Agenda item

To consider a report by the Council’s Asset Manager (copy enclosed) which presents the Committee with the draft Asset Management Strategy for 2024 – 2029 and seeks the Committee’s observations on its contents.

11.20am – 11.50am

The Lead Member for Finance, Performance and Strategic Assets introduced the report (previously circulated) advising that the report covered the time period 2024-2029 and that the financial forecast, at least for the initial part of this time period, was not encouraging at present.  She emphasised how vital this strategy would be to the Local Authority to enable it to make decisions about its assets going forward. It was noted that the Local Authority held 669 assets on 519 sites. This equated to a large number of assets from which to fulfil statutory duties and some of these assets would present an opportunity to generate capital sums for the Council. Managing assets differently, adopting different attitudes, and cooperation with partners would all enable the Authority to realise the maximum benefits from its Asset Portfolio.  It would also ensure that the Council had the right assets, in the right place and in the right condition to meet current and projected future needs, which was the Strategy’s underlying principle.

Head of Corporate Support Service: Performance, Digital & Assets advised the Committee that draft Strategy (Appendix 1 to the report) was a vital document and asset management formed one of the seven pillars of good governance and was therefore reviewed annually. The Head of Service thanked the Asset Manager and Facilities and Asset Team Manager for their hard work in drawing up the draft Strategy.

Responding to members’ questions the Lead Member and officers:

·      Clarified that Section 7.2 of the Strategy referred to surplus pupil places within the County’s portfolio of Education assets.  The Council’s Modernising Education Programme was the vehicle used to manage the modernising of the county’s schools and manage surplus places. Ongoing maintenance in schools was reliant on the availability of funding via the budget setting process, but reactive maintenance as and when required, for example when the issue of Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) was identified in schools, was addressed immediately.

·      agreed to make enquires with the Education Department on the current position regarding the Cylch Meithrin building at Ysgol Dewi Sant, Rhyl

·      advised that a decision would be taken as part of the budget setting process in relation to the future of public toilets.

·      in regard to the value of current assets, it was advised that it was not possible to be explicit about the value of specific assets in a public report.  There was a list of assets declared as surplus which the Authority was actively trying to dispose of them. This list was not extensive, and all proposed disposals were reported to the Asset Management Group (AMG) which was open to all councillors to attend.

·      individual services were responsible for management of those assets which lay within their Service areas i.e. Countryside Services were responsible for the sites which they operated across the county.  It was a Service decision on how their budget was used to invest in those sites.

·      agreed to a request that members have sight of the list of Council owned assets within each Member Area Group (MAG) area. 

At the conclusion of a comprehensive discussion the Committee:

Resolved: 

(i)           subject to the above observations and the provision of the requested information, to recommend to Cabinet that the draft Asset Management Strategy 2024/2029 (Appendix 1 to the report) be approved and adopted;

(ii)          as part of its consideration had read, understood and taken account of the Well-being Impact Assessment (Appendix 2 to the report); and

(iii)        that a list of all Council owned assets in their respective areas be circulated to all Member Area Groups and that the list specify each asset’s current and anticipated future status, along with its estimated market value.