Hart Borough Council Cabinet Meeting

The minutes of 5 September 2024 were confirmed and signed as a correct record.

Proposed by: Cllr Clarke; seconded by Cllr Wildsmith; agreed unanimously.

Apologies had been received from Cllrs Collins and Quarterman.

No declarations were made.

The Chairman had no announcements.

There was none.

This report set out the draft Digital Strategy 2024-28 and sought approval from the Cabinet.

Members were advised that:

• The draft Digital Strategy was a Council-wide strategy geared towards harnessing the culture, processes and technology of the digital age. 
• The Council would continue to offer traditional methods of contact for residents less able or inclined,
• The intended benefits of the Strategy were to improve services, make efficiencies, reduce climate impacts and reduce costs.
• Projects would be defined and costed for consideration as part of Medium Term Financial Strategy budget setting.
• The Strategy would be a “living document” and updated regularly as well as progress being reported annually or when there was a significant change to the document.
• Goals and outcomes would become more specific over time.
• It was the intention that some of the projects would be covered within allocated funds, some by grant funding and others would bid for available funding through the normal process.
• The Overview and Scrutiny Committee had considered the draft Digital Strategy 2024-28 at its September meeting.  

Questions were raised concerning:

• What was meant by digitalised antisocial behaviour.
• Whether it was the intention for customer input data to be able to go into one central data store so that information could be pulled as required.
• When the Strategy’s Action Plan would be available for reporting and measuring.

Members were advised:

• The current digital way to report antisocial behaviour was through the Council’s website. 
• It was the intention to be able to integrate business applications being used for caseloads to generate business efficiencies, thus enabling time spent on such work to be hastened. 
• Low code development was part of the Action Plan, which could achieve one version of customer/resident interactions  with the Council across various services. 

The Action Plan would be prepared in accordance with the budget process

Proposed by Cllr Clarke; seconded by Cllr Neighbour; agreed unanimously.

Decision

Cabinet approved the draft Digital Strategy 2024-2028.

Hart District Council (HDC) had been granted £1million through the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) to fund projects identified in HDC’s Local Investment Plan (LIP).

This report provided progress on spending against approved funding allocations for the Community Hub and Youth Provision UKSPF year 3 schemes.  The funds allocated to Hart had to be spent by the end of March 2025.  Cabinet noted that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had also considered the report at its meeting on 10 September 2024

Members received a briefing on the 16 approved applications for the Community Hub and Young Persons Engagement projects.

Members were advised that there was some residual funding still to be spent and that a report would be brought to Cabinet in the near future for consideration regarding allocating this money

A question was raised regarding whether it would be possible for representatives from some of the approved applications to be invited to a future full Council meeting to talk about their projects.  This would be discussed with the Chairman of the Council.

Decision

Cabinet noted the progress on the projects awarded UKSPF funding in February 2024.

Note:

Cllr Bailey declared a personal and non-prejudicial interest in this item in respect of his wife being linked to one of the organisations which had received UKSPF grant funding and remained in the meeting.

Cabinet Members reviewed the work programme and the following amendment was made:

Fly Tipping Options Appraisal to be moved from November to the December 2024 meeting.