 Rhaid o gyfle i'r ffordd. Gwyn nhw'n amgylcheddau ar gyfer peiriau, fel ar y cyflai, yn unig i gael i chi peiriau yn herosion, lle o'r gwleidio a gweithio ar y cwestiwn. Yn gwaith â'r cyflaenau ar yr Ymddangos Cymru, dyma yw'n meddwl'i mlwyddoesgwyr Ysbryd Dynes Cwmwr. A mae gennym eich gwaith arhaf, fel mwyn amddangos chi i fynd. Byddai'n ei gwaith, a方 ydym ni'n gweithio. Ynna'n uwch, gilydd i'r gwedwheel. I would like to start the meeting by inviting the leader of the opposition group, Councillor Heather Williams, to say a few words. Thank you, leader. Her Majesty, the Queen, has been a huge part of all of our lives. For most of us she is the only monarch we have ever known. There are no words to describe this unique sense of sorrow that we are left with. The Queen was our monarch, our head of state, defender of the faith, head of the commonwealth and colonel-in-chief of our armed forces, but also a daughter, a sister, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother and great-grandmother, something which all of us will find some common traits with. So many roles that Her Majesty managed seamlessly and with grace. Her Majesty the Queen was the finest public servant we have ever known, an exemplary role model for those of us who seek to serve our communities. The Elizabethan age that we have had an honour to live in has seen such change, advancement and progress, but the reassurance that our Queen provided remained constant throughout. Her Majesty has shown leadership in so many crucial periods of concern and worry for her peoples. From World War II reassuring evacuees at 14 and learning to be a mechanic through to the recent pandemic. For the last year Her Majesty the Queen has continued to serve us without the support of His Royal Highness the Prince Philip by her side, who the Queen affectionally referred to as her strength and stay. It has been Her Majesty that has been our strength and stay for all these years. Our thoughts and prayers are with the whole royal family, especially His Majesty King Charles III, as he now must follow in the footsteps of his mother and what example she has set and may her legacy live on for many years and generations to come. My words are a joint statement of myself and former Conservative group leaders Peter Topping, Ray Manning and David Bard, and from Conservative councillors both past and present we say in full voice, may God bless our Queen, God save the King. Thank you very much. The end of the second Elizabethan age was always going to be really sad and really hard to bear. Coming so soon after three years of a pandemic and so many sad losses of life it is even sadder and even more hard to bear. The Queen's dedication to over 70 years of public service can hardly be imagined by those of us in this room. Last week a light went out in the world and our world shifted into a new and as yet unknown age. Our very deepest sympathies rest with the much loved family of Queen Elizabeth II and our very best wishes for the future we pass on to King Charles III and his family. So, on back to business. So just a few housekeeping rules. Only those members present in the chamber will be able to move and second motions and vote today. Members present virtually can of course speak in the debate. If members attending virtually wish to speak can they please use the chat in the teams meeting. And those present in the chamber just raise your hands. So can I begin by confirming that the meeting is quarat? Yes it is. It will. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Right so can we start with item two which is apologies for absence please. Apologies from councillor Peter McDonald and John Williams. Thank you very much. And item three are there any declarations of interest pertaining to items on today's agenda? Nope we have no declarations of interest. And the minutes of the previous meeting. Members are asked to approve the minutes of the meeting held on Monday 11 July 2022. I move the approval of those minutes as a correct record. Is that second? I think that's seconded by? Yes it's seconded by myself. Right right are there any comments on the minutes? So do members agree to approve the minutes? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees the approval of the minutes as a correct record by affirmation. Public questions. We had received a question on behalf of Mr Daniel Fulton of Fugh's Lanes Consortium. Mr Fulton has indicated he wishes to withdraw the question. So moving on to item six issues arising from the scrutiny and overview committee. Councillor Anna Breddon from the committee is here and would like to report back from the recent meeting. Thank you very much, leader. We've had an excellent report from Mr Senior and which covers the business of the meeting. It's worth pointing out it was a slightly unusual meeting because we did not have any material to scrutinise. But we took the opportunity to consider some aspects of the council's work that we might wish to have reports on. And that is the content of the report that Mr Senior has put in front of us. But if anybody wishes to ask any questions I can give more detail if they wish it. Thank you Councillor Bradnam. Does any member of cabinet wish to ask any questions? Anyone else? No, thank you very much. Members are asked to note the report. Thank you Councillor Bradnam. So item seven is the quarter one performance report. And Councillor Judith Riffer is going to introduce the report and move the recommendation and I am going to second it. