 Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Welcome to this meeting of South Campershire District Council scrutiny and overview committee. My name is Councillor Stephen Drew and I am chair of the committee. May I make a few housekeeping announcements? Those present, including any members of the public observing or any public speakers, are asked to note that this meeting is being filmed and live streamed. By your presence, you are deemed to have consented to be filmed and to the use of those images and sound recordings for a webcast. May I please remind members that when speaking they should not disclose any personal information of any individual as this might infringe the rights of that individual and breach the Data Protection Act. Please make sure your microphones are switched off unless you are invited to speak. For those participating remotely, when you are invited to address the meeting, please make sure your microphone and camera are switched on and that when you finish addressing the meeting please turn your microphone off again. Pleas of members who are attending remotely indicate a wish to speak through a chat message in the team's meeting. Those present in the Chamber should indicate their wish to speak by raising their hand. I will ask the Vice Chair to note the order of speakers both virtually and in the room. Committee members present in the Chamber will now invite each of you to introduce yourself. Members, after I call your name, please introduce yourself and say which ward you represent. As I said earlier, my name is Councillor Stephen Drew and I am one of the members for Camborn. My Vice Chair is Councillor Graham Coe and I'm the member for the Fenditian Fullbawm Ward or one of the... Councillor Anna Bradman. Good evening. I'm Councillor Anna Bradman and I'm one of the members for the Milton and Water Beach Ward. Councillor Libby Earl. That's the Saustin Ward. Thank you. Councillor Sue Ellington. Good evening. I'm Sue Ellington from Swavesy Ward. Councillor Peter Fane. Good evening, Chair. One of the Councillors for Shelford Ward. Thank you. Councillor John Love-Luck. Good evening. I'm John and Rumpton. And Councillor Richard Stobart. I'm Councillor Richard Stobart. I'm one of the members for Gertin Ward that also includes Dry, Drates and Madding. And by catching my eye, my Camborn colleague has pointed out to me that I missed her out on the list. Councillor Helen Leaming. Good evening. I'm Councillor Helen Leaming, one of the members from Camborn. And can we also make a particular welcome to Councillor Heather Williams, who has joined the committee replacing Councillor Martin Carn. Councillor Heather Williams. Good evening, Chair. Thank you for the welcome. My first ever meeting is a former member of Scrutiny after four and a half years I managed to swerve it, so here I am to do it properly this time. Thank you, Chair. And if you could just tell us which ward you represent. Wardens Ward. Thank you very much. I know the excitement of joining the committee caused you to forget for a moment. Let's see. Let's forget my resistance, Chair. We understand. Excellent. Are there any other members present in the Chamber or online? I believe Councillor Sunita Hans Raj, a committee member, is online. I am. I'm Sunita Hans Raj. I'm councillor for Hystian in Bington and Orchid Park. And Councillor John Williams. Hello there. Yes, I'm Councillor John Williams. I'm one of the members for Fenditon and Fourborne, and I'm here in my capacity as lead cabinet member for resources. And before I move on, I believe that's all of the council members who are either present in the room or online. Okay. So we also have several officers with us. So Liz Watts, would you introduce yourself? Good evening, Chair. Good evening everyone. Liz Watts, Chief Executive. Okay. And in the Chamber you also have Suzy. I apologise if I'm going to say your surname wrong. I realise I haven't said it before. Is it Brandes? Thank you. Good evening. I'm Suzy Brandes. I'm the principal accountant for General Funding Projects. I had a sudden moment of realising I'd read his emails and done lots of things and hadn't actually said it. Okay. And Ian Signia. Hello. I'm Ian Signia, scrutiny and governance and financial. And Aaron Clark. Thank you, Chair. Democratic Service, technical officer. Here to run the live streaming for the evening. And Bodea Sam. Good evening, Chair. I'm Bodea. I saw a head of service for the Sherdwyth service and environmental services. Thank you. And Peter Campbell. Hello, my name's Peter Campbell. I'm the head of housing. And Rory McKenna. Thank you, Chair. Rory McKenna. And I act as the council's monitoring officer. Thank you very much. I believe Liz, that is all of the officers. I apologise. Jeff Memory. I apologise for missing you out. Jeff. Good evening, Chair. Jeff Memory, Head of Transformation, HR and Corporate Services. Thank you very much. Okay. So I believe we've covered everyone in that situation. I confirm the meeting is quorate. There being at least four committee members here in the chamber. If any time a member leaves the meeting, would they please make that fact known to me so it can be recorded in the minutes? Apologies. Ian, are there any apologies for absence? We've got two committee members, Councillor Hart and Councillor Hoover, and we've also got leader of the council, Councillor Richard Smith. Thank you very much. And our third item on the agenda is declarations of interest. Members are required to declare the existence and nature of any interest which affects or relates to any item of