 Okay, I can confirm that you are now live chair, thank you. So good morning everybody, I'm sorry we're a couple of minutes late, you think you've just cracked the technology and then it plays you up at the last minute, but we're definitely getting better at it. So good morning to members and to officers and to the members of the public who've given up their morning to watch the live stream of this meeting of South Cambridgeshire District Council's Cabinet. My name is Bridget Smith and I'm the leader of the district council and I'm the chair of the cabinet. For information of members of the public the cabinet's made up of myself and eight lead cabinet members and we're responsible for most of the council services for preparing the budget and for the council's major policies and strategies for consideration by full council which consists of all members. So the normal procedure at cabinet meetings is to take votes by affirmation and that's what we intend to do, but when we move to a vote on an item I will ask members if they agree with a proposal and if anyone wants to vote against or abstain then we'll take a roll call. So at that point we'll ask members to speak individually into the microphone. So just to introduce, I'll just run through who the cabinet members are, we've got councillor Aidan Van Derwire, actually I think if cabinet members would like to introduce themselves that's probably best. So if we start off with councillor Van Derwire, if you'd like to introduce yourself. Aidan Van Derwire and a member for Barrington and I'm also one of the deputy leaders. Hugh Councillor Bill Handley. Hello Councillor Bill Handley, member for Over and Willingham. Councillor Tumey Hawkins. Good morning Councillor Tumey Hawkins, I'm the district councillor for Coleycock Ward, I'm the member for planning. Hugh Councillor Peter MacDonald. Good morning, I'm Councillor MacDonald, I'm the lead cabinet member for business recovery and skills. Councillor Brian Mills. Good morning Brian Mills, member for sourston and lead for environmental waste and licensing. And Councillor Hazel Smith. Hello I'm Hazel Smith, I'm the lead member for housing and member for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you and last but not least councillor John Williams. Good morning I'm councillor John Williams, I'm the member for Fendin and Fullborn and I'm also lead member for finance. Thank you so I can confirm that the meeting is quarret. And can I just check that we've got councillor Grenville Chamberlain who's the chair of scrutiny and overview committee present? No, have we got the vice chair of scrutiny and overview present please? Yes, good morning, it's Judith Heffith, Milton and Water Beach Ward and vice chair. Thank you very much indeed, thank you. So are there any non-cabinet members present in this meeting please? Yes, councillor Lacey, member for Gertun. Good morning. Councillor Daunton, member for Fendin and Fullborn Ward. Councillor Sue Ellington, councillor for Swavesy Ward. Councillor Heather Williams. After you Heather. Councillor Heather Williams, the warden's ward. Councillor Anna Bradnam, Milton and Water Beach Ward. Councillor Richard Williams for the Wittlesford Ward. Anyone else? Councillor Jeff Harvey for Borsham Ward. Good morning. Is that everyone? Charlie, good. Well, thank you very much to those non-cabinet members for attending. And just to confirm, we've got various officers from our senior leadership team, Liz Watts, our chief executive, Peter Maddux, head of finance, Stephen Kelly, director of shared planning, Rory McKenna, our monitoring officer, Jeff Memory, who's head of transformation. I can see Phil Bird there and various other people who we might well be calling upon during the meeting. And Susan Gardner Craig, who's head of HR. So, apologies for absence. So, if I could just go to Jonathan, please, for apologies for absence. Good morning. Thank you, Leda. We have received apologies from councillor Tynilgol. Thank you very much. And there's no further apologies that I'm aware of. So, moving on to item three, which is declarations of interest. Has anybody got an interest to declare in relation to today's agenda? Yes, it's Councillor MacDonald. I'd like to declare non-pecuniary interest as membership of the Investment Partnerships Board. Thank you very much. And that is noted. Any other declarations of interest? Nope. So, we move on to the minutes of the previous meeting, which I will propose. And I believe councillor Van Der Wire is going to second. Is that correct? Yes, I'm very happy to second the minutes. Thank you very much indeed. So, I'll just move through the minutes. So, starting at page one, page two, page three, page four, page five, page six, and page seven. Councillor Williams would like to speak. Hello, Councillor Williams. What would you like to point out? Just because there's three of them, I take it that's me. Councillor Heather Williams. Yes, I know. We've got a full hat-trick today. Oh, have you? How confusing. It was just that I'm missing on the list of attendees, but I did attend. I was five minutes late, but I was attended. You were indeed. So, if we could correct that, please. Thank you very much for pointing that out. Okay. So, members, you're asked to approve. Do members agree to approve the minutes? Agree. Does anyone wish to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? So, thank you. So, the cabinet therefore agrees the approval of the minutes as a correct record by affirmation. And then at four B, we have a written answer relating to minute five of the previous meeting. And so, I'm just asking you to note the response that is printed in the agenda. Okay. And moving on to public questions now. We have had a question submitted by Mr Richard Williams. And unfortunately, he's not able to attend. I trust that he's not on well. But we will take the question and I will answer it. So, I shall just, in Mr Williams' absence, I will read his question, which said, the internal audit report on the decision at Craftway's Steele Morden is a step in the right direction. But the report fails to address why the planning permission was deleted from the public planning register after it was issued and fails to investigate at what level the decision to delete the permission was taken. Deleting planning permissions from the public planning register undermines the public's confidence and the integrity of this council and calls into question whether the public planning register can in fact be relied upon as the definitive record of planning permission in this district. Will the cabinet commit to also ask the internal audit team to investigate the circumstances regarding the deletion of the permission from the public planning register? So, I have an answer to that. So, I thank Mr Williams for taking the trouble to submit a question to cabinet. And the answer is as follows. Following a further discussion with the head of internal audit, my understanding of the situation is that an officer noticed that the planning permission had been issued on Friday the 13th and knew that to be a mistake. Therefore, it was agreed to take the document down until the system could be interrogated. Now, that happened on Monday the 16th and as is set out in the detailed internal audit report, it was realised that this mistake was a combination of human error and the system not being set up to proactively identify this risk. And at this stage, the decision was republished. So, I've asked the head of internal audit to continue to investigate that whether there are any further improvements that the council can make to the system regarding this matter. So, thank you very much and that response will be published