Agenda item

(A period not exceeding 20 minutes for questions and statements from

members of the public and Elected Members to the Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones. Questions/Statements should relate specifically to an item of business on the agenda and be limited to a maximum of 100 words. As stated within Executive Procedure Rule 3.3 each person will be allowed to submit one question/statement per meeting.A question may only be asked if notice has been given by delivering it in writing or by e-mail to the Governance Team no later than 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday 5^th April 2023. Each question or statement must give the name and address of the person submitting it. Questions/Statements should be sent to the Governance Team, Floor 2, Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster, DN1 3BU, or by email to Democratic.Services@doncaster.gov.uk)

Questions had been received from Councillors Nick Allen, Jane Cox, Glenn Bluff and Steve Cox.

In the absence of Councillor Nick Allen, Mayor Ros Jones read out his question as follows:-

'My question is about part 21 of the report regarding South Yorkshire Airport City. What contingency is in place if expenditure exceeds the estimate? Would it be possible to outline an associated value of the proposal to ‘mitigate’ external costs? If, due to unforeseen circumstances and external factors, costs exceed the estimate how will CDC be able to ensure value for money?'

The Mayor thanked Councillor Allen for his question and read out the following response. A copy of the response would be forwarded to Councillor Allen:-

‘The report outlines how the Council has considered the tasks ahead, considered the resource, skills and capacity required and only secured advisers to plug the knowledge and capacity gaps.

The report also outlines how the Council will manage activity and budgets closely to mitigate the additional external cost.

Paragraph 45 of the report outlines the available contingency.

Value for money is determined at the point of any procurement decision and we have selected our advisers based on the skills, experience and market availability.’

Councillor Jane Cox was in attendance and read out the following question:-

‘Please supply a breakdown of the £3.1M identified expenditure and of the additional estimated £3.15M totalling £6.25M sought from SYMCA and also supply a copy of the bid with enclosures made to SYMCA and dates when it was made. What contingencies are in place if the bid is turned down by SYMCA?’

The Mayor thanked Councillor Cox for her question and provided the following response:-

‘The £3.1m breakdown is explained within the appendix to the report that you are free to inspect.

This meeting is in relation to the report presented, any further information in relation to the SYMCA bid can be picked up outside of the meeting through the appropriate channels.

If the bid is turned down by SYMCA then the alternate funding plan is detailed in paragraph 28.’

Councillor Cox had no supplementary question.

In the absence of Councillor Glenn Bluff, Mayor Ros Jones read out his question as follows:-

‘Please advise what reports have been commissioned identifying which experts, their terms of reference, anticipated costs and timescale for completions with a copy of the letter(s) of instruction?’

The Mayor thanked Councillor Bluff for his question and read out the following response. A copy of the response would be forwarded to Councillor Bluff:-

‘The Appendix to the report is available for inspection. In regard to letters of instruction, you would need to explain a legitimate reason to see them and then they can be viewed confidentially outside of this meeting.’

Councillor Steve Cox was in attendance and read out his question as follows:-

‘Given that £115M has been top-sliced from the Transport budget for SYMCA to enable Sheffield to have their Super Trams and of which Doncaster’s share would be £24m, can this be used in negotiation to strengthen the argument for the £6.25M funding back from SYMCA?’

Mayor Ros Jones thanked Councillor Steve Cox for his question and provided the following response:-

‘I’m assuming that this relates to the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement. The conditions which you propose would not be allowable within the government funding criteria of CRSTS. It is important to remember that as part of the CRSTS funding it was stipulated by the Department for Transport that funding for Supertram must play a large part of any settlement. If it didn’t, then we would have been allocated considerably less money for Doncaster and the region.

DfT has ring-fenced the funding within CRSTS for tram renewal, treating it as a “retained scheme”, which means they directly control access to the funding, rather than devolving the funding to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.

In actual fact, Doncaster received more CRSTS than was expected, using a population based formula our share would be £94.6m, but we have actually secured £104m in our approved programme.

We must also remember that Northern Powerhouse Rail included plans for the Tram-Train extension to Doncaster, as part of the government Integrated Rail Plan, this was unfortunately scrapped by Boris Johnson before being promised to be delivered in full by Liz Truss and then scrapped again by Rishi Sunak and the current government.’

Councillor Cox asked a supplementary question asking whether it was possible to receive a copy of the reports which had been used to provide the response to his question. Mayor Jones stated that these would be provided outside of the meeting.