Agenda and minutes

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 3 January 2023.

The minutes of the meeting held on 3 January 2023 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

None.

The following motion on Teignmouth Hospital - supporting Patients and the Community has been presented by Cllr D Cox to Council 12 January 2023 and supported by Cllrs Connett, H Cox, Dewhirst, G Hook, J Hook, Jeffries, Keeling, Nutley, Parker, Swain, Taylor and Wrigley and deferred to the Executive for consideration.

Across Devon, Community Hospitals such as Teignmouth have played a vital role in healthcare, providing of range of inpatient and outpatient healthcare close to the community.

Over the past two decades, Devon has seen a steady and relentless decline in community hospital beds and services. Teignmouth is no exception.

Pressures on the acute hospitals, such as Torbay, are immense and made worse by the lack of beds in the community to which patients could be discharged by Torbay.

Recent figures from NHS England show an average of 41 beds per day were occupied by people ready to be discharged from Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust in October – though this was down from 45 the month before, a local media outlet has reported.

While positively welcoming the proposed new Health Hub in the centre of Teignmouth, this council also affirms its support for Teignmouth Hospital and believes it should continue to play an integral part in the healthcare provision for the town and the wider district.

Council asks the Managing Director to write to: The Chairs and Chief Executives of the Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, The relevant Members of Parliament and the Secretary of State for Health asking for a review of the hospital closure plans, mindful of the pressures on local acute hospitals through delayed discharges to other appropriate provision.

Background to the Notice of Motion:-

Across Devon, Community Hospitals such as Teignmouth have played a vital role in healthcare, providing of range of inpatient and outpatient healthcare close to the community.

Over the past two decades, Devon has seen a steady and relentless decline in community hospital beds and services. Teignmouth is no exception.

Pressures on the acute hospitals, such as Torbay, are immense and made worse by the lack of beds in the community to which patients could be discharged by Torbay.

Recent figures from NHS England show an average of 41 beds per day were occupied by people ready to be discharged from Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust in October – though this was down from 45 the month before, a local media outlet has reported.

While positively welcoming the proposed new Health Hub in the centre of Teignmouth, this council also affirms its support for Teignmouth Hospital and believes it should continue to play an integral part in the healthcare provision for the town and the wider district.

Local Ward Members Cllrs Clarance and D Cox attended and spoke on the item.

With the permission of the Leader Local Residents addressed the committee voicing their grave concerns regarding the proposed closure of Teignmouth Hospital.   

RECOMMENDED to Full Council that:-

(1)   the Council asks the Managing Director to write to: The Chairs and Chief Executives of the Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, the relevant Members of Parliament and the Secretary of State for Health asking for a review of the hospital closure plans, mindful of the pressures on local acute hospitals through delayed discharges to other appropriate provision;

(2)  The Council contact the Chair of Devon County Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee - Cllr Randall-Johnson – requesting that the committee write to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to ask for a review of the planned closure of Teignmouth Hospital:-

(3)  Overview and Scrutiny Committee (2) to consider undertaking a review of the closure of Cottage Hospitals in the district and:-

(4)  The Council write to the Chair of the Integrated Care System for Devon  - Dr S Wollaston - the Chief Executive of the Integrated Care System Board  - Ms J Milligan – and the Regional Medical Director and Higher Level Responsible Officer for the South Region of NHS England – Dr N Acheson - to ask for a review of Teignmouth Hospital closure plans.

The vote was unanimous.

To note forthcoming decisions anticipated on the Executive Forward Plan

RESOLVED that the Forward Plan be noted.

The Executive Member for Corporate Resources presented the report to consider the final financial plan proposals 2023/24 to 2025/26 for recommendation to Council on 21 February. These proposals included recommended revenue and capital budgets for 2023/24 and planned in outline for 2024/25 and 2025/26.

RECOMMENDED thatCouncil approve the final budget for 2023/24 and the outline plan for the subsequent years 2024/25 and 2025/26.

The proposed budget included:

·       An increase in council tax of £5.54 or 2.99% to £190.71

·       Providing a one-off cost of living payment of £5.54 to households liable to pay council tax on their main home on 1 April 2023 in 2023/24

·       Maintaining 100% council tax support

·       Continuing to react to the climate change emergency by maintaining ongoing revenue budgets for a climate change officer and associated spending, temporary staffing resources in revenue and provision in the capital programme, including ongoing provisions for corporate decarbonization schemes as per 5.5

·       A £2 million provision for employment sites funded by borrowing

·       Provision for an Emergency Planning officer

·       Temporary funds for a Scrutiny Officer to assist Members with the Scrutiny function and working groups; appointment of a Digital transformation Manager and other temporary resources including for facilitating the Modern 25 work

·       Support for housing including the Teignbridge 100 (see 5.3) whilst backing business and bringing people and organisations together for local neighbourhood planning

·       The continuing Government reduction in new homes bonus

·       Other central funding reductions – in particular provisional assumptions for business rates for future years and reset of the baseline

·       Reserves at 13.0% of the net revenue budget or £2.3 million

·       Infrastructure delivery plan investment funded by community infrastructure levy and external sources where available

·       Continuation of grant funded South West Regional Monitoring Programme as per 5.6

·       Town centre investment in infrastructure and employment as per 5.7

·       Re-establishing revenue contributions to capital initially at £300,000 per annum

·       Continuation of enhanced Planning funding

·       Councillors Community Fund set at £1,000

·       Provision of £20,000 for year 2 of the ‘Tidy Teignbridge’ initiative to improve cleanliness for town and parish councils

·       Paying £500,000 off our pension deficit in 2023/24 to reduce ongoing contributions

·       An additional document - the Financial Plan 2023 – 2028 for adoption (at Appendix 8) and to facilitate Member progression of work plans by Overview & Scrutiny to address the budgetary position and deliver savings

RECOMMENDED thatCouncil note the mid year review of Treasury Management shown at appendix 9.

The vote was unanimous.

Verbal update by the Executive Member for Planning.

The Executive Member for Planning updated Members on the progress with the recommendations that arose from Overview and Scrutiny Committee (2) and the last Executive with regards to Planning Enforcement.

He advised that:-

Drone trial - would initially contact peers, NAPE (National Association of Planning Enforcement) and the specialist consultancy Ivy Legal. Currently not aware of any Local Planning Authority having in-house drone capacity or that the Council had any sites at the moment where this would help. Members would be updated on this via the Members Newsletter.

Enforcement Policy – a review of the policy was underway – as a result of this some processes would need to be refined to ensure that they align with the policy.

Enforcement Report to Planning Committee – being scoped out with the Chair of Planning Committee to see what over and above the information that Members receive could be provided.

Communication with Town and Parish Council – the development of a Sharepoint site - this would be done along side work to roll out subscriptions/sign on which was anticipated to be after May 2023.

Writing to relevant Government Minister – asked the Business Lead – Development Management what additional powers the Council would like to see to support the delivery a new performance framework. These included fees around Enforcement issues, the issue of substantial costs incurred for any direct action with sometimes not any prospect of recouping costs, a commitment to speed up the appeals process.

Enhancement of the Members enforcement notification report– would be reflected in the report at the end of February.

The Leader commented that there should be clear timelines on the actions to ensure that they did not get lost when the new council was in place after May 2023.

The Head of Place & Commercial Services commented that he did not have anything further to add to the circulated report.

Due to the financial sensitivity of the Members questions it was:-

RESOLVEDthat under Section 100 (A) (4) of the Local Government Act 1972 that press and public be excluded from the meeting for the discussion of the financial sensitive information on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of part 1 of schedule 12 A of the Act.

As Executive had no further financially sensitive queries Executive agreed to resume the meeting in Part I.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

The vote was unanimous.