Agenda item

To agree the public minutes and summary of the meeting held on 05 July 2022.

RESOLVED, That the public minutes of the meeting of 05 July 2022 are an accurate record of the proceedings.

The Sub-Committee took the opportunity to express its gratitude to Leah Coburn who recently left the organisation and congratulated her on her valuable contribution to the work of the Corporation.

An update was given on the review of projects under way across the Corporation portfolio. The review was in response to significant medium-term financial pressures being raised with Members by the Chamberlain, and its aim was to focus on strengthening financial discipline, ensure funding allocations are sufficient, and make sure that projects are aligned to the City’s strategic priorities and essential activities.

All departments had been asked to provide summary information on each and every project within their remit, the only exceptions being projects funded by developer s278 contributions, Bridge House Estate projects, and those approaching Gateway 6 completion.

The summary information focused on inflationary impacts, costed risk, justification against corporate priorities, and implications of not progressing each project.

For Environment as a whole, that involved the submission of detailed information concerning 27 projectsalready past Gateway 5 and around 50 projects at a pre-G5 stage, the majority of which have been subject to past approval by either the Sub Committee or the Planning & Transportation Committee.

Each and every project within scope of the review is potentially at risk of being deferred, amended or halted if the information provided does not address the Corporation’s concerns around inflationary impacts, prioritisation, and wider issues of affordability.

The reports before the Sub Committee today therefore fall into one of three categories:

• they concern non-project related issues
• they relate to projects funded through s278
• they concern projects in scope of the review but it has been agreed that the Sub Committee can consider them rather than wait for this review to be concluded because such a delay would have a material impact on that project.

In the event that the Sub Committee today agrees reports from that last category, they will still need to be approved under the review process in order to proceed. 

Some less pressing Gateway reports have had to be deferred so that the project can be considered first under the review before the next Gateway can be reached.

Members noted that transport project funding sources were hypothecated, and noted that further information on the review criteria would be requested.