IncludesNoExec Question

Hi all, Could do with some help - A client has .pl scripts in the cgi-bin folder but they don't seem to be working. Looking at the error log file the following is mentioned: AH01271: exec used but not allowed in /home/username/public_html/folder/file.htm
Which then shows: [an error occurred while processing this directive] on the .htm page. Disabling IncludesNoExec in the global apache config gets rid of the above warning but then you get the following error: mod_include: Options +Includes (or IncludesNoExec) wasn't set, INCLUDES filter removed
and the exec statement is not being parsed. I feel like disabling IncludesNoExec in the Apache config is not the best way of dealing with this in terms of security. How can I get this working for the client? In the .HTM file they seem to be loading the pl file with the following code:
Any help would be appreciated