business to be considered. If the interest becomes apparent during the meeting, then the member should bring it to the attention of officers at that time. Do any members have any interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? I do not note any attempts to raise. If an interest suddenly comes apparent later in the meeting, please raise it at that point. Item four on the agenda is the minutes of the last meeting. So our last meeting took place on 6 September at 5.20pm. We've all had the minutes in advance of today's meeting. Is there anything that anybody wishes to raise regarding those minutes that should mean that we cannot just accept them as they stand? Councillor Williams. Thank you, Chair. Just that I wasn't at the meeting, so I'll abstain from the minutes. Okay, thank you very much. On that point, then, can I ask to take by affirmation that we accept these minutes as a valid record? Agreed. Thank you very much, colleagues. I shall sign. Yes, good. As you know, I do get very concerned. I'm going to do it wrong. If you then talk to me in the middle of doing it, you get me to be even more concerned. Excellent. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, which brings us on to point number five, which is public questions. Daniel Fulton of the Fusilane Consortium had requested to make a statement to the meeting. However, Mr Fulton appears not to be present, so therefore we will move on without any further public questions at this time. Okay. So, I'll go back to my agenda. So, we actually only have one major item on the agenda for today, which is the fees and charges. And it says, the scrutiny and overview committee is requested to comment on the attached draft version of the report which was entered the cabinet on 14 November 2022. Some information remains outstanding and where possible the appendices indicate this. Please note that Appendix B and Appendix C are confidential as they contain commercially sensitive information. So, if I remind councillors that if they wish to raise anything in relation to Appendix B or Appendix C, please, could they make that clear? And at that point we will have to make a decision about whether or not to go into private session. Councillor Cohn, you obviously had any information from councillors if there was anything significant they wish to raise. Is there anything that you want to flag at this stage that we ought to go to straight away or am I okay to just go round as normal? Go round the room, Chair. Excellent. Thank you very much. Councillor Williams, first up. Thank you very much, Chair. It was just in relation to, I've got his page two of the actual report, but I think it's missing a number on the horizontal, if you see what it means, the little two, because we've got different numbers. And on there we've got the deed of postponement administration which seems to be quite a jump. That was the only thing that I saw that was significantly different. So, I'm just wondering if we could have an explanation of that. It's on the graph, it's page 16 big that way, and page two that way. Least hold housing. Yes, Least hold housing. Do you mean where it says page 16 at the bottom of? Should we clarify what we're looking at, please? I know it's difficult, you've got two numbers, isn't it? It's page 16, big 16, little, page two. Paragraph 16, or page 16? Page 16. Yeah, it's got page 16 on the side and it's got page two at the bottom. Yeah. Can you tell us what paragraph? It's not a paragraph, it's a table. Well, what's the nearest paragraph? Councillor Williams, what's the heading of the table? 23 to 24 administration charges Least hold housing. I have found it, yes. In the PDF document, councillors, it's page 22 of the PDF document, if you're looking at the whole thing. Now that we've found it, do you want to repeat the question and hopefully either Councillor John Williams or a relevant officer will be able to help with that? I can do, Chair. Now we're on the same page, literally. So it's on the deed of postponement administration, it's had sort of a significant jump, whereas everything else is relatively similar, so I'm just wondering if there's a reason for that. Right, so this is where the deed of postponement administration, which is at the bottom of the first section of the table, the 22-23 cost was £140 and the 23-24 cost is £550 plus. Okay, councillor John Williams. I was going to ask Mr Campbell if he could respond to that. Thank you. Peter. I'm sorry Neil, I don't have the information to respond at the moment. Can I get to supply the information outside the meeting please? Excellent, so Ian will basically note down that it's the figure for the deed of postponement administration. Ah, we are being offered an answer in the chamber. Susie. Sorry, it's Engel. Okay, thank you. Sorry, struggling with the technology, but the answer is actually very simple and it's my administrative error. So these fees were in the past presented as part of the HRA business plan and they were actually increased in 21-22 and approved at that time, but the version I had as a starting point was prior to that. So the initial figure for last year is actually a 2021 figure rather than 22-23 figure. So in the final version, there is no actual increase in this year. Councillor Williams. Thank you. Thank you for that explanation. Is it possible that we could just have that reference so that it's clear that that's actually a 2021 figure just with an asterisk or something? Thank you. Councillor Badman. Thank you, Chair. Sorry. Councillor Williams, are you happy for me to move on? Yes. As