City Governance Committee - 13/05/2024

At a MEETING of the CITY GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE held remotely on 13th May, 2024.

Present:-

BAILIES

COUNCILLORS

Councillor John ALEXANDER, Convener, in the Chair.

The minute of meeting of this Committee of 4th March, 2024 was held as read.

Unless marked thus * all items stand delegated.

I DECLARATION OF INTEREST

There were no declaration of interest.

II ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND KINGSWAY CIRCUS BRANCH

This item had been placed on the agenda by Councillor Coleman who asked the Convener to oppose the proposed closure of the Royal Bank of Scotland Kingsway Circus Branch from October 2024.

Thereafter, the Committee resolved:-

Committee agrees that the proposed closure of the Royal Bank of Scotlands Kingsway Circus branch from October 2024 would have a very negative impact on its customers living in Downfield, Kirkton, St Marys, Ardler and other communities north of the Kingsway.

Following on from the recent closure of the same banks Broughty Ferry branch and previous RBS branch closures across the city, the closure of the Kingsway Circus Branch, should it go ahead, would result in there being just one RBS face-to-face banking facility in a city of 150,000 citizens, which is wholly inadequate.

Committee therefore instructs the Chief Executive to write to Paul Thwaite, Group Chief Executive Officer of the NatWest Group making clear the City Councils strong opposition to this proposed closure, highlighting its concerns about the significant reduction in the RBS branch network across Dundee in recent years and requesting that Mr Thwaite refers the proposed closure to the NatWest Group Board of Directors for further consideration given the level of customer opposition to the closure and the contraction in face-to-face RBS banking facilities in the city.

The City Council itself banks with Royal Bank of Scotland and given this, committee also instructs officers to further engage with its Royal Bank of Scotland business relationship manager locally to make clear the councils opposition to the proposed closure of this bank branch and the reduction of its branch network in Dundee.

III IMPROVING SERVICES THROUGH LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS AND SERVICE USERS

There was submitted Report No 138-2024 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 to the recommendations indicated.

(i) to note the contents of the report;

(ii) to the highlights from the report, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report, are 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, as demonstrated in Appendix 2 to the report, and to identify any further customers who should be consulted with a view to ensuring that services continue to be improved in response to the views of users.

The Committee resolved under Section 50(A)(4) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 that the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the undernoted item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 6 and 9 of Part I of Schedule 7A of the Act.

IV IT DATA CENTRE HOSTING

There was submitted Report No 142-2024 by the Executive Director of Corporate Services, seeking approval for the appointment of Brightsolid to host Council data centre infrastructure.

The Committee agreed to the recommendations as indicated.

John ALEXANDER, Convener.