in the minutes. So, moving on to item six, which is actions taken under chief executives delegated powers. And, members, you're asked to note the report. So, moving on from that to item number seven, which is the quarter two performance report starting at page 13 and going on to page 36. Now, it would normally be Councillor Neil Goff who presented this, but since he's not here, it's going to be me. So, I'd like to start by thanking Jeff memory and his team for a very good piece of work here. And I'm particularly impressed by the quality of the narrative that now accompanies all the rag ratings that we get for our KPIs. It's quite obvious to anybody who reads this, even in fairly cursory detail that COVID had a significant impact on just about every area of our services. And actually, I'm impressed by how well things have actually held up. I think they could easily have been much, much worse. So, I just want to sort of go through some particular bits. So, it starts off looking at benefits. Now, our benefits team has been under enormous pressure. They've had to help us get all these government grants out and keep business as usual going. So, I think the fact that performance has been maintained by them is absolutely to their credit because I think they must have been working night and day. We've just seen a slight dip in the number of days to process HB and CTS change of events in September into the amber, but it's very marginal. Finance has held up really well. And on revenues, again, the reds that we're seeing on the collection of non-domestic rates are completely and utterly attributable to COVID. But interestingly, you'll see there's been quite a significant turnaround between July and September. And I'm expecting that to improve still further as we've started to issue statutory reminders. So, that is completely down to COVID, but I'm glad to see some recovery there. One of the biggest financial impacts from COVID on us and every other local authority with housing responsibility has been on bed and breakfast accommodation. So, we've seen a doubling of expenditure here. But again, I think we've been very successful in getting people into accommodation. Part of the problem is, if you read the narrative, you'll appreciate that people go into temporary accommodation and it's very difficult with the current situation to get them out of temporary and to permanent accommodation. And I was talking to some of our housing team the other day and we're just not seeing as many voided properties as we were in the past. I presume because people aren't changing their jobs and so on, and life is feeling very uncertain for lots of people. So, that's to be expected and I commend our housing team for all the work that they've done. On the housing and property services, again, COVID is the reason for the average days to re-let stock becoming so long. There's been nothing we've been able to do about that because people weren't allowed to move house during the last lockdown. And on emergency repairs, there's some concern there about the time that they have taken very recently, but I gather that that is being fully investigated. So, I think everything else... Yeah, there's a bit... On complaints, I've had talks to Geoff memory about the time taken to respond to complaints and I know Geoff is focusing on this. It's a real priority for him, so I'm expecting to see improvements there, but we have to bear in mind that our workforce have been hugely committed to dealing with the COVID pandemic and I think we've achieved a lot to keep business going as usual to the degree that we have. So, I think Council of Underwire is going to second this Council of Underwire. Do you want to say anything at this point? No, that's fine. I do want to say this very well. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from any other members of cabinet? No. Geoff memory, would you like... Is there anything you want to add to what I've said? Thank you, leader. Just to say that this continues to be a work in progress, we're looking to strengthen the performance monitoring information to make it more up to date for members and to continue to give the contextual information, which, as you say, is significantly better than it was. We're looking to continue to strengthen that as we move forward. I agree with you that it tends to reflect good performance given the impact of COVID on all of the Council services. Thank you very much and thank you again to you and to your team for putting together a report that's very easy to understand. OK, so I've got two speakers so far. Councillor Heather Williams to start with. Thank you. My suggestion really for cabinet's consideration is under the finance section. So on page 17 we can see the underscreen to do the voices paid in 30 days and those figures are very good. But given the situation and what we'll see later on in the meeting about delayed invoicing, etc. Whether it would be appropriate to include another KPI in there in relation to acid tests, acid ratio tests because what was highlighted in Audit and Court for Governance meetings and was confirmed by the external auditors that this is something that's going to be of significant importance for councils going forward is their liquidity. I'm just wondering as cabinet meets monthly whether it would be a good idea to have regular reporting on that or indeed in the Court's new performance reports. So how nicely you have used as to whether you think that would be an appropriate thing to be keeping an eye on and would you consider including it in your Court's new performance indicator reports? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Williams, for that suggestion. I'm going to defer to Geoff memory to ask to answer that or indicate how we'd take that away and give it further consideration. Yes, certainly leader. I will talk with Peter Maddock finance director to make sure that we can get the information together readily for future performance reports. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Do you want to add anything to that, Councillor Williams? No, I'll take it from that that you're looking into it. It's just it was, I think it's definitely something of great importance is that it ratios in this in this current climate. Thank you very much indeed. Councillor Delacy. Thank you very much, leader. Again, I'd like to talk about the contact centre, please. I'm generally very pleased with the results, I think given the pressures to be only amber when we had so much read in previous quarters is good. And I also want to thank Mr memory for sending me not for this quarter, unfortunately, but for the last quarter detailed figures which enabled me to see that where as averages give you very little idea of the spread, there were only, I think, three callers who hung on for 20 minutes before abandoning their calls. But that does show how important it is, I think that we have full of figures. And again, I want to say I'm grateful to Mr memory for trying to get these figures to us and making sure that in the updated software these figures will be immediately available. So thank you very much, and I hope the good work will continue. Thank you very much, Councillor Delacy. So I mean three isn't very many, but 20 minutes is a long time. So Mr memory, do you want to just talk a little bit about what the value of more detailed information would be and also how difficult it is to pull that together if it is difficult? Yes, certainly leader at the moment, the information that we have in our system needs to be put together through specific individual reports that have to be written and run in order to get the information out. I'm more than happy to do that. And