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to start by saying how much we all I think value the work of officers with putting this together and the continued work of the council and with some very positive KPIs this last quarter that we're looking at here. Something I'd like to point out which I think often gets missed is the planning KPIs are looking particularly good especially on those major applications where quite unusually for local planning authority there are a number of new towns being developed and massive things going on. And I'd just like to commend the work of that shared planning service and to me that is excellent and excellent progress especially with the backlog having been cleared on the household applications. And another area I'd like to highlight is the ICT and the streaming of the meetings and that targets have been met. There hasn't been a longer than five minute interruption and over the past year or so I'd say that's been really quite seamless and also opens up democracy to more people to be able to watch and listen. Not having to actually be in the building. Aside from that I think it's quite evident in the reports in front of you and I'd like to recommend this report to Cabinet. Thank you very much indeed Councillor Rippert. Are there any questions from Cabinet? Any questions from any other members present? So I'd just to sum up, I think we did extraordinarily well maintaining our performance levels during the pandemic and I think the evidence now that we're hopefully coming out of the pandemic is that we're seeing those maintained levels improve. So a tremendous amount of work by all our officers throughout the organisation and there's a lot of information and narrative in this report that is very, very well worth reading. I think it's Kevin isn't it who puts this all together. So many, many thanks these reports just get better and better and more and more more useful actually as a day to day reference document actually they're not something that then just goes off to gather dust on the shelf. So thank you very much. So the recommendation is set out at paragraph three of the report. I won't read it all. I'm sure members have read it. Do members agree with the proposal? Anyone wish to vote against? And anyone wish to abstain? So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. Thank you very much. Thank you. So we are moving swiftly on. To jump ahead and jump ahead on myself here. That's because I've lost a page. That's right. Okay. So item nine item eight. Anglia, water drainage and wastewater management plan. We've got a slight amendment which can be put on to the screen to just make life a bit simpler. Council and to me Hawkins is going to present this and I'm happy to second it. So over to you Council Hawkins. Thank you leader. Good morning everyone. The paper in Appendix A is our draft response to the Anglia Water, Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan consultation that started on the 30th of June and is closing on the 16th of September. Anglia Water, as we know, is the statutory undertaker for provision and management of wastewater drainage systems. And like us that we have to create a strategic local plan. Anglia Water also has to do the same for their services. The drainage and wastewater management plan is the 25 year strategic plan that Anglia Water is setting out. How it intends to extend, improve, maintain and manage the wastewater systems in its area of operation. And of course it covers the whole of the eastern part of England of which we are a part. I just want to draw attention also to paragraph 8 on page 52 of our agenda where we say the plan also forecasts growth to assist planning to meet the needs of future customers. And while it focuses on committed growth it also acknowledges that planning for other development is taking place. And whilst many of these schemes at an early stage are therefore not included yet in adopt local plans it's important to consider the impact on the local strategy should they come forward. So they know. And of course the local plans not just in our areas but of other areas. We also emphasize the need for them to continue to engage with us obviously. Now just to say the consultation itself is sort of 12 high level questions. No details. It's asking what we prefer this or that or the other. But as you will see from the response we emphasize that it is imperative that future drainage investment addresses the potentially serious water qualities that we face here in Greater Cambridge area. That's the current levels of pollution who's a threat not only to public health but to wildlife and the many of our rivers. We also state in the answer in question 2 in the appendix the urgency of resolving this matter for our area. And it means that they might have to justify different set of priorities and other areas that only water actually operates in. I found this strange in question 8. It says how much do you support a partnership