Issue - meetings

This report presents a request from the Scrutiny Management Committee for additional funding to finance a city-wide survey on the broad strategic options available to the City to tackle traffic congestion.

RESOLVED: That the Scrutiny Management Committee be invited to choose between the following two options:

·        Option 1 – to agree to release the £14k currently allocated in the contingency  provision for Scrutiny activities, plus £3k from reserves, for use in fully funding the application from the Traffic Congestion Scrutiny Committee.

·        Option 2 – to make available appropriate funding from reserves, up to a value of £6k, to facilitate an assessment of public opinion on the options for addressing traffic congestion issues in the City using existing mechanisms such as ‘Your City’, ‘Talkabout’ and the Council’s on-line consultation module.

REASON:      To enable the SMC to make a decision on this issue and the  use of Scrutiny funding without improper interference from the Executive.

Members considered a report which presented a request from the Scrutiny Management Committee (SMC) for additional funding to finance a city-wide survey on the broad strategic options available to tackle traffic congestion.

The request had arisen from the SMC’s consideration of an interim report from the Traffic Congestion Ad-hoc Scrutiny Committee, in which a request had been made for £17k additional funding for a survey on strategic options to tackle traffic congestion, and of a further report detailing alternative options for gathering York residents’ responses.  The Head of Marketing and Communications had advised that a survey of the kind proposed – to determine residents’ attitudes to congestion – was defined as research rather than consultation and that the best way to determine residents’ attitudes would be through a ‘Talkabout’ special, costing around £6k.  Costings for the survey proposed by the Committee were set out in Annex A to the report, while details of the alternative ‘Talkabout’ option were provided in Annex B.

The Executive was asked to consider the following options:

Option 1 – grant the SMC’s request for £17k additional funding;

Option 2 – allocate £6k additional funding, in line with the Head of Marketing and Communications’ suggestion;

Option 3 – refuse the application for additional funding.

Members commented that there was a lack of clarity in terms of exactly what the £17k funding was expected to deliver. 

Having noted the advice of the Shadow Executive on this item, it was

RESOLVED: That the Scrutiny Management Committee be invited to choose between the following two options:¹

·        Option 1 – to agree to release the £14k currently allocated in the contingency  provision for Scrutiny activities, plus £3k from reserves, for use in fully funding the application from the Traffic Congestion Scrutiny Committee.

·        Option 2 – to make available appropriate funding from reserves, up to a value of £6k, to facilitate an assessment of public opinion on the options for addressing traffic congestion issues in the City using existing mechanisms such as ‘Your City’, ‘Talkabout’ and the Council’s on-line consultation module.

REASON:      To enable the SMC to make a decision on this issue and the  use of Scrutiny funding without improper interference from the Executive.