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Contact: Committee Section
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Items
No. |
Item |
70. |
Apologies
Minutes:
Cllr
Brian Francis (Vice-Chair) gave his apology as he was unable to
dial into the meeting.
|
71. |
Minutes PDF 83 KB
Minutes:
Cllr
Hills asked if the promotion of surgeries from social services had
been established.
The
Head of Revenue & Benefits explained that unfortunately due to
the COVID-19 outbreak there had been no resources left to allocate
to that piece of work but it was still on the agenda to be
completed once things returned to normality.
The minutes of the
meeting held on Tuesday, 18 February
2020 were signed by the Chair.
|
72. |
Declarations of Interest
Minutes:
No declarations of interest.
|
73. |
Coronavirus: Cabinet Portfolio Impact PDF 195 KB
Minutes:
The
Committee was provided with an overview of
the impact of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic upon the
practical delivery of the respective services within the
responsible Cabinet portfolio.
The
Head of Revenues & Benefits guided Members through the report
further explaining key points from the following
sections:
- Legislation and Government announcements in response to the
COVID-19
Pandemic
- Revenues and Benefits
- Corporate Performance
- Audit and Counter Fraud
- Corporate Change
- Information Governance
- Corporate Governance
- Performance
Following questions and comments from Members, the Director
(Corporate Services) and the Head of Revenue and Benefits explained
that:
- The Audit & Counter Fraud process was not considered a
critical service at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic so the
team were redeployed to provide support and advice to other
services such as the business grant support process. Additionally,
they formed part of the Council’s resilience team ensuring
that any adjustments made to the control environment were recorded
and any associated risks were mitigated etc. As the Council has
slowly transitioned to the recovery phase over the last month, the
auditors have been focusing on concluding work that was outstanding
at the end of 2019/20 to assist the
Head of Internal Audit, in delivering his Annual Assurance
Statement. That Statement is intended to provide assurance on the
operation of the Council’s control environment and support
the Annual Governance Statement
- The Council Tax Hardship Fund has been promoted to those
struggling financially and the majority of has already been applied
however the team recognised that there will be some exceptional
cases who will require further assistance. The biggest issue was
identifying those who required assistance but customers were guided
to the scheme if they were in arrears. Stakeholders were also
worked with to advertise the fund
- The Discretionary Business Rate Fund for businesses was
£716,000 and it was created due to the number of business
that were not eligible under the small business grant or retail,
hospital and leisure grant schemes. The 100% retail relief fund was
distributed but the discretionary fund will be directed to
help cover other costs associated with
the business such as ongoing fixed building related costs. To
receive the grant, the business owners will need to prove that they
were still trading on the 11 March 2020 and had a rateable value
under £51,000 or were not ratepayers and had annual
rent/mortgage below £51K. The grant is anticipated to assist
many small businesses, market traders, B&Bs and Charities who
were not in receipt of small business rate relief or who had been
waiting to be valued by the valuation agency
- The number of businesses which have received support through the
original business support grant scheme was 1132 cases totalling
payments of £13.90m, of these 962 of those were small
businesses, totalling £9.62 million
- The self-employed businesses will be able to apply for the
second tranche of the discretionary fund; the application process
is currently open and will close on 19 June 2020. After which the
demand for the fund and applications will be assessed
...
view the full minutes text for item 73.
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74. |
Any other business which by reason of special circumstances the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency.
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75. |
Exclusion
To move, if required,
that pursuant to Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972
that the public be excluded from any items included in Part B of
the agenda because it is likely in view of the nature of business
to be transacted that if members of the public are present during
those items, there would be disclosure to them of exempt
information as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.
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