working. Hello. Of course we do. And we said that very clearly. Especially given the challenging water resource situation we have here. And we emphasize the need to explore opportunities for water reuse and engage with Cambridge water. Who are the statutory wonder or the takers for Greater Cambridge area. Of course we emphasize the need to engage with other bodies such as our internet village boards and especially address the concerns we know we have at Otton's Grove. We have had a request to strengthen part of our response. Which is part of question one. And I will just read that out just so we know what it is. Where it says however reduction reducing pollution minimizing pollution incidents from storm overflows. And as a result improving the water quality should also be a key priority for the drainage wastewater management plan and be implemented as soon as possible. And the addition or the suggested addition is improvements should be made to the monitoring undertaken and reported for Anglian waters environmental performance assessment in order to provide. And then onto what we have before clear information in a timely manner on such events. And another change and the environmental impacts. And then back to what we had so the effectiveness of the management program in the future can be monitored as you can see on the screen. This is a joint response with Cambridge City Council so the shared planning service. And as such I hope that you will agree that the suggested responses in the appendix. Are good for us to send over and therefore. Recommend. Ask for your support for the recommendations in paragraph three of our report. Thank you. Thank you. Do any members of cabinet want to comment? Thank you. Welcome this response. I think it should be seen that this is a wider context of utility companies struggling to provide the requirements and particularly in our high growth situation where we're building new towns. We've seen the water sewage companies struggle. In fact we have a local member who will remember well when a development was not able to be occupied because the sewage system wasn't didn't have any capacity left. And we're in a situation where the water companies of when they were privatised or since they were privatised we've seen large distribution of profits and much less money going into investment in infrastructure. So we absolutely need that investment to be made. We have a situation for example where stormwater is allowed to pass from the gully systems in the roads and go into the water system which then can't cope and it's not just a capacity issue. A lot of the drains are blocked with fat, with nappies, with all sorts of detritus that stops and we've had situations in our locality where people have had sewage water rising up into their gardens and back flow in their toilets. It's not acceptable. So this report has to be seen I think in that context and I welcome our response to it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other cabinet members? I invite Councillor Sue Ellington to speak. Thank you. As many of you know I go off on one fairly regularly about water in one way or another and especially drainage but can I and therefore I welcome this response which airs on the side of caution rather than saying all this well. Can I just make one correction? On page 52 under number nine it talks about over the up and drove site. Up and drove is not in over. Up and drove is the sewage works which is just off the A14. The facility in over is called Weds Hole Sluice and that I'm sure those members who have been around a little while will be fed up with hearing about Weds Hole Sluice before we're done. Thank you. We're lucky to have you Councillor Ellington with your level of detailed knowledge so that correction I took as good at Jonathan that correction can be made. Councillor Ellington is obviously quite correct. However the report itself rather confusing does use the over catchment in terms of its references to it so whilst you are entirely correct that is a reference correctly made to the report. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed and Councillor Bradman. Thank you leader. I to welcome this report but note as well with appreciation that it is written in cautious terms in the sense that it anticipates that we need to do maybe more. I know it's not the right moment to ask but I will anyway. My concern is that our water treatment works are required by active parliament to accept sewage flows. They cannot refuse and they are entitled under current law and legislation to release waters to water bodies when they have to if they cannot cope with the volume. I know this is a response to the Anglin Water Waste Water Treatment Plan but I just wondered if we could have put in here a request for action at a higher level because the water treatment companies are working within the legislation that exists. So what we need to do is to seek amendment to that legislation if we can but I appreciate this is possibly not possible within the terms of this response but I feel it would be stronger if we could make reference to that. Okay. I'm going to ask Liz Watts to comment in the first instance. Thank you chair and Councillor Bradman you're absolutely right