Social Value Ideas for Slough Borough Council

Premises licence granted

The sub-committee approved the premises licence for Granville Stores, allowing alcohol off-sales only from Monday to Sunday, 8am to 10pm. This is an operating permission rather than a direct procureme…

“First of all, apologies for the long wait, and thank you so much. Having considered all the available evidence, both written and verbal, we have decid…”

2024-25 fees approved

The committee approved the fees and charges for 2024-25, as set out in Appendix B, with statutory fees noted separately. This includes the cost-recovery approach across licensing functions and the new…

“Speaker 7: Report seeks approval for the fees and charges for the non executive functions relating to licensing. The recommendation of this report is …”

Taxi emissions policy changes

The licensing committee agreed to phase out new diesel and petrol vehicle licences on set dates and require vehicles to be under five years old on first licensing. This is a policy change affecting li…

“The licensing committee reviewed the current private hire and the Hackney carriage vehicle policy with regards to the age and ultra low emission stand…”

Licensing review conditions imposed

The sub-committee adopted new licence conditions in response to the safeguarding review. These require an ID scanning system, a written safeguarding policy, annual child sexual exploitation refresher …

“Speaker 5: Thank you, chair. So having considered all the information available, the subcommittee members have decided to add the conditions as set ou…”

Internal audit weak and under-resourced

Internal audit is described as significantly under-resourced, with only three auditors plus the head in post, and the service is not able to deliver the planned audit coverage. The head of financial g…

“The lack of internal audit resource is one of the the nominated elements to independence, internal audit independence under the public sector internal…”

Approve updated internal audit plan

The committee approved the amended internal audit plan for 2023-24 and noted no progress update on outstanding internal audit actions. The discussion also confirmed a revised 2024-25 plan would come t…

“Okay. The recommendation set out on Page one approve the amended internal audit plan for twenty threetwenty four. It's Appendix C. I commend this for …”

Internal audit vacancies threaten plan

The internal audit team has a key senior vacancy and the chair was warned the forward plan agreed in July may not be deliverable on time. Temporary resource may be needed as a fallback, showing a live…

“Speaker 6: It mentions in there about the it says the about the vacancies that we've got. And there's quite a stark line that says the internal audit …”

Temporary accommodation pressure

The strongest financial pressure discussed was temporary accommodation, which officers said is adding around £4m-£5m to spend and remains a major risk to the MTFS. The council expects to recover some …

“I think the difficulty that we've had particularly this year has been this massive growth in temporary accommodation demand, which has added at least …”

Temporary accommodation overspend

Temporary accommodation was identified as a major housing pressure, driven by high demand, expensive nightly/day rates, and gaps between costs and local housing allowance. Officers said a package of m…

“So in quarter one, we can see that adults overspend was £7,800,000 and housing was £4,000,000 and that include and the majority of that is temporary a…”