you know, I always like to make sure before I move on. Councillor Badman. So this is page 17 and it's the, so we're looking at appendix A and we're under, there's a section called traveller site charges and then below that there's 2023-24 bed and breakfast charges and my question, so the narrative is contribution to B and B costs for homeless applicants, not... Sorry, can I pause you because it may well be me. I feel this is going to happen a number of times before, I think before we talk about what we're talking about, what you have said, Councillor Badman, is now absolutely fine and although I could find what Councillor Williams referred to, I now can't find the bit you're referring to. So I just think before we ask the question, we're going to have to go through an absolute confirming that we can see. So actually correction, it's page 17 and it's a table in appendix A, which is in three sections. If it's helpful, Stephen, that sort of looking... It's okay, I'm being, as you can see here, I'm being assisted by my two colleagues who are now both at the table in front of me. I'm looking here. Right. Okay, so the table is in three parts at this, on this page. The top part is traveller site charges, the middle part is 2023 bed and breakfast charges and the bit below is community alarm. So I'm concerned about the bed and breakfast charges and the narrative on the left hand side says contribution to B&B costs for homeless applicants not claiming housing benefit. And my question is who is paying who and for what? Because it just is... I'm mystified as to who these charges are going to, but I'm sure somebody knows. Councilor Williams. So Councilor John Williams. Yeah, it's a sort of... I mean, Peter can explain this more than I can, but by and large, people in B&B don't actually pay these charges, but we have to obviously have a charge in order to be able to charge someone for them. But Peter will, I'm sure, explain this a bit more. Okay, thank you. Peter. Yes, so what this is, is people who, most people who are genuinely homeless, who are putting bed and breakfast, they're eligible to claim housing benefits. So there is a charge for which is covered by housing benefits. Occasionally, our people who we accommodate for a short period of time have the means to pay a bed and breakfast charge either directly or occasionally through an insurance claim. For example, if somebody is made homeless through fire or flood. And in those cases, we look to lovely charge on the person for a period worth of bed and breakfast accommodation to cover our costs. Do we have any further questions regarding the charges from any other councillors? Councillor Lovelock. Thank you. It's just a global question really. The failure to increase charges in line with inflation will obviously cause some cost, but it's hard to evaluate that without knowing roughly what percentage of our revenue comes from these charges and which are the charges which have the biggest impact. There's not a lot of numbers, but I'm sure some of them are quite insignificant in terms of revenue generated. And essentially, just one comment, and the other comment was, I'm not sure if it's my misunderstanding, but in section 11 at the beginning, in all the bullet points, number 11, it talks about failure to increase fees does out the funding gap. And in 23 or 22, the final centre says it does not contribute to funding gap. I was wondering whether I misinterpreted those two paragraphs or whether that's a typo. But in general, my question is around funding gap. What is the size of the problem created by inflation being higher than our increase in charges? Councillor John Williams. Okay, hold on a minute. Right. Well, the fees and charges, I mean, they don't make up a big proportion of our income, but clearly in the current situation, they do in effect that in the current financial circumstances we find ourselves in, you could argue that they should all be increased by CPI. The problem is that, as we all know, CPI at the moment is really difficult to predict going forward. And I think the decision was taken that we couldn't, and I don't think it would be given the cost of living crisis, it would not be helpful if we increased charges by the current rate of CPI given that there is indication that that will go down next year. Remember, these charges are for next year and although obviously, you know, we have to predict what it's going to happen next year. And we took, and we made a decision that a 5% increase would be probably a fair increase, except where we felt that even that increase would have a detrimental effect on our residents. So, in certain circumstances, some fees haven't gone up at all in order to help our residents, particularly, for example, the well-being fees associated with well-being. So, it was a difficult call this year to come up with a figure, you know, an increase that we felt we could be comfortable with, given the cost of living crisis. And we feel that a 5% increase is probably fair, also given the fact that the wage inflation increase at the moment is around 5%. So, we felt in the circumstances, 5% would be a fair increase for next year. And as I said, you know, this is for next year, this is from, you know, 23, 24. But, you know, it's really difficult to predict what is going to be happening in six months' time. And it... Right, the decision is very balanced, very fair. I was wondering what the size of the gap might be if you had a number, if you don't. If we didn't, if we hadn't increased, you know, we haven't increased things by 10%, I suspect, you