Policy And Resources Committee - 13/06/2022

At a MEETING of the POLICY AND RESOURCES COMMITTEE held remotely on 13th June, 2022.

Present:-

BAILIES

COUNCILLORS

The minute of meeting of this Committee of 25th April, 2022 was held as read.

Unless marked thus * all items stand delegated.

Councillor John ALEXANDER, Convener, in the Chair.

I DECLARATION OF INTEREST

Councillor Finnegan declared an interest in respect of Article III by virtue of her employment with NHS Tayside.

II COST OF LIVING EMERGENCY

This item was placed on the agenda at the request of Councillor Coleman who requested that the Committee declared a cost of living emergency in Dundee with proposed actions to address this.

Thereafter, the Committee resolved the following:-

On 1st April 2022, Ofgem increased the energy price cap by 54%.

In light of the increased energy price cap, the average standard tariff energy bill will increase by 693 per year. The average pre-pay meter energy bill will increase by 708 per year (Ofgem, 2022).

There are further concerns about prospects for the energy price cap from October, 2022, when the cap could rise from 1,971 to around 2,800.

On 6th April 2022, the UK Government increased National Insurance by 1.25 percentage points, which is projected to cost the average Dundee family an additional 108 per year.

The UK Government has suspended the pensions triple lock for 2022/2023, meaning that Dundees pensioners saw a paltry rise of 3.1% this year (instead of 8.3% under the triple lock formula). This year, this will cost a Dundee pensioner on the full new state pension an average of 487, and a Dundonian on the full basic state pension and average of 373 (TUC, 2022).

Figures released by the Trussell Trust show 12,751 food parcels were delivered to people in Dundee in 2021-2022. (Trussell Trust, 2022).

The welcome decision by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to finally impose a tax on extraordinary profits from North Sea oil and gas production has come late in the day. It also fails to address all the actions that require to be taken to help the poorest families in Dundee and across the country from the effects of energy cost increases and the cost of living crisis more generally.

The Committee therefore calls on the UK Government to:-

1. immediately reduce the standard rate of VAT from 20% to 17.5% for one year, saving the average Dundee household a further 600 this year; and

2. immediately re-introduce the pensions triple lock to support Dundees pensioners, applying the triple lock formula from start of 2022/2023 financial year and backdating payments accordingly.

The Committee noted with concern that Scottish Government figures suggest that over 610,000 Scottish households are living in fuel poverty with over 310,000 being in extreme fuel poverty.

It also noted that the number of households benefitting from the Warmer Homes Scotland initiative from the Scottish Government through grants available for cavity wall and loft insulation and new windows in recent years is low, with Scottish Government statistics showing that just 5,326 households benefited in 2016/2017 and only 2,904 in 2020/2021 (Scottish Government, 2022).

The Committee therefore also called on the Scottish Government to take new steps to widely promote Warmer Homes Scotland and review the criteria for qualification to greatly increase the number of Scotlands households benefitting from better insulted houses.

The Committee instructed the Chief Executive to write to appropriate Ministers in the UK and Scottish Governments relative to these matters conveying City Councillors concerns and outlining the actions the Committee considered appropriate for Ministers to take as outlined in this motion.

The Committee therefore agreed that Dundee City Council declares a Cost of Living Emergency.

III LOCAL GOVERNMENT BENCHMARKING FRAMEWORK PERFORMANCE INDICATORS 2020/2021

There was submitted Report No 148-2022 by the Chief Executive advising of the performance of Dundee City Council, including functions delegated to the Integration Joint Board, for the financial year 2020/2021, as defined by the performance indicators compiled by the Improvement Service for the Local Government Benchmark Framework. In particular, it described the Councils performance in relation to the other peer local authorities in its Family Group which had similar characteristics such as urban density and deprivation.

The Committee agreed:-

(i) to note the results contained in the report;

(ii) to remit the report to the Scrutiny Committee for further consideration; and

(iii) to remit the Council Leadership Team to review the areas of improvement set out in Section 6 of the report.

IV IMPROVING SERVICES THROUGH LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS AND SERVICE USERS

There was submitted Report No 106-2022 by the Chief Executive highlighting improvements which had been made to Council services as a result of listening to the views of customers and service users over the past year.

The Committee agreed:-

(i) to note the contents of the report, and agreed that similar reports should continue to be submitted annually;

(ii) that highlights from the report, as set out in Appendix 1 of the report, were published on the we listened, we acted page of the Councils website; and

(iii) to encourage services to maintain their efforts to listen to and respond to feedback, and to identify any further customers who should be consulted with a view to ensuring that services continued to be improved in response to the views of users.

V BEST VALUE ASSURANCE REPORT (BVAR) ACTION PLAN PROGRESS REPORT

On a reference to Article IV of the minute of Dundee City Council of 16th November, 2020, there was submitted Report No 137-2022 by the Chief Executive reporting progress on the implementation of the improvement actions agreed to address the findings and recommendations from the Best Value Assurance Report, published in September, 2020.

The Committee agreed to note progress as summarised in sections 5 and 6 of the report with fuller details on each action set out in Appendix 1 of the report.

John ALEXANDER, Convener.