 Thank you. Thank you very much, Jen. Thank you very much. So, good morning, members, officers and visitors to the council chamber. Hello, very nice to see you today and anybody else who is tuning in to the broadcast. This is a meeting of South Cambridge and District Council Cabinet. There is bits I need to go through. The normal procedure in cabinet is that we take votes by affirmation and we will continue with that today. When we move to a vote on any item, I'll ask if members agree with the proposal. The only people who can vote are the members who are present in the chamber today. We'll also ask for seconders as well. If any members who are attending virtually wish to speak, can they use the chat in the team's meeting, please? The message will get through to me that you'd like to speak. Members of the cabinet are entitled to speak before non-cabinet members. We'll start with those who are present. Can I begin by checking that the meeting is quaint, please? Thank you, paper. That's lovely. Right. We have various officers present who we will call upon if we need them. Item 1 is Apologies for Absence. Do we have any Apologies for Absence, paper? Thank you, chair. There have been no apologies. Thank you very much indeed. Declarations of interest. Do any members have any interest to declare in relation to any other business on today's agenda? No. If anything occurs to you later, please raise it in the body of the meeting. Moving on to the minutes of the previous meeting, which are on pages 5 to 11, I'd like to move that those minutes are approved. I think Councillor Henry Batchelor is going to second that. Are there any issues arising from the minutes? Thank you. Do members agree to approve the minutes? Thank you. Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees to approve the minutes as a correct record by affirmation. Item 4 is announcements. I don't have any announcements today. I'm not aware that anybody else does. Moving swiftly on. Public questions. We have Mr David Kellaway. I gather, I want to ask a public question. Mr Kellaway, I think it might be best if we wait until item 9 so that you're speaking... I agree, chair. That's lovely. Thank you very much. I will invite you to come in on item 9. Thank you. Number 6 is update from Scrutinodeview committee. I gather we have representation on item 7, 9 and 14. Councillor Stephen Drew, I think you're here as vice-chair of Scrutinodeview. Would you rather speak now or in the body of the meeting? Thank you very much indeed. We'll get that sorted out now. Thank you, Erin. The first main item is young people in South Cambridgeshire. This is one of the items that... This was a piece of work actually conducted by Scrutinodeview, but I'll ask Councillor Bill Handley to introduce the report, and then I will ask Councillor Stephen Drew to come in and give us a bit of background on this very interesting piece of work. So, Councillor Handley, to start off, please. Thank you, leader. In July 2022, full council unanimously approved a motion recognising that South Cambridgeshire is a major growth area, and that new homes will meet that. The number of young people in the district will rise, and it's important that the voice of young people is heard and that the development of the council's policies and the youth engagement is heard in the council. An all-party Scrutinodeview committee task and finish group was subsequently set up involving several councillors. I will just name them. Councillor Graham Cohn, Stephen Drew, Sue Ellington, Helen Leaming and Richard Stobard. And I know that Richard in particular spent a lot of time on this and we're thanking him for that. The objective was to consider the options for delivering the council's aspirations. The group met with young people aged between 11 and 25, coming from different backgrounds, and held regular meetings at which members and officers discussed the key points and the plans. This report summarises the work carried out by the group and recommends that the report, with its six conclusions, as approved by the Scrutinodeview and Overview committee, on our first reading of the report, Cabinet will remember that we made suggested changes to the recommendations that appear on page 13 of the agenda pack. And although... Can I ask at the top, actually, Pippa, would you mind putting the changes up just so it makes it easier for me to explain? OK, now most of the changes are relatively minor, really just to words and tone. But there is an additional second bullet which was requested by Cabinet to contact schools and colleges with the offer of speaking to students about the elections process and democracy more generally. I hope that Cabinet can endorse this report, including the amendments as you see them, and recommend that the report is placed before full council. I could just like to conclude by thanking the Tashkin Finish Group for the diligence with which they carried out the work and the clarity of the report. Thank you for that. Thank you very much indeed, Councillor Handley. Councillor Stephen Drew. Now, sorry, it's a Thursday morning. I don't know what we do Thursday mornings in council. It's a whole new world for me. I really forget how to do things. So it was a privilege for us to work on this project and to follow up from the motion unanimously carried by full council. It is very, very easy for any public body to have pleasant words and to have a sense of wish and desire to engage all its communities. Yet it's actually, as we all know, everyone working in the Chamber, whether it be officers or councillors, it's actually incredibly hard and it can be more difficult to fully engage with certain groups, to fully engage with certain groups of people and many, many things are done by the council in an excellent way to seek to engage with all of our communities. But as somebody who spends all his time outside of the council working with young people, I know that it can be very difficult and it can be very challenging to ensure that you hear the voices of young people. Young people generally don't engage with councils and any public body in a way that adults do. And it's easy for public bodies to find that somehow irritating or find that somehow difficult or consider that it involves changing the way that you work in a way that actually is potentially inefficient. But, of course, our young people represent a significant body of opinion. They represent a significant body of people. And one of the things that I've heard many councillors say, and it was something we reflected on very much during our work on this task and finish group, was that our young people represent those who are going to experience what the council does for a longer period of time than anyone else. They represent the group who are going to have their lives influenced the most by what the council does over a very, very long period of time. So we started out with our work, both seeking to engage with young people but also to work out how was the right way to engage with young people. And one of the things that is worth absolutely flagging is that some of the really best things that we found out were things that were already being done by the council. So the planning service, for instance, has an excellent track record in terms of their engagement with young people. And what was also quite joyous about that in speaking to those young people was their reflection that it didn't mean that when they attended a meeting run by the planning service to talk about the building of houses or community facilities, that somehow they therefore expected everything they said to be acted upon, that they expected somehow everything they said to become fact. One of the things that was really, really impressive and surprising for me, but I think perhaps for others maybe so, is that our young people have a really profound understanding of the fact that council has difficult decisions to