know, we'd be looking at probably... Yeah, it's a bit difficult, really. I wouldn't want to... It's quite complicated, because obviously, fees and charges are not uniform. And the amount that people... The use of those fees and charges isn't uniform. And some are very sensitive, others aren't. So, it's a bit difficult to really give you that sort of figure, you know, be precise and say, if we put them up by 10%, this is the income we would have got. If we put them up by 5%, this is the income we're going to get, because, you know, people's reaction between a 5% and a 10% rise would be different. So, it's not... Yeah, it's not a straightforward question to answer, I'm afraid, Councillor. Okay, thank you very much. And, yeah, we've got councillors as well, but Liz, what's his offer to add to that? Well, only because I was actually looking at the data earlier this afternoon, our fees and charges income is a bit less than 10% of our overall income. But, you know, averages aren't your friend as somebody said to me this morning. So, in an area like planning, it's significantly higher than in other areas, if that helps at all. On your comment about paragraph 22, you're right, it is a typo, the final sentence to say where possible will contribute to funding gap, but this is not significant. So, thank you for pointing that out, Councillor Lovell. Okay, I believe it's Councillor, sorry, Councillor Lovell, are you happy for me to move on? Please do. Thank you. Councillor Ellingson. I always have a problem with using percentages, because 5% of nothing is still nothing, but 5% of some of these very small costs is, well, it's obvious, but it just seems to me that we ought to be much more looking at individual costs as far as is possible and raising different areas in line with what it's costing the authority to do the job. And so, I just feel that's a comment worth bearing in mind. Would you like any comment to respond from anyone? Can I respond to that? I mean that's... No, of course you can, I'm just checking whether or not Councillor Ellingson wanted one, but that doesn't mean you can't. Yes, Councillor John Williams. Right, I was just saying, broadly speaking, that's what we've done. That's why you'll see that some have gone up at all and some have gone up more than 5%. And because we have looked at each charge and fee and see what effect that would have on the first of all, on the person or the organisation paying that fee, but also on the elasticity of demand as a result of that price rise. Great, thank you very much. I've got Councillor Bradnham and then Councillor Stobart and then Councillor Leaming. Thank you, Chair. If we come back to the first part of the table, which is on pages 15 and it runs on to 16, I just wanted to ask why the increase in the last column on the right-hand side is described as discretionary? Is that because it's not within our control or is it because we adjust it according to literally individuals or is it... In what way is it discretionary, I think, is my question. Councillor John Williams. Well, discretionary means that it's up to... It's down to... It's where... It describes basically anything that's shaded is something that either we can't... It's beyond our control, it's a statutory charge, or it's something that we can't at this moment in time make a decision on because of other factors. So, for example, if you go to page 20 in the pack and look at let me have a look. Sorry, I'm trying to use a computer. Appendix A cost, it says here, con 29 optional inquiry questions, for example, on page 20. Those lines that are shaded, you'll see that they are set by the county council and therefore they are not... We are not... Those are out of our control. However, the others there, which say discretionary, are within our control. That's what discretionary means. Sorry, thank you, Councillor Williams, and through you, Chair. I know what the meaning of the word discretionary is, but what I was asking is to what degree are... And I understood the point about... You made about the shading and some statutory. But are we saying that, for example, on page 20, all of the things listed as Q4 through to Q15, we would determine what we charged for them? Is that what it means? Yeah, and in those circumstances, we've decided that the fee would not change. Thank you, Councillor Williams. Susie has been suggested you might be able to add to this. Microphone, sorry. Apologis. Yes, it's the simple meaning discretionary just means at our discretion in this particular report. That's the meaning of that. Councillor Bratton. Thank you. So my point... So what I'm trying to drive at is would we seek to exert either nothing or no more than 5% on those? Because that's quite a lot of categories. And I just wondered how would that determination of what... If there was going to be an increase, or are we simply saying it's within our gift to decide whether we increase these or not, and we've decided not to. Is that what we're saying? Yes, precisely. Sorry. Sorry, Councillor John Williams. I went to answer the question in my chair. For me, Councillor Williams. Sorry, Councillor John Williams, I apologise. I talked over you because I went to answer it as chair. I don't know if there's anything you wanted to say in response to be asked about at that point. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. You've answered it. That's precisely what discretionary means. It's down to us to make that decision, and in this case, we decided not to increase those charges. Great. Thank you very much. Councillor Bratton, I'm ready to move on. That's fine. Thank you very much. Councillor Stobart. Thank you, Chair. So my question concerns paragraph 25 on page 12, Risks, Opportunities. So a simple question, probably easy answer. If there's a risk, obviously, if a fee goes up of the income coming down because whoever uses that service is doing it less, but what about the risk of a change of behaviour? So if somebody begins to evade, and so my question concerns the kind of the evaluation of risk and whether it's not simply does the income fall down, come down, but is that possibly as a result of change of behaviour, which might be a more serious situation, and how might the process of evaluation pick that up? I'm just going to see if I could just hear something else out here before they answer the question if that's okay. Do you have a specific example of a cost in mind as you were reading through related to this, which might make it easier for them to answer the question? If there was a specific... So maybe you're asking if there is something specific as well? I haven't got anything specific in mind. I just looked at that paragraph and thought, well, actually there is another side of the risk, which is the change of behaviour. Might it be, for example, in disposal of business waste if the fees were too high suddenly, or a planning, in planning if the fees were too high, I've been receiving under this, do we now defer a project until next year until we've got enough money to pay for the planning application? Thank you, and Councillor John Williams? That's a very good question. The various departments of the council in looking at these charges have taken that into consideration. You take the planning one, for example. Most of planning fees are paid for by people who are undertaking a project. The planning fee as part of that overall cost is pretty small compared to the cost of the project. And we also have to ensure that we cover our costs. We're not here to subsidise those fees. I mean, the government set, you'll see for most of those planning fees, we have to apply a scale of fee that's set for us by the government. So we don't have an awful lot of say, for example, in someone applying to have their house extended. But where we do have some discretion is where you have a big project where we can charge the developer of that project fees for using the time our staff and obviously we have to ensure that we recoup fully the cost of that time, of the time of our staff on their development. So we must make sure that we do recoup that money. And I don't think, in those sort of schemes, an increase that we're proposing is going to stop that development from happening. Cancelor Stobart, is that okay? Cancelor John Williams, is there any officer addition you want to have to that? Or are we okay with that answer? No, okay, excellent, thank you very much. And we have Councillor Leaming. Thank you, Chair. Mine's a kind of overview point, particularly in regards to the discretion we're fees and charges. Have we benchmarked these against other councils providing similar services? And are we within an average range or are we an outlier? Councillor John Williams? Well, again, that's been done by the various departments. I think there are some mentions in some of the tables where that has actually been done. I think in waste it's been done where they've benchmarked themselves against other councils. And it's indicated that we've set out rates at a reasonable level compared to what other councils make. As I say, a lot of the fees and charges you'll see are very much set for us by government. So all councils charge that same rate, particularly for example for planning matters. So the opportunity for discretionary charging is actually quite small given the total number of fees and charges that we collect. But certainly we do look at what other councils charge. But you have to remember that councils can vary greatly in not just geographical circumstances, but in the socio-economic mix of their districts. And so again, it's very much difficult to be able to judge yourself against another district that is precisely like your district. It's very difficult to do that. If you look at the districts in Cambridge, for example, we're all pretty much different. You know, you can't compare us with Finland or East Cams in a lot of things. You can't compare us with the city because it's an urban area. We're very rural. Huntingtonshire maybe, Huntingtonshire is a bit like us. But again, you know, they have some, they have things like car parks. And yeah, so it's very difficult to make comparisons between districts because by and large districts are pretty much different from each other in lots of ways. But we certainly make sure that we know we're not way out of the sort of general pricing and of the fees and charges that other district councils are doing. Councillor Lee Min. Thank you, chair. Thank you, councillor Lee. Thank you very much. I don't have any other councillors who are on councillor councillor. Do you have any questions you wish to ask? Okay, so we will come to me. My first one was going to be about something in paragraph 15, which referred to specific circumstances. But I think that that's been answered really by a number of questions that have been posed. My second one is within a number of the tables, it refers to awaiting the government's decision on setting it. Do we have any sense of what the government's plans are in that regard? Are they likely to increase it by 5% or 10% or is that genuinely at the moment just a wait and see, Councillor John Williams? No, the difficulty is that the government's quite late in making these decisions. Whereas we have to generally make these decisions now so that we can start on building up next year's budget and consider the review of the MTFS. Government tends to be very late in the day in making these decisions. But by and large, they're not, in the past, and I think it will be true in the future. They don't make vast difference. The increase is that the government looks at is not so perverse to matter to us, really. My next one is on page 17 on the side, to use the phrase used earlier, which is the community alarm service charges. At the moment, the proposed charges remain the same and it says they're still being reviewed. Is that a deliberate decision not to increase those charges? Would we see that as particular positive action or is it literally that we are waiting for a review to come back? I think I'll ask Mr Campbell this because this is all linked with the HRA and there are some issues with the HRA this year regarding council house rents and what's going to happen to them. Yeah, just before we start, there's a little bit I'd like to add to John Williams' previous reply, because some of the things that we're waiting for are, we're waiting for the government to announce and about rent cap. So, as members will know, yesterday, the rate of inflation for September was announced at 10.1%. The current formula rent, agreed by government in previous years, is that the HRA rent would increase by CPI plus 1%, so that would mean that we would need to increase rents by 11.1%, which is excessive. The government are currently consulting on a range of options to cap next year's rent increase at either 3%, 5% or 7%, and the indication is that their preference is for 5%. Until that consultation is complete, we won't be able to determine what the increase is for the council house rents and some of the associated charges, such as the on page 17 there, you can see the link to the travel site charges. So, coming on to community alarm service, we are currently reviewing the charges that we make in light of the above consultation, because we normally use a similar increase. But we're also very aware, with the community alarms, is that we are not the only player in the market, there are a number of local competitors and we want to set our charges, which will still make our offer attractive for customers. So, it's a bit more nuanced than some of the other increases that we may consider. It's interesting because that then actually comes back to the original question. I then didn't ask about specific circumstances and I think also tied to what council lovely asked about the impact on people using the service. So, thank you for that. And then my last one just goes to tablecom29, which we've already talked about, which is on page 20 on that left-hand side, which is about these Q things, such as road proposals, advertisements. I note that none of these charges have been increased and I also note, and I'm making an assumption here and obviously please come in if I'm wrong, these are charges that are mainly made to businesses and I was just wondering why it was that a set of charges for businesses, the decision had been made under the discretionary powers not to increase them, when maybe some of the charges being made to residents had been increased. Now, I'm not saying that all residents' charges have been increased or all business charges hadn't, but it just kind of stood out for me in the table. So, I was just wondering if you could explain why those charges specifically hadn't been increased. Councillor John Williams. Okay, with regard to these charges and I have to rely on the officers recommending that these charges shouldn't be increased and I have no reason to think that they should be increased, so, you know, I don't know if Susie can throw any light on this, but... Page 20, it's the table con 29, and it's things such as road proposals and advertisements. Thank you. Yes, I happen to know that these particular charges have been discussed at length by the officers and they benchmark to other councils and I think we are some of the thing at the top five in terms of those charges and with reference to previous point about behaviour change, there is a potential option of a free freedom of information request which we would be obliged to provide which covers some of the similar information and they don't want to make people go down that route. So, these were the considerations that were taken to keep the charges level, so they don't exceed other councils, so that was the benchmarking. Yes, okay, great, which I think, which then ties in with the points that other people made when you said about benchmarking and possible behaviour impacts and such like. Everything that's been discussed here has actually been applied to this particular set of charges which is perfect illustration. Then you could say that is a neat one for us to end upon rather serendipitously. Excellent, okay, so thank you very much, thank you Councillor John Williams and thank you to officers who have answered questions in relation to that point which is obviously the bulk of our agenda and moving on to our last bits, we have point seven which is the work programme and as you can see we continue to add things to the work programme. Councillor Cohn and myself met with officers and with leader of the council, no that's not correct. I apologise, I shouldn't doubt myself so much, I was checking with Councillor Cohn, I was having a sudden moment of not remembering who'd been