Issue - meetings

To consider and agree the minutes of the meeting held on 15 July 2021.

The following issues were raised under matters arising from the minutes and responded to.

With regards to the renaming Black Boy Lane and the number of issues raised previously by the Committee in March , it was the intention to bring a report on these issues to the November meeting of the Corporate Committee.

An update was provided on the actions undertaken since the last meeting in July and information circulated to Committee Members.

Referring to the action point on the Alexandra House purchase, the Chair updated the Committee on a further potential audit of the purchase of Alex House following discussions at the March and July meetings of the Committee.

The Chair had since read the Mazars report which covered the period from November 2018 when Workspace approached the Council to ask if the Council would be interested in purchasing the building , through to May 2019 when Workspace were informed that the Council would not be purchasing the building. The Chair had also had access to the Cabinet papers from Feb 2020 when the decision was taken to purchase the building. Having read the reports, the Chair felt it was important to take steps to respond to outstanding concerns on how the decisions were made. He set out the Committee’s key role in addressing these concerns and referred to the Committee’s terms of reference.

Further following up this action, the Chair advised that there would be an exempt part to the November Committee meeting to consider the Mazars Audit report on the circumstances around the workspace approach to the Council, and to consider the exempt part of the Cabinet report on which the decision was based.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that Legal advice would be given to former Cabinet Members, who were now members of the Corporate Committee, on their participation, once the shape of the exempt meeting was better known in the coming weeks.

RESOLVED

To approve the  minutes of the meeting held on the 15^th of July 2021.