make and council faces great challenges. And it isn't possible for council to deliver every single thing that every part of the community wants, yet they reflect upon the fact that when young people feel engaged with, they are able to look at their council and they are able to say to them what they are trying. They are trying really hard. And for that, that flowed very much through our entire report. We had a great pleasure of going out to secondary schools in the district. We had a great pleasure of going to Cambridge Regional College. We sought to engage with young people who are working for local employers. For whatever reason, that proved to be much, much more difficult and it is something we want to come back to. You will see from the recommendations that have been made that council handy has referred to, that there is a real sense of where we ought to go next. And this is something we would very much like to flag up in a major way. We don't want the work of the task and finish group to be seen as the end of the story. We want to actually to be seen as the start of the process. We sense very much from all the officers that we have spoken to from all of the councils we are engaged with, that there is an absolute commitment and desire on the part of South Cambridge District Council to ensure that it increases its engagement with young people, that it increases its sense of buying with those young people, that it recognises the input that they have and the importance of them. Clearly, a task and finish group over a number of months doesn't, on its own, complete that work. So when we were at Scrooge in the Overview and talking about it, one of the things that Councillor Richard Stover, as our esteemed and highly effective chair referred to, was carrying on with his work to keep working at it. You will see from the recommendations that we have recommendations for councillors to commit to increase their engagement with the young people within their wards. That's something that we've had nothing but positive feedback from. What we would like to do, and what we would like Cabinet to support us in doing, is to continue working on the work of the council with young people over the coming years, not just the coming weeks and the coming months, but to make it central to what the council does. For myself, as a councillor serving Cambor himself, as one of our new towns, young people are ever more important within our community. They represent a very high significant proportion of our community which is much higher even than in other parts of the district. We know that with the building of Northstowe and the building of the Water Beach new town and the building of Bourne airfield, those new towns attract young families, they attract high proportions of young people. Therefore, as our district grows and develops over the coming decades, the engagement of young people is going to be more and more important. Therefore, we would commend our reports to Cabinet, we would commend our reports to the council and hope that it receives the report as councillor, sorry, the support as councillor Henry referred to, and we see it as the start of what we would really hope would be a golden era of the council's engagement with young people. Thank you. Thank you, councillor Drew. councillor Henry Batchelor, I believe you're seconding this. Would you like to speak? Yeah, happy to second chair. I mean, as the youngest member of Cabinet, I think it's probably more suitable that I do second this. And as someone that was first elected to this council at age 24, I mean I do fall within the bracket of the focus group. So, I really wish I'd had something like this at the time. It might have made the transition into public life slightly easier. So, anything we can do as a local authority to encourage engagement with young people in the process and how the council operates and the engagement within the different departments and the services that the council offers can only be a good thing. And I can see the amount of work that the task and finish group has put in as being positive. So, anything else more for me to say, other than fully support the work, recognise that it's been a long and thorough process and I second the motion put by councillor Henry. Thank you, thank you very much, councillor Batchelor. Any other questions from Cabinet? Right, councillor Hawkins. Thank you, leader. I just want to say thank you to the task and finish group for the work that they've done. Obviously, we do have good experience of youth engagement in the council already, especially the youth engagement programme that we have in the Greater Cambridge Shed Planning Service, which has been recognised in the industry. Yes, the views of young people are very important because all the things we're building now really is not for us, it's for them and into the future. So, we do need to hear what they have to say. From what I have heard when I've been involved with the programmes that youth engagement team have put together over the years, young people are not shy in expressing their views and actually hearing their views is different to us, which is already set. There is more future looking. Yes, I'm happy to support this. Obviously, the participation of the youth engagement team in the planning service went into this work. So, thank you to that team too. Thank you very much indeed. I've got two speakers. Councillor Breadman. Thank you, leader. I just wanted to say that when this was proposed, since I chair as a county councillor, the Corporate Parenting Subcommittee at the Council, which looks at strategy for our children in care throughout Cambridgeshire, I suggested to the task and finish group they might want to engage with the Children in Care Council. And I'm very glad they did. And what I wanted to say is, I'm so glad that this has been this inclusive because our Children in Care, I have found, we invite them to the committee that I chair and I have always found them to be so thoughtful and engaged and they come with new insights from their point of view, which is very particular as Children in Care. And so, I'm very glad that this work also includes their views as well. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, leader. I thought as it was my motion that this come from, I ought to say something on it. I'm very grateful to officers and councillors that put the work and time into it. And I very much look forward to debating it for council and hopefully we will still have unanimous support. I remember the first time that I brought this motion, which was rejected, was pre-22. And I did sort of joke that Councillor Henry Baxter and I couldn't be the young ones forever as much as we may like to be when we're not now. But I shall say the first time I brought it. So, I'm pleased that the idea of this was to make sure that we had the right vehicles. And so, I'm pleased that we have the right vehicles and the right processes for them to make sure that we make it accessible for them. So, I very much hope that that will be what happens as a consequence of this and thank all those who have supported it this time round. Thank you, councillor Williams. I've got councillor Peter Fain online. Thank you, leader. Yes, I just want to say, a quick word about this, councillors will remember that we have, that I have selected the Camborn Youth Partnership as Chair's Charity for the Year. That wasn't because I wanted us to make financial contributions so much as because I wanted us to signal our engagement with this work. And the one thing that strikes me most from this report is whilst valuable as it is, we call it a task and finish group. The work of this group I would suggest in bringing forward ideas which can then be taken on on a continuing basis by the council is not yet finished. We had an initial report at the last council and we will, of course, if cabinet agrees, take this further, the next meeting of council on the 5th of October. But I would suggest that there are some areas, such as the engagement with sixth form colleges, where there is scope for this group to build on the work that members and, in particular, councillor Drew have already done to engage with sixth form colleges. And we should make sure that that work is not regarded as, in any sense, finished. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much indeed. Okay, so just to make sure that that work is not being touched indeed. Okay, so just to sum up. So, yes, absolutely endorse the support of Camborn Youth Partnership and it will be very interesting to see how we can further involve them in the council in future. Hopefully there might be a few new councillors emerging from that group in due course. I would like to thank the officers for the support in this work as well as the members who participated. Particularly that the FOMEX Board at Appendix 6, there are PDFs of those available to members because actually they are incredibly useful in helping to explain what the different levels of local government do. So I just quite like those to be shared up. Perhaps our chief executive will share them out in her next week's report. There's been some minor amendments made the recommendations predominantly on the language just to reflect that we work in partnership with our officers here. So we asked them to do stuff. We don't instruct them to do stuff here. And we've added in our masking officers to write to the village colleges which I gather our chief executive with her usual efficiency has already done. Though I don't believe we've had any responses as yet. So, we've had everybody speaking. The recommendations are set out on page 13 and we're on the board earlier with the revisions that have been set out in councillor Handley's introductory speech. The proposal. Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Thank you cabinet, therefore agrees the proposal is by affirmation and councillor Drew please pass on our thanks to the scrutiny and overview committee members who participated. Thank you. So we're moving on to item eight which is the modern slavery statement. I'll just get up here. And I think this, so I'm going to present this and I think councillor Peter MacDonald is going to second it. So this is about meeting our statutory duty to publish an annual statement detailing the actions we take to tackle modern day slavery in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Really easy to think that modern day slavery doesn't happen in lovely places like South Cambridgeshire and it's a really sad fact that it does and there's every indication that it happens more frequently. So it's something that as a council obviously we're in the front line of helping to tackle but as members we need to be constantly being vigilant to be able to identify it when it's if we possibly see it happening and I would encourage all members to report through the appropriate channels any hint they have that things are not as they should be because it would be better to be safe on this rather than sorry. So that's all I want to say. councillor MacDonald, do you want to add anything? Thank you, leader. Yes, all I wanted to say on this was I think the officer team have done a very good job in reminding us and updating that you know in Cambridgeshire we see from the statistics in Appendix aid this is still a significant issue. So I welcome this and happy to send second thank you. Thank you very much. There's always the risk that there are many incidents going undetected which is the concern. So thank you, I reiterate your thanks to the officers who've worked very hard on this. So, are there any anyone else wish to speak from Cabinet? No, councillor Heather Williams. I just wanted to endorse what you said, leader, about getting in South Cambridgeshire. It happened in the village next to mine. There was a big case at the time and there's been a few issues in my area of the district in relation to this. I think you're right, there is an obligation on all of us and actually as councillors we're more likely to see things as we actually live in the communities or nearby. So everything that can be done to help with this I'm sure you will always have our full support on. Thank you, I'm glad to hear that. And generally speaking if things don't smell right there's something wrong. So thank you very much. My thanks to Kate Yewbury and to Kevin Ledger for all their work and for a very clear report. So if there's no other speakers the recommendations are set out on page 31 of the agenda pack. Do you members agree with the proposal? I agree with me. Anyone voting against? Anyone abstaining? Thank you cabinet therefore agrees the proposal is by affirmation. So we're coming on to item nine which we have some visitors in the chamber interested in. So this is the mutual exchange policy and I will begin by asking Mr David Kellaway if he'd like to speak on behalf of the tenants. Thank you. Thank you chair. So today is an example of how far we still have to go with tenant involvement in our view. We have treated as members of public and given a few minutes to speak on a decision that has effectively already been made. Like the Grimthal tenants will be heard but you won't be listened to. At the scrutiny committee instead of a decision making meeting we get to debate, to debate as equals with councillors and that would be real involvement. We had to rely on rather feeble questioning by councillors of the leader and the officers. We did hope with this policy that South Camp could be leaders not dragged along reluctantly as has been the case. Over four years ago I had a meeting with the then lead housing councillor and senior housing officers following an awful experience by tenant burden refused and mutual exchange. I asked for a policy of an allowance occupation by one room and pointed out that others were doing just that locally including Cambridge Housing Society right on our doorstep. I also asked for like for like swaps to be accepted. I detailed the awful administration failures that the resident had experienced and the fundamental flaws in the policy document but the policy was re-adopted shortly after with no real meaningful changes. I was heard but not listened to. Now here we are over four years later finally accepting a one bed under occupancy and mutual exchange. After it was pointed out there are many others doing the same including Cambridge Housing Society but only after a policy officer was hard to review the policy and after a recent Ombudsman's report that made clear there were still many failings in the administration of the system and ordered that some under occupation be allowed. Now everybody seems to agree now that mutual exchange is very useful, important indeed life changing for tenants and it saves money all round including for this council so surely we should all be supporting an encouraging mutual exchange. So why then does this new policy still make it so difficult? The only explanation offered for like for like swaps not being allowed is that it encourages under occupation but where is the evidence for this? Much more likely we feel given the low numbers of swaps and the much anecdotal evidence is that most tenants just stay put and suffer. The waiting list is also brandished as a reason but how we're refusing a like for like swap actually changed the waiting list. At the scrutiny committee some councillors expressed the need to allow mutual exchange where there was a particular need. Schools, work, caregiving, being near friends and family they're all mentioned by councillors but councillors lapped up the reassurances from officers and the leader that'll be alright. I lost count of the number of times they stressed there will be flexibility, pragmatism, discretion even nuance was used by yourself chair because there was a clause that allowed discretion. Council 