Councillor Delacy contacted me again and I'm in the process of arranging more up to date information for him. But what we are looking to do when we procure our new telephone system is to have live information so that at any one time the manager of the service can see how many people are waiting, how long they're waiting for and can redirect resources to tackle those those people in waiting the longest. I think that's the way most modern telephony systems work and certainly what we expect for our customers in South Cam. So that will be part of our new telephony service when it's introduced next year. Oh, thank you. So is that going to be early next year? I'm probably middle of next year, Leader. It's always difficult at the moment to look at IT implementations in a time of COVID, but we're working very hard to get that in as quickly as we can. Okay, that's super. Lovely. Thank you. That's Councillor Delacy. Is there anything else you want to add? No, just thank you very much for that report, Mr Member. Thank you, Leader. That's lovely. Thank you very much indeed. So I haven't got anybody else wanting to speak on this. So the recommendation is set out in paragraph four of the report, which is to note the KPI results and comments at Appendix A and progress against the business plan actions at Appendix B, which is another good piece of work. Thank you very much. So do you members agree with a proposal? We agree. Does anyone wish to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? Thank you. So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And we now move on to the equality scheme, which again would have been down to Councillor Neil Goff, but he's away. So I shall do this. So again, another really good piece of work. And my thanks go to Susan Gardner Craig for the efforts that she and her team have put into this. So we have a legal duty and a moral obligation, I would argue, to do this work, but also to produce an action plan, which really addresses our priorities as the leadership of this council, but also ensures that South Cambridgeshire is a really, really good and welcoming place for everybody to work. So we have, I think it says, under the public sector equality duty that came to forth in April 2011, local authorities require to prepare and publish one or more objectives to meet any of the aims of the duty every four years. And we publish our equality objective was objective within the equality scheme. And that's now due for renewal. So with detailed action plan and a very easy to read scheme, which I'm pleased about, because I do hate ploughing my way through council speak when this is an important document for people outside of the council to be able to appreciate as well. So I think Councillor Hawkins, you're going to second this, are you? Yes, leader second in this. And just to say thank you to officers as well for the work that's been done and it's been scheduled to be done. And as one of those in the minority groups identified, I'm pleased to see that we've come a long way. And that the plan that's been put forward is a really good one, which I'm fully behind. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hawkins. And I'm pleased to hear you say we've come a long way. I don't think we should have a rest on our laurels, though there's always further we can go. So are there any questions on this from members of cabinet? And anybody else? The reason I'm not referring to scrutiny is we haven't had a scrutiny report for this cabinet meeting, but obviously the vice chair cabinet is very welcome to chip in on anything. So I've got Councillor Heather Williams wanting to speak first of all. Just really to endorse the comments, I think it's important that this constantly stays under review and we always look for opportunities to improve and to know what the task and finish groups of all members of all parties have contributed as well. I think it's important that those are cross-party and that we do everything we can to improve. What's already looking to be a very good document, but always room for improvement. Thank you, Councillor Williams, and thank you for reminding me of the influence of the task and finish group, which, as you say, is cross-party and this is something that's important to all of us. Councillor Claire Daunton. Thank you, leader. I'm pleased to see that the work of the task and finish group on race has been noted. We've had three meetings and we are progressing all the issues that we set ourselves to do. I believe that Councillor Richard Williams is also attending this morning. Excellent, so thank you very much indeed and my thanks to that group for the work that they're continuing to do. Okidoke, I haven't got any more speech that will move to the recommendations. The cabinet's recommended to A, approve the equality scheme at Appendix A, including equality objectives and actions, and B, note the 2019-20 equality, diversity and inclusion actions report contained at Appendix B. So, do members agree with the proposal? Agree, agree. Does anyone wish to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? Thank you, so cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And moving on now to item nine, which is refugee support and Councillor Hazel Smith. Would you please introduce this report? Thank you, leader. You'll recall that about two years ago we decided that we would put together a scheme and investigate supporting Syrian refugees. And we throughout the year 2019-20 we managed to bring over and support four families to settle in the district. We had hoped to do a fifth one, but for personal reasons that didn't happen. So it is really a continuation of what we've been doing already that we would like to do. The government suspended the scheme when coronavirus came along and they have now announced that, in fact it was only a week or so ago, they announced that they're going to continue for a year, the scheme that was previously in operation. So this is very timely. We would like to continue with the same sort of level for families per year and we'd like to make the commitment to do that for three years. So this is really continuation of current policy and it's a measured response to offer support to these families who are in dreadful situations in Syria. So I would commend this to you. Thank you very much, Councillor Smith, and I'm very pleased this work is continuing. I believe Councillor Aidan Van Der Wire is going to second this. Would you like to speak? Yes, this way. I'll say what it is now. So we don't live in a bubble in South Cambridge. So what happens beyond our borders elsewhere affects us however indirectly. If the world outside South Cambridge gets better, we benefit, and if the world outside for South Cambridge gets worse, we lose out too. So put it another way, the suffering of others does not make us better off. It diminishes us. This is true whether the suffering occurs just over the border in say Suffolk or 2,000 miles away in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon. We have the chance today to make some tiny contribution to reducing that suffering. And circumstances of these refugees is just unimaginable to us. We just don't have the mental tools to comprehend what they've been through. In addition to being refugees, the people that this programme accepts are among the most vulnerable. So they're suffering the therefore compounded. This makes our decision today all the more important. So I am very proud to be able to participate in making this decision today to continue to show our solidarity with the people of Syria and to help alleviate some of the misery that Assad and the Syrian regime has inflicted. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Rundewire, and I share your feelings exactly. Are there any other cabinet members wish to speak on this item? No, so I will come to other members. I've got Councillor Delacy. Thank you very much, leader. I'm aware of one of the four families who have been settled over the last couple of years. And when we say families, this is not our family because, of course, the father is not with them. It's a mother and several children. As Councillor van der Weyer said, these are very needy people. And not surprisingly, there have been problems with this family. And I want to pay tribute both to our officers and to city officers who have been enormously supportive of these families. And it seems to me that is a tremendously important part of this programme. We can't just dump people in a house and assume that that's going to solve their problems. But also, I want to pay tribute to people who've befriended these families. And there is a limit to what our officers can do. And I hope that when we do resettle families, we try very hard to make sure that neighbours understand what is happening and are able to befriend them, perhaps are given support to befriend them. And that those who do befriend them are helped in whatever ways we can. It's a wonderful scheme. And in our case, in the case that I'm aware of, it is actually working extremely well. So I'm delighted to support this project. Thank you, Councillor Delacy. So I'm not surprised that our officers are all going the extra mile. But it's lovely to hear. And again, I'm not surprised that residents have stepped up to help people who've been through such awful experiences. But you're quite right. It's not enough just to give a roof over people's heads, particularly when they've come through terrible trauma. So Councillor Sue Ellington. Thank you, Llyda. I too would like to say how gratifying it is that we are helping those very vulnerable people. But I would also like to remind members that there are very vulnerable people in our own society. And I currently am very aware of a gentleman who spends almost his entire life living in a garage because he's a single man and therefore is very low on the housing list. He has poor health and he has fallen out with his girlfriend who owns the house or who rents the house is the prime renter for a house. And therefore, whenever she's at home, he spends his life in the garage. And we seem unable to help him with housing issues. And I know there are other single men who are really struggling in our society. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Ellington. I will assume, of course, that officers are aware of this case. I'm sure you've brought it to their attention. And you're quite right. Single homeless men are not easy for us to accommodate. I just wondered whether Councillor Hazel Smith wants to respond specifically to the points that you've made before I bring in Councillor Delacy who'd like to speak again. I don't know the details of this case, but I know that if he presents us homeless, then our officers will do the best they can for him. Thank you very much. Councillor Delacy. Thank you again, Chairman. Leader, rather. One problem, of course, that the Syrian refugees have is a language problem. And one great help has been a professional English as a foreign language teacher who has spent a great deal of time with the family of which I'm aware. And this, I suspect, is something our officers are neither trained nor capable of carrying out. So, again, I think it would be great if we can find such people, people trained in teaching English as a foreign language, and try and encourage them to meet up with the new refugees who come in to help them cope with the language issues. Thank you for that. And actually, as you were speaking, a name has popped into my head of somebody I know who I think would probably really be very pleased. So thank you for that. And we'll take that away and see if we can do something through our communications channels to see if we can get any volunteers. Thank you very much indeed. Right, any anyone else? No? Okay, so moving on. All right, so it is recommended that Cabinet agree to accept up to four refugee families per year within the district as part of the national commitment for the next three years, subject to government providing ongoing funding and developing future schemes and having access to support services that are currently offered by Cambridge City Council or equivalent. And we delegate to the lead Cabinet member for housing who's able to change this timescale if this brings the timescale into line with the announcement of a future government scheme. So do members agree with proposal? Agree. Thank you. Does anyone wish to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? Thank you. So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. So we're coming on to the sort of finance part of the meeting. So item 10 at page 67 is the medium term financial strategy. And I'm going to ask Councillor John Williams if he will present this. Thank you, leader. Firstly, I should like to thank the head of finance and his team for reviewing the medium term financial strategy in difficult circumstances and without full knowledge of the implications of the Chancellor's spending review and the local government financial settlement which we understand is due on the 23rd of December. For the purposes of this review therefore, a worst case scenario approach has been used with no provision for the government providing support for the loss of business rate income arising from COVID-19 and an expectation that the fair funding review will now happen for the financial year 2022-23 and it will result in this council losing a substantial amount in business rate income as a result of the redistribution of that income to councils with adult social care responsibilities. Nevertheless, despite this, the council isn't a good financial position going forward to 2023 and we will be working on plans to meet the need to find some five million in savings over the course of the coming five years through efficiencies and new income streams which we have every confidence in achieving. The MTFS assumes that we will continue to increase council tax to the five pound sorry to the five pound a year or 10 people a week for band D property. No further growth has been assumed and for the capital program we have modelled the 1% increase in the public works loan board rate although as we know this has now since been reversed by the spending review and on that we are currently assessing the implications of the changes to the PWLB rules introduced by the spending review which will be the subject of a report very soon. The MTFS review also assumed a pay award the timing of which has now also been affected by the spending reviews for ease on local government pay for three years. For the purpose of this MTFS review therefore which took place before the spending review we had to make many assumptions some of which as you see have already been overtaken by events. It is clear therefore that the MTFS that will be used for determining the council tax in February which will take into account the spending review and the subsequent local government finance settlement will differ from this review but the long-term projections we expect will remain broadly as they are given here. I think it's worth reminding ourselves that when the Liberal Democrats took control of this council it was predicted by the previous administration that in normal circumstances at the end of this financial year we would be taking over 2.7 million from our reserves to balance the budget and that the following year nearly 2.3 million would be needed from reserves. As you can see even with COVID-19 this year and next we will in all probability be putting money into our reserves as we did last year. Whilst doing this we have transformed the management of this council. I don't think we could have set up the coordinated community response to COVID-19 in all our villages in the former council. We're delivering improved services such as mobile wardens, street cleansing and dealing quickly with fly tipping. We organise the planning service to be more responsive to our communities and heighten the importance of tackling climate change with the zero carbon communities fund, the introduction of electric refuge vehicles and a generation of electricity from our buildings. And we now have an investment strategy that's more diverse and is bringing more income to deliver frontline services. This is the sign of a well managed council and I thank our senior management team for the efforts they have made and will continue to make to transform this council to be a beacon for others to follow. So I would ask cabinet to recommend this refreshed MTFS to full council. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed councillor Williams and I echo your thanks and praise of the senior management team and particular of the finance team which you are responsible for for holding it all together with the while dealing with the enormous burdens that COVID have put on them. So many thanks to all of them. So I believe councillor Peter Macdonald is going to second this. Do you want to speak on this at this stage? Just very briefly leader is which is to a second the medium term for natural strategy and also to thank the new business support team in this context whilst we are under pressure to deliver during COVID that team and the revenues team have been absolutely fantastic on issuing much needed grants to business. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. So do any other members of cabinet wish to speak? No, okay. So I've got councillor Heather Williams who would like to. Thank you leader. And can I start by echoing the actual performance sorry with the business grants for the finance team on this latest round? They have acted very swiftly and I know the hours that Peter and others in the finance department are committing to get accounts audited and budget at the same time which is very difficult and I can really empathise with that. And I just wanted to ask a couple of questions and clarification if I may leader. So the lead member finance has said that that this is the worst case scenario that's been used. However, we are still with some of the assumptions on PWLB but we don't know if we're actually going to be able to borrow for the investments through the PWLB. So just wondering what the comparison is to the commercial rates that we would anticipate and as it's worst case scenario have been factored in and also my understanding is that we're actually including this a partial rates reset where previously we thought it was a full reset and my interpretation would be the worst case scenario would be a full reset and that's not an assumption I've found that's in here I may be wrong. So I'm just wondering how we can justify the worst case scenario reference. And finally I just wanted to find out because I recall the last we heard of Castle Rig on the report so I remember it was a cabinet meeting that Councillor Aiden Vendeware it was a mammoth meeting it went on forever that he chaired and I remember raising them concerned about we were entering the other phase of reports and how many other phases there would be but we don't seem to have heard anything in the public domain as to that money that was spent and budget after budget for when I've been here have we've always said that further savings would be incredibly difficult to find in efficiencies and that Castle Rig was paid for to find those savings and options put forward so I'm just wondering where that support is are we still paying Castle Rig for any more reports or are we taking that forward what sort of happens with that money that was spent on those reports thank you leader Thank you very much so I've got three questions here one is about the assumptions on PWLB which I'll ask Councillor John Williams to answer and on assumptions around the whether the assumptions on a partial rates reset justifies the worst case scenario on the transformation work I'm going to ask Jeff memory to respond to that so if we start off with Councillor John Williams on the first two points please Yeah thank you leader as I said there will be a report coming to cabinet very soon on the implications of the change to the rules for the public works loan board but I would say that the midterm financial strategy doesn't assume the purchase of more properties the worst case scenario in the in the mtfs is as it is at the moment so we're not we're not making any predictions in it and of course the changes to the PWLB refer to future purchases not what we have already purchased it's quite clear from the from the government's report on the consultation that they undertook into this that it's not retrospective so the mtfs takes account of what we already have but doesn't take account of what we intend to do in future and obviously what we will do in future will be subjected to the new rules of the public works loan board and as I say we will be receiving a report on that in due course so in that way actually it is a worst case scenario because we're not predicting any further purchases of commercial property and therefore income within the mtfs which is why you see that when it comes to commercial income it gradually drops off over the over the five-year period new income the other bit about resetting of the business rates we have very firm we have had very firm intelligence now that there will not be a full rate review and a reset that it will be a partial reset so that's why that's been written into if we didn't have that assurance yes yes absolutely right we would have factored in a possibility of a complete baseline change in business rates but that is not what we're being told by our experts will happen thank you thank you councillor Williams as I say it's a moving feast isn't it I'm going to bring in our chief executive Liz Watts first of all to talk about the about some of these questions I suspect on the transformation work so hello Liz thanks and good morning members I just wanted to cover off the question about castle rig initially because Jeff wasn't here when that work took place and nor was I actually but I inherited the report it was a useful report and what it made me realise quite quickly was in the leadership team structure we needed to create the post of head of transformation in order to take our transformation work forward so that just really puts the context in terms of how we sort of closed off the castle rig work and if I could hand over now councillor Smith to Jeff he can talk a little bit about the transformation work thank you thank you very much it was it was always the you know the initial work to identify identify opportunities so so deaf memory if you'd kindly step in yes certainly leader we've already started work on what's going to effectively be a two year program of service reviews across all of the services of the council and what we're looking to do is to make the best use of modern technology so that we can provide the sort of service that our residents expect in the same way that they live the rest of their lives but do it in such a way that we combine it with well trained empowered staff who are able to give up more holistic response to customers when they contact us so the aspiration is to allow customers to contact us more regularly by using smartphones or or online devices so that things are available 24 seven and eventually close to 365 days a year and then when they do need to speak to a person to make sure that the people that they speak to are well informed and can deal with their full range of inquiries the intention is to get to a situation where only something like 10 percent of inquiries needs to go through to a specialist officer in the back office to deal with very very specific technical points the advantage of using a combination of well trained staff and the most modern technology is that you can also do that more effectively and efficiently so we're in a position where we're looking over the next sort of two years to roll out the changes across all of the services of the council and try to square that circle of providing better customer satisfaction a more cost effective rate for the council taxpayers and I'm more than happy to meet with Councillor Williams to discuss it in more detail if she'd find that helpful Thank you I'm sure Councillor Williams will take up that offer if she likes so I should just say that both Liz Watts and Jeff Embry have considerable experience and reputation for leading innovative transformation projects that will result in much improved customer experience and a much more efficient council so we now have the people in place to do this work in house which was always our aim really So any more questions on the MTFS? No? Okay, so Yes we could come back Thank you The second phase then report as members of the council we got to see the first phase would lead to be willing to share the second report that was the first report I'm grateful members of the council So I'll have to review that Can I come back to you on that? Sorry the postman just came by so the dog is now going nuts I'll come back to you on that Councillor Williams All right, so moving on So the recommendation is that Cabinet acknowledges the projected changes in service spending and the overall resources available to the council over the medium term be recommended for council to refresh MTFS at Appendix A and updated financial forecast at Appendix B C note the growth bids detailed at Appendix C for inclusion in the budget setting report in February 2021 and D note the proposed range of service efficiencies saving stroke policy options detailed in Appendix C of the report and that these will undergo further refinement and consultation with employees and other stakeholders prior to forming part of the budget setting report in February 2021 Do you members agree with the proposal? Thank you, anybody wish to vote against it? And anyone wish to abstain? So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation and item 11 is the capital programme update and new bids which is going to be presented by Councillor John Williams again Thank you, leader As mentioned in the previous report on the MTFS review the capital programme has been affected by COVID-19 and as a result we have had to refaze and re-profile a number of projects details of this and new bids can be found in the appendices Therefore I ask Cabinet to recommend to full council the revised capital programme for the period 2020-21 to 2025-26 Of course the spending review also introduced changes to the rules for loans from the public works loanable which we've already touched on and as I've said in my previous report the impact of this on the capital programme and future commercial investment is being considered and a report will come to Cabinet as soon as possible We understand as I said mentioned in my response to Councillor Heather Williams we do not believe these changes are retrospective and there are currently no new commercial investments pending approval Thank you leader Thank you very much and I believe that Councillor Brian Mills is going to second this Councillor Mills Do you want to wish to speak? No but I'll be second it Thank you leader Thank you very much indeed Would anybody from Cabinet like to comment? No and would anybody else like to ask any questions on item 11? No, I can't see anyone Okay So I'm not going to there's quite a lot of recommendations I'm not going to read them all out they're on page 99 but essentially referring to the four appendices and they are there for anybody to read So do members agree with a proposal? Agree Agree Agree Agree Anyone wish to vote against? And anyone wish to abstain? Several cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation and moving on to item 12 which is fees and charges and again Councillor Williams Thank you leader This particular item many of the charges and fees that are set for us by government but we do have a discretion in a number of areas where possible we have basically kept the fees where we have discretion on the same as this year going forward but there are a couple of areas where we have felt it being important to to increase fees because of because of our green agenda basically One area is litter and dog mess where although we can't set the the fine itself we have a discretion over how much discount we can give for people who pay that finally and we have reduced the discount for both litter dropping and dog fouling and then on the other item is regarding green bins and that's where we have increased the charge for a second green bin not only reflecting the cost of the extra time it takes to emptied another bin but also the fact that we want to encourage people to compost and those who can who need two green bins I think one accepts have a larger than normal garden and we believe we should be encouraging those people to compost their green waste rather than sending it to all well and good of course it gets turned into compost eventually water beach but we would rather they did their own composting at home thank you Thank you very much and Councillor Mills are you seconding this? I am and I'd like to endorse Councillor Williams comments particularly about the additional composting capacity for people if they can do that that will help us all out significantly and you know that we're experimenting at the moment with a separated household waste food waste program which is also a good move in the right direction so happy to second this motion thank you Thank you very much and I know we've been doing a lot to try and minimise minimise food waste which I think is a sort of national campaign as well okay any questions from cabinet please no so I've got Councillor Heather Williams who'd like to ask a question I do I do believe that Councillor Delacy was a head of me and I tell you Oh I'm sorry I missed that thank you Councillor Delacy of course Thank you and thank you also to Councillor Heather Williams When we last announced a fee for a second green bin I mentioned that in my weekly report my monthly report rather to my local parishes I received I think three letters saying that this was an absolute disgrace and a much much larger number of people who who said oh I didn't realise I could have a second bin please may I have one straight away so a fee on the second bin although it may be unpopular for some people is certainly others something that others would find attractive though I do hope that we can as has been suggested work on people with larger gardens to suggest that there is room for a compost bin they can do it themselves I do what I can in my villages and I hope the council as a whole will continue to do so thank you Thank you Councillor Mills do you want to respond to that Well no I think councillors Delacy's representation is quite accurate it reflects what we've heard elsewhere so thank you Thanks very much Thank you Thank you councillor Delacy councillor