Issue - meetings

Recommendations

That the Executive

(i)           notes the forecast outturn position against the 2026/27 Revenue Budget, as summarised in paragraph 2.2.1

(ii)          notes the release of £10,918k contingency in recognition of a number of pressures including the savings currently flagged as at risk of delivery for the current and previous years in paragraph 2.2.6

(iii)         notes the position on reserves in Section 2.5

(iv)        notes the allocation of £938k from the Finance Reserve to fund the additional costs of the new finance system implementation as outlined at paragraph 2.5.2

(v)          Notes the work being undertaken by all directorates (paragraph 2.1.5) to reduce costs where possible and that there will be regular monitoring of this position throughout the year

(vi)        notes the position on the Council’s Treasury Management activities during the second quarter of 2026/27

(vii)       refers this report to the Audit Committee for their consideration as part of the overall monitoring arrangements for Treasury Management

(viii)      Approve the refreshed Capital Plan summarised at paragraph 4.2.3

(ix)        Approve an allocation of £800k from the Capital Contingency Reserve to the Catterick Garrison Levelling Up scheme as outlined at paragraph 4.4.1

(x)          Approve an allocation of £200k from the Strategic Capacity Unallocated Reserve to the Harrogate Convention Centre Studio 2 scheme for fixtures and fittings as outlined at paragraph 4.4.2

(xi)        Approve an allocation of £361k from the Strategic Capacity Unallocated Reserve to the Royal Albert Drive Landslip scheme as outlined at paragraph 4.5.4

(xii)       Approve the allocation of £175k earmarked Strategic Capacity Unallocated Reserve to deliver pay on entry technology as outlined at paragraph 4.7.2

Considered – A joint report of the Chief Executive and Interim Corporate Director Resources bringing together key aspects of the Council’s performance on a quarterly basis. 

The Executive Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Heather Phillips, presented the report which covered the period 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026 and provided details of performance at the end of year outturn.  She highlighted improvements in call answering times and waste collection performance, and also work on child protection plans.

The Leader welcomed members of Scrutiny Board to the meeting.  In response to questions to Executive Members from Scrutiny Chairs and Member Champions the following was confirmed:

Thriving Places and Empowered Communities

The Executive Member for Open to Business highlighted the work of the tourism team which had led to an increase in visitor numbers.

·       Remaining space at the Treadmills development and Royal Baths was being actively marketed, with further lettings progressing, and confidence was expressed that occupancy would improve over time.

·       Officers were developing an updated suite of tourism performance measures which would be presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in October.  Should a tourism tax be introduced, the Council would seek to work with the Mayor to ensure any revenue generated was invested in supporting the sector.  Visitor numbers were being monitored and should they fall mitigation measures would be considered.

·       In response to a question regarding inward investment reporting, Members were advised that there was often a significant time lag between initial enquiries, planning applications and eventual investment outcomes.  It was confirmed that revised performance measures would be presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in October.

·       The Planning service continued to perform strongly against national performance measures.  It was acknowledged that staffing challenges and inherited backlogs had affected performance since local government reorganisation, leading to some delays in decisions. Implementation of the One Uniform system would improve service resilience. It was noted that the majority of applications progressed without complaint and complaint numbers remained low overall.

Sustainable and Connected Places

·       Increased volumes of residual waste being deposited at household waste recycling centres appeared to be the cause of rising household residual waste levels. The developing waste management strategy would focus on waste reduction, reuse and recycling to help reduce overall waste volumes.

·       National tourism data and benchmarking information would be used to benchmark the performance of Visit North Yorkshire and incorporated into the revised performance measures due to be presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in October.

·       In response to a question regarding differences in reporting for waste-related performance indicators, Members were advised that two measures relied on a national reporting system that operated with a time lag, whereas the landfill measure was based on locally held data and reflected the strong performance of the Allerton Park facility in diverting waste from landfill.

·       Increased highway customer service requests were expected during the winter maintenance period due to requests relating to gritting, grit bins, flooding and drainage issues, with severe weather during the quarter contributing to increased  ...  view the full minutes text for item 968