1.14 says we may choose to exercise discretion from certain circumstances. The obvious problems of this is that tenants should have a right to mutual exchange and not have to beg special circumstances. Secondly, if discretion was used in all examples that had concerned those councillors then all requests would surely be allowed. Thirdly as councillor Braden said discretion causes a perception of unfairness and she was satisfied apparently with the answer a record would be kept of discretion used. We're not satisfied with that nor more important I think will be the ombudsman who has already criticised the council and has demanded clear guidance as to its evidential requirements when considering special circumstances. So this is a potential can of worms if details of what constitutes certain circumstances are not defined clearly in the policy. Lastly just on staffing we are not as have been said asking for a full time officer for mutual exchange but that one officer has given the responsibility to promote and oversee mutual exchanges and develop expertise to ensure everyone who administers this scheme does so correctly. The leader's objection to this is not wanting to introduce a single point of failure we think is bizarre. Would that be worse or more likely than existing proven many points of failure we think not. Thank you for hearing us better if we'd been listening to as well. Thank you very much indeed Mr Kellway and I assure you we are listening to you and hearing you. So I'm going to come over to councillor bachelor now who I'm sure will pick up on your points. Wasn't the scrutiny going to comment on this? I beg your pardon you're quite right. So I come to councillor Stephen Drew first of all on behalf of the scrutiny and overview then to councillor bachelor. Sorry thank you. We debated this item at length that the scrutiny and overview has been referenced and the tenors are entirely correct that numerous questions were asked and that members of scrutiny were clearly of the mind that the principle of mutual exchange was definitely something that the scrutiny and overview committee would like to see in place would like to support and as has just been explained many questions were answered by officers and by the leader and others which set out the council's plans in relation to this. At the end of our discussion we were very clear that we believed that the policy that has been put forward would be able to provide a form of mutual exchange which we hope will be successful and we hope that tenants will feel is a positive step forward. As the tenors have just made clear the questions that were asked by the scrutiny and overview it shouldn't necessarily be seen as the end of the matter it shouldn't be seen as a point at which it cannot be reviewed and I would hope that based on the questions and comments that were made by the scrutiny and overview committee that clearly the council as I'm always sure council officers and council cabinet continue to do will be completely willing to come back to this policy if necessary at any point in the future and review its success which I hope will go some way to waging some of the concerns that have been expressed this morning. Thank you very much councillor Drew, councillor bachelor. Yes, thank you very much. It might be helpful to members to understand the role that Mr Kellyway and the other members of our board have in this council. So they're all members as I am of the housing engagement board so this is, we're now in our second year of operation and this is a board that is there to provide a formal link with tenants and to make a permanent road if you like for us to actually listen to their views so we are certainly listening. Kellyway is the vice chair I am the chair of the board with six elected representatives of tenants and the three councillors. Now this review is actually been initiated by the tenant representatives on the board. Their input has been very active and it does reflect in the final policies. The input from tenants has certainly led to increased flexibility and for the creation of the incentive scheme for downsizing. All this is reflected clearly in the revised policy. What we have is a good step forward. I would say of course like with all policies these will be regularly reviewed and we will see how that works and if we require to take further steps. I'd like to thank the tenants who have taken the trouble to come here today and to assure them that we are all listening. I say this is a good step forward so I'm happy to move the recommendation. Thank you councillor bachelor. Are there any questions from cabinet members? Any questions from anybody else? Councillor Hawkins. Just to say that I'm second in the the recommendations. Thank you very much. I'm seconded by councillor Hawkins. You don't want to speak. Thank you. Thank you very much to the members of the Housing Engagement Board who have attended today. I'm sorry that you don't feel you've been adequately heard. We will endeavour to do better on the point of a single point of failure. That is undesirable because people go on holiday they get sick and so on. As a council we aim to have as many officers within each service area fully trained up so that they can fulfil numerous roles because there's nothing more frustrating than being told that your point of contact is on holiday for three weeks and you won't hear anything. I've been involved in numerous exchanges in 16 years as a councillor and they are difficult. They are tricky and people it's moving house and I think it's the third most stressful thing after death and divorce is moving house and that's true whether you're buying a property or you're renting or you're trying to do an exchange. So I think as councillor Batchelor has said this is a step in the right direction I'm pleased to hear there's going to be regular reviews and we'll be monitoring the success of the changes that are being proposed here today but as members as the leader, councillor Batchelor as the lead member for housing we're always pleased to hear from you so don't hesitate to contact us if there's anything you feel you feel we need to hear. So if we move to the recommendations they are at page I'll have them just two seconds ago page 45-46 of the agenda pack. Do you members agree with the proposal? Thank you very much. Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Thank you. So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal is by affirmation and thank you very much to Julie Fletcher and thank you again to our visitors today and thank you Mr Kellaway in particular. Thank you. So we're moving on now to item 10 which is the response to the Department of levelling up housing and community as it's now called the consultation on plan making reforms implementation and this is going to be proposed by councillor Tumi Hawkins I gather councillor John Batchelor is going to second this so over to you councillor Hawkins now. Thank you leader. The department for levelling up has now communities is consulting on its new proposals on how to reform how we local authorities make our local plans going forward. We have put together a joint response with Cambridge City which is the one appendix one of this report. The aim of the reforms is to enable us to make local plans in three years or so they say but the expectation is that before the plan making starts for that three year period local authorities will consult and engage with stakeholders to find out what the issues are that the plan should consider and establish in a vision for the area and then when the work starts the three year period starts and we must finish before the end of that three years and then submit to planning inspectors for examination. Now as we know here current adopter local plans took about one and a half years from submission to adoption which at the time was the longest I think this time Dilok is expecting to