Heather Williams Thank you Same topic but my ward must be out of kilter I'm afraid because I've not had one person supporter of it of the introduction of the green bins they felt that it didn't actually meet with the green agendas as they have been penalised for recycling I appreciate what you say about home composting but it's just not possible for many people for various reasons quite often through through age and the ability to upkeep and everything else and we are seeing a significant increase at present in fly tipping and I just want to know what the cabinet intends to do if we're potentially going to be deterring people from from recycling through the green bin situation how are we going to make sure that that's not counted by an increase in fly tipping as we've seen previously Thank you councillor Williams Well I'm going to go back to councillor Mills but I think you know it's a pretty tenuous connection between a green bin charge and increases in fly tipping because I think generally fly tipping is not stuff that would go into into green green bins but councillor Brown Mills if you'd like to come back in Well of course you've made exactly the point that I was going to make leader so no I don't know that there's any evidence at all that could link those two we have to bear in mind that we've got no particular obligation legally to do green bin collections at all so the first bin is basically a service that we're happy to to offer the second bin obviously represents typically a larger garden that is producing more then so it's effectively a progressive tax if for wanted better reason better explanation and I don't think we're going to have a huge amount of problems with increasing that that charge and the flight tipping is a separate issue that we're trying to tackle by communications that we're doing so we've done radio interviews recently and particularly to encourage residents to use certified waste collectors and metal collectors which they can do by checking certification with the environment agency which avoids those flight flight tips by people where money in a van that's for it so we are we are working on all of those issues thank you so so flight flight tipping is extremely irritating for us and costly and unpleasant for our residents so when I met with one of our two MPs Lucy Fraser last week I did talk about this with her and I did say that it's very difficult for us and local government to deter people when we are very limited in the fines that we can levy on people who fly tip I think it's I think it's £400 maximum at the moment and it can be discounted as well if they pay early so £240 for some some operators who will take a chance and not certify themselves ahead of time is certainly significant with that absolutely and you know and also I believe that we we aren't able to recoup our costs either so you know there is a there's a cost of the public purse here and so I have asked her to talk to ministers about you know what can be done about that so at least we can recoup all our costs and that the fines that we levy can actually be a proper deterrent to people because as things stand at the moment you know rather than paying for proper disposal people can be rather quids in by just having to accept to find find from us so it's an unacceptable situation but it's a national problem that's not you're not just faced by us so I hope that our MPs are able to do something I will be talking to our other MP about it when next time meet with him to see whether we can get a bit more impetus on this one so coming back to oh so I think I've got Councillor Judith Rippeth's now Hi I just want to add one other thing to the green bin conversation I think it's right to charge for the second green bin one of the main reasons being it's far greener to compost in your own garden than to be sending all of that material in a diesel lorry bar one lorry that's electric back up to the depot so if you're trying to do something green I try to do it at home Thank you that's that's very helpful indeed Councillor Williams is there any do you want to add anything to the conversation we've been having about this Assuming you mean myself Leader Councillor Sorry Councillor Well I meant Councillor John Williams but I wasn't sure because it was my question Too many of you If there is anything else Councillor Heather Williams you'd like to add you're very welcome to No I'll let Councillor John Williams go if that's what he wants Thank you No I don't have any thank you Leader but I don't have any more comments I think Councillor Milne's as adequately responded to the questions Okay thank you very much indeed so the recommendations are that cabinet's requested to consider the report and if satisfied to A approve the fees and charges as detailed in appendix A of the report to take effect for the first of April 2021 unless otherwise stated or the earliest feasible date thereafter and B note the proposed variations to fees and charges in comparison to prevailing inflation rate detailed in the report So are members in agreement with the proposal Agree Agree Anyone wish to vote again? And anyone wish to abstain? Okay so cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation So moving on to the quarter to quarter to monitoring report and Councillor Williams again Thank you Leader When I presented the quarter one results I said that it was difficult at that time to give a full assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the council's finances Unfortunately quarter two is just as difficult because government support for the loss of income for the first four months of this financial year has only just been received and we have only just been asked to submit our bid for the next four months Moreover we still await the government's decision on whether or not it will reimburse us for the loss of council tax and business rates due to COVID-19 So the table in paragraph 18 has to be treated with caution as the true picture will not be as bad as it looks but to what extent we just don't know currently The detailed summary of the variances can be found in Appendix C You will see that the loss of income that has severely impacted on commercial waste and planning With regard to the former you will see from paragraph 15 of the report that some of this has been offset by lower staff costs in waste as staff will redeployed from commercial waste to domestic curbside collection rounds with a saving on agency staff However us to the planning service COVID-19 has had a severe impact on earnings both from development management and large land charges as you can see from the Appendix We also had less income from licensing and other fees As I've said the government has promised to make good for most of these losses but the money is slowing coming through and we haven't received it by quarter two As two additional costs arising from COVID-19 the government has promised 1.9 million to support us and so far 1.8 million has been received Paragraph 11 draws attention to the 1.7 million worth of efficiency proposals contained in this year's budget which has summarised in Appendix A most of which we expect to achieve I have to say without these efficiencies we would be in a worse situation Thank you leader Thank you very much And councillor Hazel Smith are you seconding this item? Yes I'd like to second this item I'd like to thank the officers for the work on this it's obviously been quite difficult to draw a line and actually summarise what's going on because it's a moving picture and it is I find it very interesting reading all the detail of this in the alternative ways of working we've got the item six sorry which page in Appendix A talks