Tag: Cllr Stuart Wittingham

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee 7th November 2011 Part 13 Performance and Financial Review, Business Start program

The Chair said the question had been asked by Stuart that officers were not equipped to answer. He moved his motion and called for a councillor to second his motion. Cllr Pat Hackett seconded the motion. Four councillors voted for, four councillors voted against. The Chair had a casting vote, the Chair, Cllr Johnston decided … Continue reading “Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee 7th November 2011 Part 13 Performance and Financial Review, Business Start program”

The Chair said the question had been asked by Stuart that officers were not equipped to answer. He moved his motion and called for a councillor to second his motion. Cllr Pat Hackett seconded the motion.

Four councillors voted for, four councillors voted against.

The Chair had a casting vote, the Chair, Cllr Johnston decided to keep the extra information there.

David Ball gave an update on future plans for the Business Start Programme. He said that the plan had been to continue until March 2012, however the winding up of the North West Development Agency by the end of December meant that intensive start-up help would end by the 31st December. They had served notice on Enterprise Solutions of this. They would try to develop future options and Kevin would bring a report to a future meeting in the New Year. There would be support under the new Enterprise Allowance, which was a government-funded scheme to support unemployed people funded by the Department of Work and Pensions. He would circulate a briefing note with the technicalities but this program would help certain sections and not be the universal service they had at the present time.

Cllr Wittingham asked if Wirral Biz would be gone? David Ball said that Wirral Biz was the trading name and would go with the demise of the agency.

Cllr Mountney asked when they were instructed to wind up, would they lose money? David Ball said following the move from the North West Development Agency there may be instructions from central government, but they had expected the money till 2012, it was just ending sooner than anticipated. Cllr Wittingham said it was the “government’s fault”.

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee 7th November 2011 Part 12 Performance and Financial Review

Cllr Mountney said he welcomed the report and the financial information included. The Chair said he wanted to add something to the work program. Cllr Wittingham referred to 4.4.1, 4.4.4 in reference to a 21% decrease in contracts made. The Chair said he wanted to carry on with the point about why the next two pages had come here. David Ball said the previous performance report format had covered what was relevant to the committee what worked well, performance indicators and actions which gave an opportunity for scrutiny and comment. The second half was lifted from a report of Jim Wilkie to the Cabinet. He thought the corporate information might be of interest, but was not directly relevant to the report. The reports had been merged together. In reference to Cllr Wittingham’s question he would have to go away, ask and circulate an answer to the committee as he didn’t deal with those areas.

The Chair said he would be more comfortable if they only received information relevant to the scrutiny area and were just asked to cover the remit of the committee and not ground other committees cover.

Cllr George Davies said the second part followed on from a two-part report on finance and the economy. He understand that the financial part had been added but he didn’t see the relevance to the Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Chair said he would move that in future only performance indicators relevant to the committee would be used. Cllr Ellis said it was helpful background information to see and note.

Economy and Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee 7th November 2011 Part 7 relationship managers, IT, construction, business forum (a local forum for local businesses), inward investment manager, Birkenhead Town Hall

Cllr Mountney asked where the relationship managers were from and what their skillsets are? Paula Basnett said some were from industry and the others were long term local authority employees. Two were long term local authority officers and three were fairly new but all of them had degrees. One was based on the IT sector, the construction sector relationship manager was a woman (who previously had had no background in construction but had learnt over the last two years). The other three had been longer in the team but had had no sector experience except for the last two years. In future they wouldn’t recruit local authority officers but buy in from sector experts instead.

Cllr Stuart Wittingham asked about the business forum. Paula Basnett replied that it is password protected, but they check the address and contact details. They had had lots of enquiries from Liverpool companies with offices in Wirral, but it was only for Wirral companies and businesses.

Cllr Pat Hackett said it was hard to find investment. Cllr Phil Davies arrived. Cllr Pat Hackett asked if there was proactive matching done between investors and businesses to invest in? He said it was important not to rest on their laurels and to have vision, strategy and ideas.

Paula Basnett said the appointment of an inward investment manager would help them to work closely with investors, to go out and be proactive and make organisations aware of the development sites on the Wirral. They also supported indiginous businesses. An investor was looking at Birkenhead Town Hall which had been a referral from Cllr George Davies. The investment manager would develop the inward investment strategy which would identify potential investors.