take I think six months with the potential to add three months or any modifications to be done. Anyways there's other proposed technical changes which if it's okay with you I will ask Terry perhaps to sort of outline but the idea is that yes you know there's good modifications proposals in there but at this point in time it's a consultation and I just want to ask that. Cabinet approves our responses so we can send it off to Dilok ASAP. Thank you. Can I ask Terry to just outline the other changes? Oh sorry. No it's John. John Dixon. Thank you chair. The system changes are all about speeding up plan making and really trying to encourage plans up and down the country to be prepared because we have to remember that there are many areas of the country that simply don't have a local plan at all let alone a more recent one that we have so it's about making plan making simpler, quicker, taking advantage of digital tools and so on whilst at the same time not losing that element of engagement youth engagement you talked about and so on so the program is all about doing a lot of pre-plan before you start your process doing a lot of engagement deciding what your core objectives of your plan are and then when you start the clock on your 30 month process you have two main consultations where you almost consult on more of a draft and then your final plan and also the key change within that is that you would have three gateways where effectively you almost hold many examinations of the plan along the way to make sure when you get to that final examination point your plan is as robust as it can be to then go through that shorter exam process will operate to more of a fixed term there's a lot of good things in here there's a lot of things we're already very keen on working on as part of the Greater Cambridge Local Plan so the digital side linking with digital mapping and templates we continue to highlight to deal up that come and talk to us because we're doing a lot of this already as Councillor Hawkins stated there are some uncertainties particularly what if unforeseen events impact on your overall timeline like water for example and there's also quite a lot in this consultation where we think they need to be more specific because if they're not more specific it simply results in uncertainty and risk the council is going through the process so we hope we've captured a lot of those points and provided a constructive response to your consideration as part of this report Thank you very much John Councillor Batchelor do you want to comment? I'm just happy to second Any comments from Members of Cabinet Any comments from anybody else in the room or online No, thank you very much Thank you much John I know you have one of the biggest workloads in the council and then you have to do consultation responses on top of everything else I think our responses are very measured it's good to see that actually we are ahead of the curve on a lot of this stuff that the Government is talking about we're actually doing it or certainly beginning to implement certainly some of the digital stuff I think they need a reality check actually on how much work is involved in local plans and their proposed timeframes because what we don't want is us all being set up to fail to miss all these time targets and there's some stuff that's very concerning about supplementary documents and duty to cooperate and so on but however thank you very much indeed I hope that we are listened and heard by Government when we submit this so the recommendation is set out on page 99 of the agenda pack do you members agree with the proposal Anyone wish to vote against Anyone wish to abstain Good, so Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation and thank you very much John and all your team for the hard work on yet another consultation I'm sure there'll be more to come Right, item 11 the review of the statement of community involvement and this is councillor Jimmy Hawkins again and I think councillor Bill Handley is seconding this so back to you councillor Hawkins Thank you leader as with planning stuff it comes in groups shall we say Right, our statement of community involvement for us is statutory is something we have to provide every five years or review at least every five years and it's a statement on how the council will engage with communities on planning matters we all have experiences of what people think about planning it's not always complimentary but we do try and engage with everyone and what we've learned over the last few years especially through the pandemic some of the other things that have happened is how we can engage better especially with our young people it's one of the things that we've expanded on here all this report is doing is providing that updated community involvement which we are now wanting to consult the public on so they can tell us if we've got it right and I will ask Cabinet to agree to enable us send this out for consultation and then improve it based on the responses we get thank you Thank you councillor Hawkins, councillor Handley do you want to comment? I'd just like to say that I actually think that community involvement in our new towns is excellent actually the community forums always has a strong planning base planning input and very pleased with the way they are going so I'm very happy to second this emotion thank you Thank you very much indeed and I think we've upped our game significantly as a counciller in how we engage over planning matters so it's good to see this new revision any comment from other cabinet members please can I be in councillor Bradnham? Sorry, can you hear me? It's a strange message on my microphone excuse me as chair of the Water Beach Community Liaison Forum I wanted to endorse what councillor Handley has said my experience has been that the planning officers and the planning team have gone over and above in consulting with the public in the past and giving people an opportunity to genuinely express their views be grumpy or pleased or to ask for items to come onto the agenda and for our communities where planning is happening close on their doorsteps of course it's important that we hear their views and answer their questions and I wanted to thank the planning officers for their patient and informative and timely responses to all of those questions which we have received but also to the officers who manage and administer the community liaison forums because we get many questions there which they then obtain answers to if we can't obtain them on the night and put on the website and they provide a platform and a friendly open forum where people can express their views as they wish and I think that's really important so thank you very much indeed I think this is an excellent statement and I endorse it, thank you Thank you councillor Braden any other speakers moving swiftly on recommendations on page 131 do you members agree with the proposals anyone wish to vote against anyone abstaining having it therefore agree with the proposals by affirmation right so we're now moving on to the financial part of the agenda so item 12 is the 2023-24 revenue and capital budget monitoring for quarter one councillor John Williams is going to introduce this and I think councillor Peter Macdonald is going to second it so councillor Williams to start please Thank you leader As we know the first quarter of any financial year doesn't really tell us very much about what's going to happen at the end of that financial year we're just starting the beginning of the of the new financial year and things happened during the year and not necessarily out turns that are predicted to happen however there is one indicator in this monitoring report which I think bears up our our four day week trial and that is if you look on page 16 I'm sorry on paragraph 16 there is reference to the staffing cost for planning and you'll see there that it's amber because