on both counts it will be a strong message to send about changing the legislation but I think this is the one place to do it and so I think that would be for another place. Jonathan do you want to add anything to that? No okay fine. Any other questions? Okay so I know the comments about caution this got you know very very robust you know informed cabinet looked at this in a very very robust and very very challenging way and you know this is a high level very high level document. I think there's going to be further consultations to come where you know that we can really start to hit hard on the detail but I think we've gone as far as we can with this consultation and I welcome the changes that Councillor Hawkins has suggested today. So I'm sorry you've reminded me three times Councillor Harvey my apologies. Yes thank you Councillor Smith. I wanted to just give some of the background on behalf of Councillor Pippa Haleyings as her vice chair on the Climate and Environment Advisory Committee. But the two amendments that she asked the leader for planning Councillor Tumey Hawkins if she would consider adding which she's spoken about previously in this item. If I could just give some of the background to that so as Councillor Haleyings would have pointed out had she been here. But in July of this year the Environment Agency gave only two stars to Anglia Water for its environmental performance. And a month earlier in June 2022 of what decided to continue its enforcement case against Anglia Water which began in March 2022 investigating how they managed their wastewater works. Despite or as a result of further information provided by the company and one of the key concerns is the lack of adequate and appropriate environmental and water quality monitoring being undertaken by Anglia Water. In order for the reality of the situation regarding water quality and its impacts on human health, recreation and wildlife to be fully understood. And that was the basis on which Councillor Haleyings asked for the two amendments to questions one and two. That's really helpful. Thank you very much indeed. Okay, if there's no further, oh so Councillor Hawkins if you want to sum up. Thank you leader. The second thing I actually missed out on question two was adding the phrase intermediate targets for removing discharge of untreated sewage. Which from consultation with Jonathan seems to be okay but there might be a challenge for Anglia Water because they have been messed. However it's a request so we can make the request but it's up to them as to whether or not we can do it. So as I said thank you to all who have helped Jonathan and team to actually put this together. As you say we've had a lot of discussion about it and this is as far as really we can go given that they have provided the service to us. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Hawkins. So I hope our responses reflect the concerns that our residents have expressed. Or be it the level of detail isn't there. So moving on the recommendation is set out at paragraph three. That's to agree the response and agree to grant delegated authority to make any minor amendments but also to include the amendments that Councillor Hawkins has articulated today. Which have been displayed. So do you members agree with the proposal? Anybody wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation. Thank you very much indeed. And thank you to Councillor Harvey and Councillor Ellington for the detail which they've helped our conversation with. So moving on to item nine now which is the revenue and capital budget monitoring. This would normally have been presented by Councillor John Williams but he's on leave at the moment so I'm afraid you've got me and it's being seconded by Councillor Judith Ripper. So this is the first quarter and obviously not surprisingly as a first quarter monitoring report there's a number of uncertainties. We're currently reporting an underspend of 1.275 million but some of this includes income that actually wasn't anticipated. So I'm pleased to note that at the end of June we had dispersed 88% of the energy support package that's in this grant is actually now 91%. And obviously we will continue to monitor all budgets carefully as we proceed into a period of financial uncertainty and the briefings I've had at LGA from the fiscal bodies is that there's never been more uncertainty. In the finances in public life at the moment it's really unhelpful but hopefully as government stabilizers so we will learn whether we're going to get that two year settlement and we'll have greater clarity over the income that we're going to derive from new homes bonus and from business rates and so on. So the LGA and the district council network in particular are being very, very strong in that ask of government and of new ministers that we have some certainty over our incomes in order that we can plan our business well ahead. So are there any questions from cabinet members? Any questions from anyone else? Councillor Williams. Thank you leader. Just a few questions. First of all on page 68 there is a significant variance shown on the housing general fund. I just wondered if we could have a bit more commentary than hear them as to what that is given its