Agenda item

(time limit 15 minutes)

24^thAugust 2020 (reconvened 28^th August 2020)

28^th September 2020

Urgent Key Decisions

Council were requested to note the minutes of the Cabinet meetings held on the undermentioned dates and to receive any questions on any items within the minutes from members of the Council who were not members of the Cabinet, and receive responses from Cabinet members.  The minutes of the Cabinet meetings held on 24^th August 2020, 28^th September 2020 and urgent key decisions taken from 29^th October 2019 to 26^th October 2020 were submitted.

Members raised the following question:

Councillor Ahmad asked the following question related to Cabinet, 24 August 2020 (reconvened 28 August 2020), Items 9 and 21 – Creating A Better Place:

“I can see that the Cabinet has reviewed Creating a Better Place, including the Oldham Town Centre Vision, and agreed which projects can go ahead in the current financial circumstances. Personally, I believe it to be fantastic news that the Council have secured ownership of the Spindles shopping centre.  It is unfortunate that the price cannot be released as I am sure the Council would not have bought the centre had it not been a good deal.  It is clear that some of the Council’s detractors are exploiting the understandable lack of understanding of complex local government finance and the distinction between capital and revenue budgets for cynical political gain.  Can the relevant cabinet member explain why the Spindles purchase does not affect the Council’s day to day budget and the ability to employ staff and deliver essential services?”

Councillor Fielding, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Economy and Skills responded that the distinction between capital and revenue expenditure was not understood by the public, but understandably so as it was quite unique to Local Government.  The majority of members did understand that distinction but there were some who did not or pretended that they didn’t in order to make a political point.  As many councillors would know, local government was forced to observe a distinction between capital and revenue expenditure in local authorities.  Capital was money that could only be used for one-off costs such as the purchase of a building like Spindles whilst revenue was to be used for ongoing costs such as the payment of staff wages.  Therefore the purchase of Spindles Shopping Centre from the capital budget had not used funds that could have otherwise been used to mitigate the impact of the cuts the Council faced to the revenue budget and paid staff wages or ran day-to-day services.  As the Leader had confirmed in his statement earlier, the Council had secured the centre for £9.5m which was less than a quarter of what the previous owners had paid.  In the intervening period since the Leader of the Minority Opposition’s question, there had been a rumour that the Council had taken on debt liabilities from the previous owners of the centre.  The Leader noted that this was a rumour and that no debt had been taken on and the building had been bought for £9.5m.

RESOLVED that:

1.         The minutes of the Cabinet meetings held on 24^th August 2020, 28^th September 2020 and the urgent key decisions taken from 29^th October 2019 to 26^th October 2020 be noted.

2.         The question and response provided be noted.