting Kidney Cancer Awareness Week between 7-11 February 2022 when the Civic Centre would be lit up in green to help raise awareness. He referred to voter registration and the forthcoming election and the importance of raising awareness, particularly for younger people aged 16-17 who will be able to vote for the first time. He brought Members attention to a Teams Backdrop created by Torfaen’s communication design team as part of the campaign in raising awareness and he congratulated the team on this piece of art work which was very striking and had been recognised and shared with other Welsh authorities.
9.1 The Assistant Chief Executive Resources (ACXR) highlighted the main areas of the report seeking approval of the Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) for 2022/23. 9.2 Councillor Preston thanked officers for proactively providing support to residents on low incomes and for maximising the take up of other support available such as free school meals and the self-isolation payment scheme. She commended the work of the Revenues and Benefits Team, particularly in relation to the work carried out on additional schemes to support vulnerable residents during such challenging times. She encouraged anyone who needed support to contact the team as they may be entitled to support. 9.3 The Leader also recognised the expertise and the work of staff in Revenues and Benefits and thanked staff for going above and beyond by administering so many schemes with compassion to support residents across the borough. The Presiding Member echoed these comments. 9.4 Council unanimously agreed to: · Continue to note the making of the Council Tax Reduction Scheme and Prescribed Requirements (Wales) Regulations ("the Prescribed Requirements Regulations") 2013 by the Welsh Government on 26 November 2013; · Adopt the provisions within the Prescribed Requirements Regulations above together with the Amendment Regulations in 3.4 in respect of its Scheme for the financial year 2022/23; · Approve the discretionary elements in 5.2 as the Council’s local scheme from 1st April 2022; and · Affirm that should there be any further uprating amendments during the year these will be carried out without a requirement to adopt the whole Council Tax Reduction Scheme.
10.1 The Chief Officer Neighbourhoods, Planning & Public Protection (CONP&PP) introduced the report advising members that Cabinet had recently considered an exempt report in relation to this item. She explained that the report considered by Cabinet was confidential and provided further information on the proposed new site. Due to commercial negotiations the detail within the report remained confidential today. 10.2 The CONP&PP highlighted the main areas of the report, seeking approval to: · contribute £1million from the Council’s Capital programme as a contribution toward the capital costs associated with the proposal to modernise the Recycling and Waste service; and · the prudential borrowing strategy outlined in the report. 10.2 In summary, officers responded to questions as follows: · Wagons would continue to make more than one trip to the depot during collection rounds, however, there would be one central depot and the size of the fleet would be increased as more materials would be collected such as small electrical items. · Modelling had demonstrated that there would not be a need to retain current staffing levels, however, there was a high turnover in the service and therefore, staffing levels would be managed through wastage and there would not be a need for redundancies. Unions had been fully engaged with. · Council had received a report in September 2021 outlining an indicative £900k contribution towards the project. When negotiating with Welsh Government, there was a £100k shortfall in the total bill. The additional £100k was an uplift from what Council had approved in September. · Growth into the new facility had been factored in and consideration would be given around support that might be available to local trade businesses in terms of waste disposal. · All lease costs had been fully factored in and would result in £150k savings which will go towards prudential borrowing. The new vehicles will not be electric – market testing had been undertaken and there was no interest from the market to provide an electric fleet. Two electric refuse vehicles had recently been purchased with a 50% grant from Welsh Government. As the market for electric recycling vehicles matured, the council would remain committed to considering electric recycling fleet in the future. · The lease on vehicles was between 5 or 7 years and consideration around transition would be after this period. When the borrowing had been paid for, members would have a choice on how additional savings would be allocated. · Digital systems with the ability to improve customer response could be developed in-house or procured. Tracking systems were currently in place, however, this did not provide real time information of ‘customer to cab experience’. Lessons were being learned from other councils who had implemented these systems and workstreams around these new systems could be considered in line with the new fleet next year. 10.3 Council unanimously agreed to approve: · a contribution of £1million from the Council’s Capital programme to enable the proposals to modernise the Council’s Recycling and Waste Services to progress. · the prudential borrowing proposals as detailed in the table in section 4.3 of the report.
