To receive any questions from members of the Council, of which due notice has been given in accordance with Cabinet Procedure Rule 28.3, to be submitted and answered.
Minutes:
Pursuant to Cabinet Procedure Rule 28.3, Councillor Pound and Councillor Hamilton had submitted questions as follows:
Councillor Pound
“Will Councillor March please confirm or deny, on record, whether she received an email from the Secretary of Royal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimming Club requesting an urgent meeting to discuss concerns regarding an opening date and offering to work collaboratively with Fusion, the Council or both, sent on 17 August 2020 and email to date, still not responded to?
Can she also, on record, confirm or refute the accuracy therefore of her minuted statement to Overview and Scrutiny Committee of 21 September 2020 that “Correspondence did not get through regarding community groups because of the incorrect spelling of Councillor Mackonochie’s name as the lead in the email” when there is photographic evidence, which Councillor March has seen, to confirm that it did get through to her but not to Councillor Mackonochie and the sender confirms that there was no undelivered response to Councillor March’s copy but that there was to Councillor Mackonochie.
I can also confirm that yesterday I had an email from Mid-Kent IT Services which states that the email in question was received by all parties other than Councillor Mackonochie.”
Councillor March provided the following reply:
“I received an email from the Secretary of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimming Club on 17 August as the second named person in the email address, not the lead. As the secondary person to the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Communities and Wellbeing I would have expected Councillor Mackonochie to reply.”
“ The accuracy of the minuted statement is correct. I was not the lead, as the second name I would have expected Councillor Mackonochie to reply. There was no misleading of the O&S as implied in the question. “
Councillor Pound asked a supplementary question:
“Councillor March has seen evidence that on the email it says ‘to Councillor Mackonochie and to Councillor March’ and therefore as Portfolio Holder with responsibility for economic development and leisure why is it that on this occasion she either didn’t see the email and it went to either her trash or her junk or somewhere else or she chose not to reply to it. But just saying that ‘I assumed that Councillor Mackonochie would be replying’ is not an adequate response to the fact that since August 17I have had private correspondence with Councillor March about this matter and she has not deemed to respond to it.”
Councillor March provided the following reply:
“I have responded to Councillor Pound about the negotiations and he obviously doesn’t like the response. But as far as Community Groups are concerned, that in fact Councillor Mackonochie is the Cabinet Member, Portfolio for Communities and Wellbeing and this in fact is a Community Group and would have been responded by her in the first instance. It is unfortunate that it didn’t get through but I would not have responded. I don’t think a sender would have expected two different people to respond, it’s usually the first person that they would expect the response to have come from.”
Councillor Hamilton
“On 1 September the Overview and Scrutiny Committee discussed what financial assistance the Council should give Fusion to enable the reopening of the three leisure centres in the Borough.
During the debate the Labour Party representative recommended that the Council should restrict the financial assistance to the waiving of the annual management fee paid to us by Fusion. Can I ask the Leader whether the Putlands Leisure Centre in Paddock Wood, a valuable facility for our local residents would have reopened had the Council adopted the position as suggested by the Labour Member?
The Leader provided the following reply:
“During the talks with Fusion, the Council negotiated what we believe is the minimum level of financial support to enable the reopening of all three leisure centres in the Borough. This financial package included waiving one year’s management fee but also additional support to cover certain operating losses up to March of next year.
In the absence of this funding it is Cabinet’s firm view that the three leisure centres in the Borough would not currently be open. While some level of service would have been restored, it would have centred around the relatively large St Johns sport centre in Tunbridge Wells.
So we do not believe the Putlands centre in Paddock Wood or the Weald Centre in Cranbrook would have reopened had the level of financial support been restricted to the waiving of the management fee.”
Supporting documents: