Callington Finance & General Purposes Committee 17th February 2009

Present: Cllr R Lumley [Portreeve & Mayor], Cllr Mrs K Gold [Deputy Mayor & Portreeve], Cllr Long, Cllr Mrs Coakley, Cllr A Coakley, Cllr H Jones, Cllr Mrs Winfindale, Cllr J Gist [Chair], Cllr Ellard, Cllr Green

The minutes of the meeting of 21^st April 2009 were approved as a correct record of proceedings and duly signed.

a) Summary of accounts. The summary of the accounts to the 30^th April were received.

Payments for approval 19th May 2009

FGP	7020	EDF	Workshop & Museum electricity	£472.75	£23.64	£496.39
FGP	7021	SLCC	Clerk's Guide & Law of Parks & OS	£29.35		£29.35
OS	7022	GB Tool Hire	Hi Vis Vest	£9.90	£1.49	£11.39
TH	7023	Hancock & Sons	New Lease	£500.00	£75.00	£575.00
FGP	7024	Cornwall Council	CCTV Recharge	£1,563.00		£1,563.00
TH	7025	Compton Cleaning	Bins & Gel refresher	£45.66	£6.85	£52.51
OS	7026	Trewarthas	Rat poison, screws & washers	£24.89	£3.73	£28.62
TH	7027	Catchfrench Design	Planning Fee	£75.00		£75.00
FGP	7028	David Whittley	Mural remedial work	£280.00		£280.00
FGP	7029	Zurich Insurance	Renewal	£8,294.00		£8,294.00
OS	7030	Record RSS	Playground equipment	£5,750.00	£862.49	£6,612.49
FGP	7031	Cash	Petty Cash	£41.31		£41.31
OS	DD	Arval	Fuel	£60.50	£9.07	£69.57
				£17,146.36	£982.27	£18,128.63

c) Internal Auditor’s Report at year end 2008/2009. The internal auditors report was received and noted

The Area Manager, Steve Besford-Foster, has written to the council advising that he is hoping to appoint a Community Network Manager shortly and that they should be in post before the county elections.

The Community Network Manager will be responsible for two areas, Callington and Launceston and their first task will be to produce a Community Network Programme for each area. This will be a document that identifies the main issues of concern to local communities and will contain the corresponding priorities for action. This document will support a community led ‘bottoms up’ approach to establishing local priorities and will utilise appropriate data and information from available sources such as community plans, town and parish plans, service delivery plans of partners, national data that can be disaggregated to a local level and so on.

It is unlikely that the full network and network panel will be operable until August or September but the Community Network Managers will be meeting councils before this to update them on progress. Meanwhile this council will need to decide in the forthcoming civic year on whom (or which appointed official – councillor not officer) will represent Callington Town Council on the panel once it does convene.

At the request of Cllr Thomas this issue was brought to the committee for debate.

As the matter has been considered on previous occasions and since action has been taken by the principle authority to provide safe pedestrian access where there was none before it was:

Proposed by Cllr Long, seconded by Cllr Lumley and unanimously agreed that the Clerk writes a formal letter to Cornwall Council asking them for an update on the current situation with regard to progress with the pedestrian access directly outside the Coachmakers Arms.

The committee considers the chairs proposal to support the provision of two new murals, one on the new section of wall in Well Street and the other on the Prim-Raf wall. Cllr Gist also reported at the meeting that he now had written permission from the owner of the property in Biscombe Lane for Jane Black to replace the fishes mural with a scaled down version of the original.

Proposed by Cllr Long, seconded by Cllr Lumley and unanimously agreed that the committee support the provision of two new murals and the replacement of the fishes mural in Biscombe Lane.

Due to the recent changes in the unitary authority the matter of CCTV provision for Callington was debated. It was noted that with the formation of the new council that the monitoring carried out in Liskeard is susceptible to change. Following debate it was:

Proposed by Cllr Gist, seconded by Cllr Long and unanimously agreed that a review of the current CCTV provision be carried out by the Chair, the Callington Police Sergeant and the Town Clerk and the matter be brought back to this committee in approximately two months time.

The matter of Software Licensing was deferred from the meeting held on the 17^th March 2009 and the 21^st April to allow the Clerk time to evaluate the free office software (Open Office). Following discussion regarding the use of current software and office hardware it was:

Proposed by Cllr Long, seconded by Cllr Mrs Gold and unanimously agreed that the proper software licenses be obtained as outlined in the report, and that the two office desktop computers and the laptop be replaced to cope with foreseeable future upgrades, and that the higher spec of the old desktop computers be moved to the Council Chamber to provide a computer access point for public and councillor use.

The matter of Web site development was deferred from the meeting held on the 17^th March 2009 and 21^st April 2009 to allow the Clerk time to evaluate various software packages such as Open Office & Bookings software. At the latter meeting it was agreed that the domain www.callington.gov.uk should be applied for.

It was noted that there have been a few issues with the reliability of the callington.uk.net web site and the general consensus of opinion is that it is need of an overhaul to make the web site more user-friendly and bring it up-to-date with current affairs, the town heritage and advertise local events more prominently.

Proposed by Cllr Long, seconded by Cllr Mrs Gold and unanimously agreed that the website be replaced with a new site using the .gov.uk domain and that the old .uk.net domain be linked into the new site.