11.1 The CONP&PP highlighted the key areas of the report which: · Set out an initial governance and delivery model sufficient to implement the statutory requirement for establishment of the South East Wales Corporate Joint Committee (CJC); · Set out the ‘twin-track’ approach to operating the Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) City Deal alongside the initial phase of CJC mobilisation ahead of the SE Wales CJC setting its first statutory budget on 31st January 2022. · Appraised Council of the next phases of progress in line with resolving the current barriers to full implementation of an integrated ‘lift and shift’ approach which seeks to eventually, bring together the CCR City Deal and the CJC into one coherent model of regional economic governance. 11.2 Discussion ensued and in response to questions and comments, the following main points were made: · Whilst CJC and CCR operated alongside each other, it would be important to adopt a similar structure to avoid duplication. This would also ensure a pragmatic way of fulfilling legislative commitments. · Minimum compliance with statute is for CJC to meet and form a budget for year 1. There would be no further call on council funding this year. As soon as treasury issues were resolved, the two bodies could merge into one coherent model of regional economic governance. · Levelling up was targeted at local authorities for local regeneration intervention. · It was not advisable to set a cap on funding at such an early stage. · The CJC would be made up of council Leaders. Even though other representatives might be present at some meetings, the voting mechanisms would remain as 1 vote per council. If CJC wanted to amend the voting mechanisms, this would need to be done through its standing orders with the agreement of all parties. · The scrutiny functions of CCR were to remain in place for the time being. There was a requirement under CJC regulations to have a scrutiny committee and therefore, when CJC was operating, a scrutiny committee would be formed. · The importance of scrutiny was recognised, and Leaders were keen for local individual members across all parties to play a part moving forward. Members would be kept fully informed through member seminars. · Functions were not being removed from local councils. The CJC would provide a level of additionality for regional matters such as transport and regional investment. 11.3 Members understood the complexities involved and requested that they be kept up to date with matters moving forward, particularly on issues that might have a direct impact on Torfaen. 11.4 Council agreed, with the majority voting in favour, to: (a) Note the interim governance and delivery model for implementation of the SE Wales Corporate Joint Committee and the ‘twin track’ arrangements proposed across operation of CCR City Deal, alongside initial enactment of a ‘bare minimum’ CJC – and until such time the proposed ‘lift and shift’ approach can occur (b) Note the requirement for the CJC to set and approve a budget on or before 31 January 2022 and the steps set out in the report to enable this (c) Note the risks and issues set out in the report which require ongoing monitoring, mitigation and management (d) Note the request made by CCR of WG to amend the CJC regulations to change the date on which immediate duties commence under the Regulations from 28 February 2022 to 30 June 2022 (e) Note the draft Standing Orders at Appendix 1 of the report which set out the initial requirements and operating model for the CJC as well as initial business for the inaugural meeting on 31 January 2022 (f) Note the work ongoing by CCR and its constituent Councils to work with WG, Audit Wales and advisors as appropriate, to help inform resolution of the remaining issues wherever possible (g) Support the Leader of the Council in his duty to consider and set the first budget of the SE Wales CJC on 31 January 2022 in order to ensure the Council is complying with the legislation as required.
The Principal Planner, Planning Policy & Implementation (PP,PP&I) outlined the report seeking agreement to a six-week consultation on a draft ‘Householder Extensions and Alterations’ SPG and a ‘Revised Planning Obligations’ SPG; which mainly makes changes to the ‘Affordable Housing’ and ‘Education Facilities’ Annexes. 12.2 In response to comments and questions asked by members, the following main points were noted: · Similar guidance had been used informally, however, there were risks around informal guidance not being given as much weight in planning decisions and appeals. Adopting formal guidance would mitigate these risks and would also set out clear expectations when submitting planning applications. · There were no maps with the supplementary guidance. Councillors had already agreed to produce a green infrastructure supplementary planning guidance, which would be brought back to council to agree with the next stage of the development plan. · The current local plan had a proposals map which showed the current urban open spaces. The work undertaken around this at the workshops last year would be incorporated into the supplementary planning guidance. · Highways was controlled by other guidance, however, there is a requirement for all new sites to consider active travel. · An agreement on social rented unit tariffs had now been reached and the dwelling types listed in Table 4 of Annex 1 to the report, had been simplified to cover the 8 standard dwelling types rather than the list of 28. 12.3 Councillor Gauden commented that the guidance would benefit both officers and residents by setting out clear expectations. She thanked officers for their work in constantly keeping on top of supplementary planning guidance in line with national policy. 12.4 Council unanimously agreed: (1) To agree the Draft ‘Householder Extensions and Alterations’ SPG Page 157 6 (Appendix 1) and the Revised Planning Obligations SPG (Appendix 2) for publication and six weeks stakeholder / public consultation; (2) To delegate the finalisation of the ‘Social Rented Tariff’ values and any final minor amendments / corrections to the two documents before publication to the Head of Planning and Development; (3) To agree that, as an interim measure before they are adopted by Council, the two SPGs be used as ’material considerations’ for assessing planning applications once published; and (4) To Note that a report to consider any comments received on the two SPG alongside any recommended changes to them will be presented back to Council in due course.