there's a slight overspend of around 24,000 on agency staff but if I take you back a year to where we were this time last year and look at the quarter one monitoring report for last financial year you'll see that at that time the staffing cost for planning were ten times that the staffing costs were overspend by 246,920 £47 due to recruiting into the difficult posts and we were having to employ agency staff in order to fill those difficult posts that was 17% overspend now this year as a result of the four day week trial that overspend is 7% so I would just bring that to your attention because this is obviously a result of us being able to recruit into those difficult posts that we couldn't do this time last year and that's down to the four day week trial the other thing I would point out to you is transformation and you'll see in Appendix A that we've reprofiled the savings that we expect from transformation and this is because the fair funding review has been put back another year and that's given us some extra time to find those savings that are required to meet what we believe will be the cost of the fair funding review to this council and we've always said transformation yes we're going to be saving money from the transformation but the transformation is more about improving the quality of services to our residents and therefore we want to take the opportunity of this extra time to look at transformation more carefully make sure that we get it right and make sure that the quality is improved as a result of that transformation as well as the savings so we are taking that opportunity of reprofiling the savings that we think we're going to achieve and I know we are going to achieve but we've put them back a year in line with the change to our expectation of when the fair funding review is going to happen so there are the two main changes but let's say like all quarter one monitoring reports you cannot read too much into the start of the financial year but at the moment as you can see from the report the expectations are that we will achieve the outcomes that we expect in this year's budget as indeed we did last year and I'm very grateful to our finance team for being able to say that. Thank you Thank you very much indeed councillor William, councillor Macdonald Thank you leader I'd like to support councillor William's comments and recommendations the only thing I wanted to add is if we look at appendix C the investment income is ahead of the plan and with my business hat on that's very pleasing to see there's a number of councillers around the country are struggling financially and it's nice to see our investment income running out of plan. Thank you So it's most certainly is absolutely due to the considerable care and expertise of our chief executive and her team so thanks to them Right any questions from members of cabinet any questions from anyone else in the room no or not in the room okay fine thank you so the recommendations are set out on page 215 do you members agree with the proposals? Anyone wish to vote against and anyone wish to abstain so cabinet therefore I'd like to thank again to all of the officers involved in this piece of work so the next item is 13 and that's the local heritage list which is a really interesting piece of work when we had a look at it earlier so councillor Tumi Hawkins is going to present this and councillor Brian Mills is going to second it Thank you Thank you leader Yes what we have here is a list of heritage buildings of interest they're not designated for their buildings of local interest that are still heritage assets Now we're required to have this but up till now Southcams has not had a list so what the what our officer team have done is actually you know put together this list together with city council who already were doing that as well as working with Kilmyshire County council and it's been very good work there was an event that was held last year which I was able to attend which I learnt a lot from and I think this is something that definitely will be of interest to many the idea is that the list those who own the buildings are then given an opportunity to make their comments because if I was one of those owners I would want to know why my building has been put on the list and what the implications are but it's just to have it on the list so that you know if and when developers come around they can see what is of interest to local communities so I would recommend this to cabinet to enable us to put this together and consult with the building owners and I've got Christian Brady online who I will ask to perhaps expand on the work that's been done that's okay with your leader that's lovely thank you Christian can you come in yes thank you very much essentially this is a project that is filling a gap in the environmental information that's available to the council it was started via a successful bid for central government funding a joint bid with the county and other districts it has engaged with community groups and community events via the project officer that's via the funding we were able to employ for the one year period it's benefited from field work being carried out by volunteers that were generated by that project and who some of whom are still working out there bringing us additional nominations for buildings it's established and inexpensive to maintain process and database and it's benefited from expert input from partner organisations and councils so as the report sets out we've now reached the point where we need a formal authority to contact the building owners and to formally adopt the resultant nominations as is set out in the recommendations thank you very much indeed Christian thank you Councillor Mills thank you I think it's an important project to make sure we've got a good eye audit of the wide heritage assets across our communities clearly with 100 plus villagers we've got a huge number of these to put into that audit so I recommend this work to the council, thank you thank you Councillor Mills I've got the website up here I'm looking at the Concertina House New Road in Fenton the Foxton-Dovecott and Jenkins Meadow the House in Histon all of which I would just love to go and visit can we link this into our visit South Cam's website please because quite honestly it's the sort of thing that if I was looking for interesting places to take a cycle ride to definitely would like to go and look at the well I'd like to look at all of them actually so I think we should link it into the website Christian it's a lovely bit of work thank you and I'm quite envious of you having to do it because I quite like to do that so any questions from cabinet members so Councillor Bradman thank you leader and indeed quite so if you look at the website it is quite enticing but I wondered if the new work that's being done in the next steps described in paragraph 18 generate a greater awareness of the list and members suddenly realise or members of the public I mean suddenly realise that there's something that isn't on that list is there still an opportunity to nominate and how will that go to nominate now I'm looking to Christian to answer that no it's absolutely still possible to nominate yes the website remains open so that that is possible to do lovely can we ask our comms team to have a chat about possibly including it in the magazine or some stage of the game because again I think there's a sort of thing that people like to read about see if we can do anything there okay so if there's no more questions recommendations are on 239 do members agree with the proposal agree anyone wishing to vote against anyone abstaining cabinet therefore agrees the proposal is about affirmation and thank you very much Christian thank you so back to money item 14 and so I'm just coming to double check because I think scrutiny we've got scrutiny on this as well so the 2023-24 quarter one performance report