at a meeting. So yes, we did have a meeting which involved leader of the council, deputy of the council and senior officers regarding what was happening on the schedule and we have therefore developed the work programme further and you can see within that that we are adding items to continue to do so. Are there any questions that members wish to ask in relation to the work programme? Councillor Bradman. Thank you chair. I am noting that we've had one item to look at this month and I'm just a little bit surprised we haven't had more to look at and I just wondered whether anybody had any observations about what things would normally come to the committee for scrutiny prior to it going to Cabinet? Yes, part of the general answer to that is is obviously we have a scheduled meeting scheduled over across the year and although generally those meetings fit nicely into the calendar of activities that council are engaging in, occasionally we are coming up against meetings where actually due to the point at which the paper is being published and going to Cabinet, it simply means that we hit a meeting such as today where actually there was a whole load previous and there was a whole load afterwards but this spot happened not to fit. Now obviously there is a published schedule of meetings across the whole year and I think it would be unhelpful of us to keep moving our scrutiny and overview meetings into that bit but for me this is also where the work programme that we are also engaging in where members are putting forward topics for us to discuss will become more and more useful for us going forward. So for instance the motion that Councillor Heather Williams put to the council in earlier in the summer regarding youth engagement is something we are then having task and finish group on and that will then be something that will come to our meetings. We've also agreed a number of other items in a previous meeting so therefore we should going forward have fewer meetings that have a very thin agenda on them as we build up our own work programme and also what we're also aware of is that we are having to add an additional meeting in January so we almost have the opposite problem which is that rather than this being a very thin agenda we're adding an additional meeting in January because actually there is so much to do that we have to have a second meeting. It would be ideal if there was an absolute perfect marrying up of the 12 months plan for the scrutiny and overview with the work of the council but as I know officers and cabinet members also point out sometimes things move around things change and it's important that we're able to cover everything as constructively as possible and I hope that we do say is that an acceptable full answer Councillor Bradley. Thank you very much. Okay and therefore if nobody else has any other points on that we note the date for the next meeting to be Tuesday the 15th of November at five p.m. Can I? Yes of course Councillor Laffler. Raise just one point it's a point I raised with Councillor Cohn yesterday so he might have discussed it with you and it really relates to the minutes of the last meeting where we listed some external organisations we might like to meet with and I know none of these are scheduled in yet so we just need I'm sure you and Councillor Cohn, Mr Chair, are thinking through how to build them in without expecting them to come along very short notice because they will all want substantial notice. On behalf of myself and Councillor Cohn we would like to thank you for reminding us that we may not have progressed that as fully as we should have since the last meeting. Would that be fair Councillor Cohn? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you very much Councillor Laffler for reminding us of that. Councillor Ellington. I just wondered whether there was a reason why we were having a meeting on Tuesday and this meeting is usually held on a Thursday. Yes. Very good question. Messes up my schedule. I have other things I do. Can I look to my officer colleagues on the left and ask if there's anything you can say in answer to this question because I don't really know what to say in answer. Well I thought only the answer but I've been asked the actual answer so it's because we had to fit it into the calendar and we have not only our calendar but all of the parish calendars and the county calendar and so on and so forth so occasionally we swap between days and I think that will continue. I know we also have an issue coming up where performance data coming to you will mean that we might need to move some of the meetings to Tuesday as well which I've just kind of looked at today and been asked if I could sign off so things will change around a little bit or see you know we'll give you as much notice as we can and it's normally a year's notice. So would it be fair to say that we should generally as a committee see these meetings as being possibly Tuesday possibly Thursday in our minds? Okay that's the best answer I can give you Councillor Ellington and I accept that it may not be the easiest answer. Okay I will do my usual thing at this point and I will turn to Ian Sr and say Ian is there anything else that we have not covered that you feel we should be mentioning during this meeting? No excellent can I just share with everyone that that is my dream at the end of the meeting I turn to Ian and he tells me I haven't missed anything out and on that note thank you very much everyone both my laptop and the clock on the wall tell me it is 6 11 remembering how in a previous meeting