The MO&ACLO outlined the report asking members to note the key provisions contained in the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 and to agree that the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Members Constitution Working Party be granted delegated authority to amend the Constitution to reflect those changes and any other minor changes that are needed to ensure that the Constitution is up to date. 12.2 Councillor Huw Bevan expressed particular concern around paragraph 4.2 of the report which referred to the ability for councils to merge voluntarily. He referred to past advice from Welsh Government around greater collaboration and compulsory merges which were then dropped, and he felt it was important that members be kept fully updated with such matters moving forward. The MO&ACLO clarified that the report was not asking council to make any decision on merging or to agree an approach with regards to voluntary mergers, it was stating that there was an ability within legislation for the authority to make any future applications for merges. 12.3 Council unanimously agreed to note the key provisions contained in Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 and to agree that the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Members Constitution Working Party be granted delegated authority to amend the Constitution to reflect those changes and any other minor changes that are needed to ensure that the Constitution is up to date.
14.1 Councillor Anthony Hunt proposed the following motion: 1. The pressure on organisations to pay the right amount of tax in the right place at the right time has never been stronger. 2. Polling from the Institute for Business Ethics finds that “corporate tax avoidance” has, since 2013, been the clear number one concern of the British public when it comes to business conduct. 3. Almost two-thirds (63%) of the public agree that the Government and local councils should consider a company’s ethics and how they pay their tax as well as value for money and quality of service provided, when undertaking procurement. 4. Around 17.5% of public contracts in the UK have been won by companies with links to tax havens. 5. It has been conservatively estimated that losses from multinational profit-shifting (just one form of tax avoidance) could be costing the UK some £7bn per annum in lost corporation tax revenues. 6. The Fair Tax Mark offers a means for business to demonstrate good tax conduct, and has been secured by wide range of businesses across the UK, including FTSE-listed PLCs, co-operatives, social enterprises and large private businesses. 1. Paying tax is often presented as a burden, but it shouldn’t be. Tax enables us to provide services from education, health and social care, to flood defence, roads, policing and defence. It also helps to counter financial inequalities and rebalance distorted economies. 2. As recipients of significant public funding, local authorities should take the lead in the promotion of exemplary tax conduct; be that by ensuring contractors are paying their proper share of tax, or by refusing to go along with offshore tax dodging when buying land and property. 3. Where substantive stakes are held in private enterprises, then influence should be wielded to ensure that such businesses are exemplars of tax transparency and tax avoidance is shunned - e.g., no use of marketed schemes requiring disclosure under DOTAS regulations (Disclosure Of Tax Avoidance Schemes) or arrangements that might fall foul of the General Anti-Abuse Rule. 4. More action is needed, however, current law significantly restricts councils’ ability to either penalise poor tax conduct or reward good tax conduct, when buying goods or services. 5. UK cities, counties and towns can and should stand up for responsible tax conduct - doing what they can within existing frameworks and pledging to do more given the opportunity, as active supporters of international tax justice. 1. Approve the Councils for Fair Tax Declaration. 2. Lead by example and demonstrate good practice in our tax conduct as a council. 3. Ensure contractors implement IR35 robustly and pay a fair share of employment taxes. 4. Not use offshore vehicles for the purchase of land and property, especially where this leads to reduced payments of stamp duty. 5. Undertake due diligence to ensure that not-for-profit structures are not being used inappropriately as an artificial device to reduce the payment of tax and business rates. 6. Demand clarity on the ultimate beneficial ownership of suppliers and their consolidated profit & loss position. 7. Promote Fair Tax Mark certification for any business in which we have a significant stake and where corporation tax is due. 8. Support Fair Tax Week events in the area, and celebrate the tax contribution made by responsible businesses who say what they pay with pride. 