so we're going to start off with councillor John Williams I think councillor Peter Macdonald is seconding it bring it in councillor Drew after councillor John Williams has spoken thank you thank you leader very pleased to present this report it's a considerable improvement actually on the quarter one of last year quarter one last year we had a several red warnings we have none in this quarter in fact yes we have mainly green with some ambas and it's very important to know that we have set ourselves some very tough targets one for example is in percentage of tenants that are satisfied with responsive repairs which you'll see is amber because we set ourselves a target of 97% and actually we achieve 96% but the actual national average of satisfaction is 86.4% so let us not be too hard on ourselves with some of these targets because although we may not have achieved our target may fall and short slightly on some of these with our own targets our targets are much tougher than what other councils are achieving in the country so I think we need to bear that in mind when you look at these targets and please read the narrative because the narrative explains the reasons why in some instances we are not yet achieving the target that we have set for ourselves but as I say in many cases these targets that we have set for ourselves are very stretching and challenging and are much better than what other councils are achieving Thank you very much indeed Councillor McDonald Thank you leader I'd like to support the recommendations from Councillor Williams just to note or highlight that there was one new purple item in the business plan this month and that was updating on the economic forecasts which were requested by all members and obviously that's really important for the local plan Absolutely I think these are outstanding really good and emergency repairs in 24 hours targets 100% and for the last three months we've hit 100% so that's got to be something to be celebrated Any other questions from Cabinet Any questions from anybody else I'm sorry and Councillor I've been Councillor Drew in now I apologise Thank you Going through the quarter with former supporters one of the key things that we should know who he does to extensive questions across all the pages of the report and as we can imagine it leads to questions and challenges and discussions and as has been referred to there are many many successes I think we'd like to particularly highlight something that we have talked about many many times just put in overview which is the target related number of days to re-let void properties which is target AH 211 and this has in many ways I suspect for my anecdotal thought last year or so being the topic that we have probably had the longest conversations on but one of the very interesting things has been that the target conversation is often related to the validity of the target and whether or not it's actually too difficult and quite rightly officers and the leader and others involved in Cabinet have made the absolute point that clearly the council should be seeking to re-let its properties in the shortest space of time possible both to provide an excellent service but also to make efficient use of the resources that the council stewards on the behalf of the public and what is very clear from the discussion we had at the screen overview was that there have been dramatic progress in reducing the number of days that the average letting time had occurred over and there have been a 42% reduction in the number of days and the reason I flagged this in particular is to say that actually one of the things that's been in the overview always seeks to do is seeks to make sure that council officers and the Cabinet and the leader and deputy leader I don't know if I'm actually aware in fact that the work that they do is constantly quite rightly being looked at in order to improve services for the public and I think it's absolutely worth flagging here at Cabinet at the point that a 42% reduction in the number of days to re-let void properties is something that actually we should all be incredibly pleased about and should represent significant success in work and there are often discussions about things that need to be improved and things that have gone quite well and obviously we have those discussions but this is one that we particularly like to flag on this occasion and say well done to everyone involved Thank you councillor Drew for pointing that out we all like good news so thank you very much if there aren't any other questions oh councillor Batchelor Thank you leader I'd just like to thank councillor Drew for his comments there and perhaps on this particular one which every time we review it we go into some detail on it again I'd like to emphasise the fact that the benchmark for our peers the top quartile for that is 32.6 days so our performance is very much in that sort of area we've discussed it many times I won't go into the details but there's a great deal of variance underlying all that depending on how the property is handed over the amount of work that needs to be done so it's a difficult one but I think we're in the right place thank you Thank you, yes a lot of the stuff we do is difficult but thank you very much indeed so moving to the recommendation on page 247, do you members agree with proposals? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone abstaining? Cabinet therefore agrees with proposals by affirmation so item 15 is a strategic risk register John Williams will propose and Councillor Brian Mills is seconding so John Williams, thank you Thank you leader I'll just take questions on this I think he speaks for himself Thank you Councillor Mills I've got nothing to specifically add so I'm happy to support this recommendation Thank you, are there any questions from Cabinet? Any questions from anybody else? In the room or online? Nope, okay Sorry, on the last I'm really meant to say thank you to Kevin Ledger for another excellent report so my apologies for missing this out so thank you to Kevin for doing that Okay, so we shall go straight to the recommendations on this one which are on page 289 Thank you Anyone, right, do members agree with proposals? Anyone voting against? Anyone abstaining? Cabinet therefore agrees with proposals by affirmation so item and thank you very much to the officers responsible for that as well Kevin again and Kate, you agree so thank you both and item 16, home for Ukraine is the landlord incentive scheme now this is very interesting so John Bachelor is going to introduce it and sorry a couple of little handlers introducing it and councillor John Bachelor is seconding it so thank you councillor Handley Thank you leader as I think we've probably reported previously that this council seemed like the highest number of homes for Ukraine arrivals for a lower tier authority with over 850 Ukrainian guests coming to the district since the scheme began the first phase of the project has been I have to say a tremendous success and is now considered by officers to be business as usual for the last months though the focus has been on helping guests to move on to independent accommodation as Cabinet is well aware getting into the private rental sector is expensive and has proved challenging for Ukrainian guests and in mitigation it's proposed that the council consider the launching of a landlord incentive scheme the proposed scheme is to provide more affordable and sustainable housing options for our Ukrainian guests and is very similar to one that operates already in Bristol city council so it's not a completely new scheme there is evidence that it's worked elsewhere the scheme will offer upfront payments to landlords depending on circumstances such as property size and whether they offer a tenancy at the local housing authority rate or the market rent larger incentive payments will be available to landlords who offer