about unnecessary travel to meetings and I suspect that some of these things will become permanent and we will make savings going forward on using the technology as we are at the moment so yes it's very interesting I think although it is a worrying picture I think we're doing very well actually and yeah I'd just like to commend the officers for their work and second this Thank you very much indeed yes I similarly am very grateful to the leadership and the expertise that we have within the council from officers and members as well so anyone from cabinet want to comment on this okay so I'm going to bring in councillor Anna Bradlam to start with Sorry leader I withdrew my request to speak oh you okay that's fine sorry sorry about that did I miss you from the last one I am sorry if I do I was just a bit late I wanted to make a comment about bins but don't worry it can pass okay thank you thank you very sorry about that councillor Heather Williams Thank you and it was just a couple of things and I appreciate that the you know this year has not been the most most straightforward of years to work in so I think the officers have done very well to compile the report and keep things going as they have and I made that clip for my comment and I just wanted to ask a few issues and raise something that I have raised previously with relation to the rag rating and the way things are underspends are naturally are put in to green and within a certain percentage I can appreciate that but I think actually there is just as much danger in an underspend as there is an overspend and I know previously councillor Gough agreed to look at the rag rating system to see whether you know if things are underspent by 90 or 80% obviously that's that's not great and there are risks attached to that so I'm just wondering if that if that work has progressed on my request last time because I think especially in today's climate that needs highlighting for things such as the telephones the installation of the new telephone system I remember that being the budget well the budget that was adopted before I was leaving the councillor and that's that's still on there with as a to-do so it'd be good to get some distinction between sort of historic rolling forwards and and what have you and I also just wanted to make sure where our position is on right to buy receipts because then there may have been some discretion given on that but as you as we can see from the figures that in the current climate it's been harder to spend those and then on planning I'd just like to seek some reassurance from Cabinet that when they go forward to their budget obviously we saw a significant cut 17% roughly in the planning budget between between years to the one that we're currently in and given the figures here and the uncertainty some reassurance that Cabinet won't be looking to cut the amount of money going forward thank you leader thank you so I'll just I'll make comment on the first two but then I'm sure Councillor Williams would like to say something else so on the we did debate we did look at detail about rag ratings in relation to underspends as well as overspends but our judgment was at the end of the day that this wasn't going to be helpful it was actually going to be confusing one of the issues was that if you've got a pretty small budget for something let's say a budget's only 10 000 pounds and something's happened that hasn't allowed you to to deliver on it you could end up with a 100% underspend which actually was a very small amount small amount of money so we did debate this and decided that it wouldn't be helpful on the right to buy receipts I'm sure Councillor Williams can add something to that and Councillor Hazel Smith might as well but there's been some serious lobbying at the local government association to get government to agree for an extension for the time period for right to buy receipts in light of Covid because as you said as you rightly pointed out the building industry has well halted for quite some time and is definitely slow and therefore spending some of these receipts is at risk now but there is cross party lobbying going on on that to the best of my knowledge so if I could just bring a Councillor John Williams and then any other cabinet member who would like to respond to any of those points Thank you, Leader actually I was going to suggest that Councillor Smith, Hazel Smith and Councillor Tim Hawkins respond on those two particular points as they're much closer to what's going on than I am Okay thank you if I can bring in Hazel Smith first of all and then Councillor Hawkins afterwards Yes on the question of right to buy receipts with our council house building programme which obviously we're increasing the numbers of council houses that we're building and although there was some time when they were not on site they have picked up very well and we're going forward and we're likely to meet all the targets with very little slippage actually we've delivered quite a few council houses over to new residents over the summer and I don't see there being a problem with right to buy receipts because we're doing plenty of building Well well done to the team for keeping that going Councillor Hawkins Thank you Leader I mean definitely if it were only done to me we would not be taking anything out of planning we are actually looking at more resources because we still have the consist to fill and we have a lot of work to do so you know we will do what is best for the planning system is what I can say to Councillor Williams Thank you Thank you very much Does Peter Maddox want to add anything in here? We obviously keep a very close eye on our right to buy receipts and when we're going to spend them so we actually monitor them on a monthly basis so as Hazel said earlier things are looking okay at the moment and we seem to be in a good position to spend our one-to-one receipts in the timeframe required so far so good but it's something we do need to keep an eye on Thank you very much indeed Mr Maddox much appreciated Okay Have I got any other questioners? No I don't think so so we'll move to the recommendation which is that Cabinet A acknowledge the forecast 2020-21 revenue outturn position against the approved revenue budget shown in Appendix B the projected major variances with reasons for these variances at Appendix C1 and C2 are the action being taken to address the underlying issues and B we acknowledge the latest position on the 2020-21 capital programme and variances of any as shown in Appendix D so do members agree with that proposal? I agree Thank you anyone wish to vote against? And anyone wish to abstain? Good so cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation okay so that brings us to the end of the substantive business in my enthusiasm to get started I completely missed out the leaders announcements my apologies for that because I had two and they related to changes on committees so I have an announcement that Philip Allen who has stood down to councillor is to be replaced on the brexit advisory group by councillor Ian Sollum and that councillor Claire Deltafield is standing down as a substitute from the Audit and Corporate Governance Committee and she will be replaced by councillor Steve Hunt Thank you Is that okay? Dem services have captured that have they? So the date of the next meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday the 18th of January 2021 at 10 o'clock and thank you very much to all the members of public to officers and members who participated and we wish you all a very happy COVID free Christmas and new year and look forward to seeing you on the 18th of January Can we stop the live stream now please?