9. Support calls for urgent reform of EU and UK law to enable local authorities to better penalise poor tax conduct and reward good tax conduct through their procurement policies.’ 14.2 The motion was seconded. 14.3 Councillor Huw Bevan commented that, whilst he supported the principal of the motion, he was trying to ascertain on a pragmatic and practical level, how it could be taken forward by the Council when there was a national procurement policy. He asked if it was possible to review the current suppliers through the national procurement scheme and to consider local businesses for goods and services who would be paying their fair share of tax. He referred to the proposal in the motion to ‘demand clarity on the ultimate beneficial ownership of suppliers and their consolidated profit & loss position’ and he questioned how this would impact on council resource and who would undertake the analysis. 14.4 The Leader fully recognised the points raised by Councillor Huw Bevan and he explained that the motion was about the council making as much effort as possible to respond to the matter. He explained that the council could be a good influence and could give consideration to this matter when procuring goods and services and using local companies. 14.5 Councillor Nicholas Jones asked if the Leader was aware of any companies that the council dealt with that don’t comply with any of the resolutions that were being proposed. 14.6 The Leader clarified that the motion was part of a genuine national effort and there was no local example or concerns. He stated that the wider national concern was more about the percentage of public contracts generally given to firms. He referred to the notes within his motion which stated that ‘around 17.5% of public contracts in the UK have been won by companies with links to tax havens’, and he commented that these were national concerns and that there was a need for more openness and clarity when contracts were being awarded. 14.7 Councillor Huw Bevan proposed an amendment to the motion. He referred to the procurement scheme that was in place in Wales and asked that the Leader add an extra resolution stating that he will engage with the procurement scheme so that they ensure that the council is dealing with companies that meet the criteria for the fair tax mark. He recognised that there were already mechanisms in place for procuring goods and services, and he would like this point added. 14.8 Councillor Huw Bevan’s proposed amendment to the motion was not seconded. 14.9 The Leader stated that he was happy to raise Councillor Bevan’s point at Welsh Local Government Association level.
14a.1 The Elections Manager (EM) outlined the report seeking approval to participate in the Welsh Government Advanced Electoral Pilots in the Local Government and Community Council elections due to take place in Torfaen on Saturday 30 April 2022 and Sunday 1 May 2022. This is in addition to the election taking place on Thursday 5th May 2022. 14a.2 In response to questions asked by members, the EM made the following main points: · The council was required to submit their intention to proceed by 7 February 2022. Unless there were any other major issues, the only reason for the Council to withdraw after this date would be due to software issues. · Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Bridgend were also participating in the pilot. · There would be no cost implications to the authority, all costs relating to the pilot would be covered by Welsh Government. · All votes would be paper based. · Any elector from any ward in Torfaen could visit the advanced voting centre to vote on Saturday 30 April or Sunday 1 May 2022 between 10am and 4pm. The centre would be based at Pontypool Civic Centre. This location had been chosen as it was central to the authority. · Polling stations would be open as normal on polling day. Practices were in place to ensure that electors could not vote twice. · Welsh Government were funding the campaign which would be communicated to residents via letters, details on poll cards and social media. 14a.3 Council unanimously approved: · The participation of Torfaen in the Advanced Voting Pilot for the Local Government and Community Council election scheduled for the 30th April and 1 May 2022. · That the Returning Officer be given delegated authority to withdraw from the pilot in the event of any unforeseen circumstances arising which would necessitate its withdrawal.
16.1 Members questions with replies are set out in Appendix A to these minutes.
17.1 The next meeting was scheduled for Thursday 3 March at 10.00am.
17.1 Council unanimously agreed to note the Cabinet Decisions.
Councillors must say when they have a personal link to something being discussed, such as a job, a property or a family member. A prejudicial interest is one strong enough that the councillor usually leaves the room and takes no part.
Declarations are read from the minutes once they are published.
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