Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Walker.

Councillor Denton took the Chair.

RESOLVED, that the minutes of the meeting held on 26^th October 2023 (circulated previously) be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Please telephone the Corporate and Community Services team to prepare a form for your signature before the meeting. Interests must be re-declared when the item is called. A declaration of interest under the Code of Conduct will be a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest, an Other Registrable Interest or a Non-Registrable Interest.  If the item directly relates to your interest you must declare the interest and leave the room for the item, save in the case of Other Registrable Interests or Non-Registrable Interests where you may first speak on the item as a member of the public if provision has been made for the public to speak.  If the matter does not directly relate to your interest but still affects it then you must consider whether you are affected to a greater extent than most people and whether a reasonable person would consider your judgement to be clouded, if you are then you must leave the room for the item (although you may speak as a member of the public if provision has been made for the public to speak) or, if you are not, then you can declare the interest but still take part).

There were no declarations of interest announced.

Report by the Finance Manager, North Devon Council (attached).

The Joint Committee considered a report by the Finance Manager (NDC) (circulated previously) regarding the 2023/24 Q2 Forecast Building Control Partnership Trading Account.

The Finance Manager gave the Committee the following summary:

·         Page 11 of the agenda showed the table detailing the figures for the Partnership Trading Account.

·         Column one of the trading account table, showed the annual budget for each Authority.

·         Column two of the table showed the forecasted outturn for the year 2023/24 based on the total variance as at quarter 3.

·         At the bottom of column two a percentage split was shown for the income for the two Authorities, which was currently showing a split of 65.62% for North Devon Council and 34.38% for Mid-Devon.  This was against the original split of 60:40.

·         Column three of the table set out the percentage split between the two authorities in greater detail.

·         Column four of the table showed the chargeable and non-chargeable costs for North Devon Council.

·         Colum five of the table showed the chargeable and non-chargeable costs for Mid Devon District Council.

In response to questions, the Building Control Manager advised the following:

·         The downturn in income to the partnership for the year 2023/24 could be attributed to the reduction in applications together with the type of work that the business was receiving.

·         The partnership would be looking to increase its charges for applications in the new financial year 2024/25.

·         The new regulations regarding high rise buildings of 18 metres or more were very complex and was now subject to regulated building safety regulations. However, the North and Mid Devon areas did not have many buildings over the regulation height.  

RESOLVED, that the report be noted.

Report by the Building Control Manager (attached).

The Committee considered a report by the Building Control Manager (circulated previously) regarding the Building Control Business update.

He outlined the main areas of the report, which were under the following headings:

·       Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 2022/23.

·       KPIs 2023/24.

·       Resource Implications.

·       Building Safety Act 2022 –Duty Holder and Processing Changes.

·       Internal Audit.

·       Building Control Charges.

·       Validation Process.

·       Training update.

·       Building Safety Regulator Registration Update.

·       BSR Operational Standards and Upgrade to Uniform.

·       LABC ISO Framework.

·       Partnership Priorities.

He drew the Joint Committee’s attention to the following key points within the report:

·       The table in the report showed performance in relation to decisions within two months at 98% (target 95%), plan examination response times with applications being examined within 3 weeks at 85% (target 95%) and average time to first response 17 days (target 10 days).

·       Improvement in the three week and time to first response remained the partnerships long term target but with three vacant Surveying positions, inexperienced Technical Support staff, inexperienced Surveying staff and the changes to the back office systems that were required in the coming months, immediate improvement in these figures should not be anticipated.

·       At the last Joint Committee, general Market Share was reported to have stabilised in the Quarter 2 2023/24 at 70 percent.

·       Despite the challenges the Market Share had improved and was up by 10% in Quarter 3 and was currently 80 percent.

·       The application numbers continued to reflect the general economic climate and the lack of confidence in the housing and property investment market.

·       Taking public perception into account, interest rates and with property owners being risk averse to investment in their homes and businesses, despite the partnerships relatively competitive Market Share, the lack of activity in construction sector was being reflected in the number of applications being received and inevitably the our reduced levels of income.

·       The Partnership was continuing the re-building process and recent recruitment had reduced vacant positions from six, down to three.

·       Since the last Committee meeting the vacant Technical Support posts had been filled together with the New full time Technical Support Team Leader and Assistant employed on a 24 hour contract who joined the partnership on 6th November 2023. Both were becoming increasingly productive and an asset to the partnerships operations but were some way from completing training with partnerships part-time well established Technical Support Assistant.

·       While this training continues, the Partnership was also preparing for the Building Safety Regulator Regime changes, with this in mind, the partnership would continue to access assistance from Mid Devon District Council’s Planning Support team, to process Building Regulation applications and payments with a view to maintaining acceptable management of new work flow.

·       In addition, the vacant Mid Devon Principal Surveyor’s position had been filled and the new recruit had been in post since 4th December 2023.

·       With the recruitment successes the Partnership had reduced its reliance on expensive agency surveying staff and were now just contracting one agency Surveyor.

·       The current agency Surveyors contract was due to expire  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

This is the last meeting of this Committee cycle for 2023/24.

(NOTE: Unless otherwise agreed the Joint Committee must meet at least on a quarterly basis with the meeting held at 10.00am and the offices of the Chairman’s partner authority).

The Joint Committee was advised by the Clerk that she had circulated the proposed dates for 2024/25 had been circulated via email to the members of the Joint Committee for their agreement.

RESOLVED, that the following proposed dates for the Joint Committee meetings for 2024/25 be agreed:

a)    Thursday 25^th April 2024 at 10:00am.

b)    Thursday 25^th July 2024 at 10:00am.

c)    Thursday 24^th September 2024 at 10:00am.

d)    Thursday 23^rd January 2025 at 10:00am.