a tenancy to at the local housing rate it's to encourage more affordable and sustainable options for guests I don't propose to go through the figures all the policy document which is given in Appendix A but the authors of the report including Ben Thackeray I think he was the primary author here to answer any questions that we may have I'd just like to take the opportunity of thanking Ben and others for fantastic job that they have done of taking this on and moving it forward it's really been actually very proud of it all Thank you, there's much to be proud of here innovating getting ahead of the game Councillor Batchelor Thank you leader so this is just a further addition to the toolbox of support that we have it has the distinctive vantage of actually being wholly funded from government grants so it's not a cost to us is such and I'd like to echo Councillor Hanley's comments this whole program is something that we can be truly proud of and the way the staff have stepped up to the task is just outstanding so well done to all of them and let's keep it up Thank you very much indeed it's really interesting and I think what we're doing is picking up very quickly on innovation we're seeing in other councils and adapting that to benefit our own residents in particular our guests Any questions from members of cabinet Councillor Bradman Thank you leader I just wanted to ask you whether I may have missed it in the report since this scheme offers a financial incentive to private landlords I just wondered will the district council and our homes for Ukraine scheme have any responsibilities for ongoing monitoring of the happiness and wellbeing of our guests in their new private rentals That's a really good question I don't know if Councillor Hanley who's going to be best placed I don't know if he's about Gareth Thank you leader I think that as Councillor Hanley said the focus for us initially was that first phase of the project the accumulation checks welfare checks etc which is a really well structured programme as we move on to supporting people to live more independently I don't think we see it as just getting them to move into a property it's how do we make sure that's sustainable and people can successfully live there so we're really focusing on that that's this programme that you've got in front of you but we're also looking at an additional officer to support people to ensure that once they move they can really ensure that all the things that are really quite tricky when you're not familiar with it you can make sure that people are settled as a council we have responsibilities to support people of housing anyway and we've got teams in place but the Home to Ukraine programme has given us additional pressures and we've responded to that using the government grant to make sure we've got sufficient resources available to support people on their whole journey Thank you Interestingly I met a lovely Ukrainian artist in Brighton last week who has heard about all the work we do here and would like to relocate from Brighton up to South Cambridges because she knows that South Cambridges is a good place to be for Ukrainian guests so that was nice Any more questions? Ben, thank you very much for all your work on this Is there anything you want to add that we haven't covered? No, I just wanted to say thank you for hearing the schemes there Thank you, it's really innovative and I know you've worked very hard on it so thank you, I look forward very much to seeing the results of it so the recommendations are on page 315 315 315 No, no, sorry 303 Good Catching up with myself here Do you members agree with the proposals? Anyone voting against? Anyone abstaining? Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation and thank you again Ben, so item 17 the end is in sight Nosto Acquisition of western park sports pictures, the governance arrangements for the western park facility and procurement of an external operator so this is more really important progress so councillor Bill Handley is going to speak to this and I will be very pleased to second it to handley Thank you, leader Yes, this report updates on the freehold land transfer to the council from the master developer Ellen Cew for the land containing the phase 1 sports pictures within the western park at Nosto it also covers governance arrangements for the sports pavilion in the park and the procurement of an external operator to manage and maintain the combined facility the report contains advice and valuation contrary from Surveys Wilkeshead and Eve on which the decision was based just asking cabinet to note the report Thank you very much and all progress at Nosto is to be absolutely welcomed every step will make a difference to people living there Any other comments from cabinet councillor Bradman Thank you, leader I'm very pleased to see this going forward and I just wanted to put a flag in the thought processes that when an operator is engaged to to consider the building of the sports pitches to ensure that they are actually built to the sports pitches national standard it's very easy for somebody to say they're going to construct a sports pitch and then not ensure that the pitches drained properly and it is of a suitable substandard so it's just a bit of detail there but it's just to make sure that the sports pitches are built to an appropriate standard when they are Thank you I say this with experience from Northlodge Park at Milton and we're very glad that we made sure that they were built to the right standard Thank you Well I think that's the benefit of something that's completely new You can set that standard and you can hold people to account for the standard so it's certainly our intention that everything we deliver to the residents of Norstow is the highest achievable standard but it's a point well made Does anybody, any officers want to comment on that because you're probably no chapter and verse on this Yes I can do that the pitches in the western park are already constructed and at the point at which permission was granted it was with the assurance that those pitches met the requirements of the national governing bodies in relation to all the sports that were to be accommodated there and certainly we do to take care to ensure that any such applications meet those standards and indeed Sport England is a consultee and likewise ensures that those standards are met Thank you very much indeed Any other questions? Moving up to the recommendations that are at 315 Do members agree with the proposals? Anyone voting against? Anyone abstaining? Anyone agrees with the proposals by affirmation and my thanks to Claire and Annane's worth for their ongoing We are noting it We are noting it Therefore agrees to note the proposals by affirmation It says that Righty hope Thank you very much indeed Is that okay? We come to the point of the agenda where I'm afraid we need to exclude this is because the final three items contain information which is commercially sensitive Members of the public advise that if cabinet agrees to exclude the press and public the video stream will end I therefore propose that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the remaining items of business in accordance with section 100a brackets for the local government act 1972 On the grounds that if present there would be a disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 Paragraph 1 of schedule 12a of the act brackets as amended Is that seconded? I seconded that, thank you Does anyone wish to vote against the proposal? Sorry Members agree with the proposal Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone abstaining? Okay, so cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation Members of the public watching the webcast the video stream will now end Thank you for joining us today's meeting The next meeting of cabinet is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 7 November at 10 o'clock