North Yorkshire Council
Corporate and Partnership Overview and Scrutiny Committee
9 June 2025
Report on Notices of Motion from Full Council on 26 February 2025
Report of the Assistant Chief Executive (Legal & Democratic Services)
1.0 Purpose of Report
1.1 To present information in response to a Motion at Full Council in February 2025. This information has been provided to enable members toconsider theMotion allocated to this Committee and agree an appropriate way forward to deliver a response for full Council’s future consideration.
2.0 Background
2.1 At Full Council on 26 February 2025, a number of Motions were received, and it was agreed they would be referred to the Scrutiny Board to consider and allocate to the appropriate Overview and Scrutiny Committee, with the intention of recommendations being brought back to the next meeting of full Council in July 2025.
2.2 The Scrutiny Board considered those Motions, and it was agreed that two Motions should be considered by the Corporate & Partnerships Overview & Scrutiny Committee. The first proposing a change to the Constitution in relation to the Council Plan was subsequently withdrawn by its proposer Councillor Chris Aldred. The second related to Property. Services.
3.0 Motion - Register of Disposable Assets
3.1 The Notice of Motion as proposed by Councillor Kevin Foster (and seconded by Councillor Andy Brown) stated:
‘That this council provides a comprehensive register of its disposable assets worth 100k or more by 30 June 2025.’
3.2 As a member of this committee, Councillor Kevin Foster (proposer of the Motion) will be at this meeting to present his views on why a comprehensive register of the Council’s disposable assets worth 100k or more is required.
3.3 Information Gathered to Date
There are two key considerations for this proposal:
· what would be defined as a disposable asset?
· what form of valuation would ‘worth’ be based on?
Both of these areas are considered further below.
3.4 The Council’s estate comprises 20,000+ land and property interests including 3,500+ built assets. All of them are technically “disposable” but, if they were disposed of, many would need to be replaced as they are essential for the delivery of services. Others are heritage or cultural assets that might be of historic interest, parks which might be utilised by local residents and enhance wellbeing, or leased out assets that deliver important revenue income streams that help to fund essential front-line services. All of these assets will have a worth that could be measured in very different ways.
3.5 In terms of valuations, the Council does value certain assets across the estate for insurance and accountancy purposes. However, these values do not represent Open Market Value for disposal which is presumably what the majority of people might equate with ‘worth’ in the context of the motion. In order to estimate Open Market Value, each asset or interest would need to be individually assessed, and any such valuation would represent a snapshot of an estimated value at a particular point in time.
3.6 It is not common practice to value a whole estate in this way nor would it be cost effective or feasible for the Council to take on such an undertaking. It therefore feels impractical and of questionable value to produce a comprehensive register of assets with desk based, market value assessments of over £100k given that many other factors would need to be considered before a proposal to dispose of an asset is put forward.
3.7 If the purpose of the motion is to accelerate savings through asset rationalisation, Members should note that a separate report on today’s agenda outlines the draft aims and objectives of a Corporate Property Strategy, along with examples of progress made to date. Notably, over £13m has been generated from property asset disposals since vesting day, demonstrating strong progress in this area. In addition, £2.6m of property related revenue budget savings are in the pipeline as a result of reorganisation, with more savings certainly to come forward in the coming years. The original business case for unitarisation suggested property savings of £1.9m over 5 years, so that estimate is already being exceeded.
3.8 The Corporate Property Strategy proposals set out clear ambitions in regard to reducing the footprint of the estate, and on continuing to deliver financial benefits through effective asset rationalisation and disposal. Progress updates on these matters will be presented to this Committee for consideration and scrutiny.
3.9 Directing scarce property team resource to pursue the completion of the proposed register set out within the Motion would, in officer’s view, be counter-productive and will slow down the delivery of the opportunities that we have in relation to the asset portfolio. In addition, embarking on a fire sale type approach, as some Local Authorities have had to do in recent years, could mean that too many assets are exposed to the market at once and potentially impact and undermine anticipated values.
4.0 Options
4.1 Having considered this report and the information provided at the meeting, Members are asked to agree whether sufficient information has been provided to determine a response to the Notice of Motion detailed in section 3 above.
4.2 If sufficient information has been provided, Members are asked to agree whether or not to recommend that the Notice of Motion be upheld.
4.3 If further information is required, the Committee may choose to:
i. Agree what additional information is required to support your considerations
ii. Agree to hold an additional meeting of this Committee prior to the next meeting of full Council on 16 July 2025, to consider a further report on the proposal and associated options and implications, in order to inform this Committee’s recommendation to Full Council in July.
5.0 Risks & Implications
5.1 The key risk of the motion being upheld relates to the additional costs associated with a rolling programme of asset valuations, along with the need to redeploy scarce property resource to this area of work which would be to the detriment of other priority workloads.
6.0 Report Recommendation
6.1 Members are asked to consider and agree an appropriate way forward.
BARRY KHAN
Assistant Chief Executive (Legal and Democratic Services)
County Hall
NORTHALLERTON
30 May 2025
Report Authors - Melanie Carr, Senior Scrutiny Officer & Kerry Metcalfe, AD Property Procurement and Commercial
Presenter of Report – Melanie Carr, Senior Scrutiny Officer
Background Papers: None
Appendices: None
Note: Members are invited to contact the author in advance of the meeting with any detailed queries or questions.