Agenda item

RESOLVED:

1.         That the investment of State Aid approved funds that have been generated by the contract with BT to further the deployment of Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband infrastructure within a revised Intervention Area be approved.

2.       That final approval for the investment of contract funds be delegated to the Strategic Director for Environment and Infrastructure, in consultation with the Deputy Leader.

Reasons for Decisions:

Utilising available funding within the existing contract with BT enables the County Council to proceed with the deployment of additional broadband infrastructure, providing high speed broadband to as many of the remaining 15,300 premises as possible.

The recommendation requires no new capital expenditure as the funding is generated wholly through the existing contract and higher than modelled take up of fibre broadband services in Surrey County Council’s original Intervention Area.  This funding is already State aid approved and can be used immediately through the existing contract with BT.

[The decisions on this item may be called in by the Council Overview Board]

Prior to the Deputy Leader presenting the report, Mrs Watson and Mr Harmer were invited to speak.

Mrs Watson said that this investment of £3.8m (Gainshare), from BT was insufficient to enable all 15,300 Surrey properties still without fast broadband to receive the service. She considered that the original plan had been ‘watered down’ and asked if Value for Money criteria would be applied when deciding who would benefit from this funding. She said that remote, rural areas missed out and requested that the County Council provided 100% coverage across Surrey. Finally, she asked when the postcode information would be publically available.

Mr Harmer said that there had been an extensive discussion on this investment of programme funding to further extend the superfast broadband infrastructure to Surrey premises at the Economic Prosperity, Environment and Highways Scrutiny Board (EPEH). Both he and the Board supported the overall strategy and considered that the proposed solution was brilliant.

He acknowledged that the outstanding issues did not affect the majority of divisions in Surrey and the problems were mostly in the south and east of the county. He understood that the postcode information would not be available until after the Cabinet had agreed the way forward. Finally, he gave an assurance that the EPEH Board would continue to scrutinise the financial and value for money implications of this investment and the contract.

Surrey County Council’s investment in fibre broadband infrastructure over the past four years through the contract with BT has had a very significant impact on the well-being and economic prosperity of thousands of residents and businesses around the county. All of the contractual targets in the main phase of the contract have been achieved.

The Deputy Leader said that the contract with Openreach had been signed in 2012 and now, as a result of the County’s investment into broadband infrastructure, more than 96% of all Surrey premises were able to access fibre download speeds of 15mbps or above. According to Think Broadband, Surrey was currently the best connected county in England.

He was pleased to announce that, due to the County’s very successful demand stimulation campaigns, take-up of the fibre broadband services by residents and businesses was significantly higher than projected in the contract finance model, resulting in additional clawback funding flowing into the contract and BT have offered Surrey County Council an advance against this clawback funding of £3.8 million, known as ‘Gainshare’.  He hoped that this funding would enable a further 4000 - 5000 properties to receive the fibre broadband services and also hoped to receive the postcode information early next year.

Finally, he drew attention to paragraphs 14 and 15 in the report which set out details of how the Government had also intervened to try and improve broadband provision.

The Leader considered that the previous Head of Procurement had done a terrific job in negotiating this contract in 2012, which he felt had improved the economic prosperity for Surrey residents. He also congratulated the Deputy Leader for his work on the project.

RESOLVED:

1.         That the investment of State Aid approved funds that have been generated by the contract with BT to further the deployment of Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband infrastructure within a revised Intervention Area be approved.

2.       That final approval for the investment of contract funds be delegated to the Strategic Director for Environment and Infrastructure, in consultation with the Deputy Leader.

Reasons for Decisions:

Utilising available funding within the existing contract with BT enables the County Council to proceed with the deployment of additional broadband infrastructure, providing high speed broadband to as many of the remaining 15,300 premises as possible.

The recommendation requires no new capital expenditure as the funding is generated wholly through the existing contract and higher than modelled take up of fibre broadband services in Surrey County Council’s original Intervention Area.  This funding is already State aid approved and can be used immediately through the existing contract with BT.