significance figure of 234%. I was confused when we go over 100% of things to me. That's a mathematical thing I know but to me 100 is 100 surely before. The other on page 78 where we have 100% in the red we then have the new homes program on 80% variance. And my concern here is this is in green I can understand because they're sort of underspends but there is a danger as well to an underspend as much as overspends. So I am wondering as you have like four or five colours in the other systems whether actually underspends that aren't savings but they're due to perhaps something not having happened that should have is more easily identifiable. And on page 79 in relation to the rent received being because of the void property just wondering if the report was written if we've had any interest. Appreciate you can't say who but if we've had any interest leader. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I mean I think we have to bear in mind this is quarter one and so you know you do expect to see see variances them. I'm going to ask Peter Maddox to add the detail on to your questions please. Thank you. Thank you chair. So the first question related to the housing general fund and I need to double check that I suspect that said also be the receipt of the money for disabled facilities grants perhaps earlier than we expected. I think we have the same thing last year. So we may need to look at the profile and profile into quarter two in future. Second question was at the four three three on page 78. Yes now this relates to a vehicle. I think it's one of the electric vehicles that we would do to receive. We said we would do to get that in March and it didn't arrive until April. So we will need to carry some money forward from last year's budget into this year's budget to fund that. And then new homes program was again I think there's been significant slippage and I think there's some money to be carried forward as well in relation to that from last year. So I don't know whether there's any specific projects that relates to the more stressing whether there's any more detail in the actual tables in relation to that. Leader I'm happy to take a response afterwards if that's useful. We can look at yeah I mean it refers to oh that's right it refers to a delay in relation to the box within swavesy project. If my memory serves me right that to me and it was expected in quarter one we're expecting it. Old investment property. So we're still we're still trying to get tenants in relation to this. I think we've had some difficulty in getting tenants in relation to 270. So this is the property that is referring to we had us. We had thought we would have somebody in by now again I can find out a bit more detail on where we are with that if you like. Do you want to come back with anything else? Council Williams. No thank you leader. I will take the offer of some more info in writing. Thank you. That's fine. I know Mr Maddox will always be happy to talk about any detail with you outside of an outside of a meeting which might be more useful actually. Are there any other questions? No. In which case we will go to the recommendations and the vote on this so the recommendations set out paragraph. I think I said you were seconding but would you like to say you're seconding? Yes I agree to second. Do you want to say anything? I think it's been quite well covered. Thank you very much. So recommendations set out at paragraph three of the report. Do you members agree with proposal? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation. Item number 10 is the 21-22 provisional housing revenue account out turn. Councillor John Batchelor is going to introduce the report and move the recommendation and I am happy to second it. Thank you very much leader. So just to emphasise this is the actual out term for financial year 21-22. In revenue terms it's pretty well on budget. There was just a small differential of 29. The area where they raised some significant difference is on the capital programme. So you recall this is 21-22. Covid was still very much with us and quite a number of the new build projects were running over because of the difficulties developers were having with staffing and in procuring materials. So there was a slippage of nearly two million pounds on that one. It doesn't mean anything is lost. These are being rolled over to this year and all these projects are moving forward. The detail of that you can find on page 97 which shows the various projects. As you will see many of them were still to be finished at the end of the financial year. Other than that I am happy to recommend the proposals at item 4 on page 91. Thank you very much. We are still in challenging times but I think we are doing extremely well. Are there any questions from any members of cabinet? Any questions from anybody else? I said I was seconding it. Any other questions on this? No, in which case we will go straight to the recommendations which are set out in paragraphs 4 of the report. It's very long so I won't read it all. Do members agree with the proposal? Anyone voting against? Anyone wishing to abstain? Cabinet agrees with the proposals by affirmation. Finally we come to item 12 which is the four-day working week. That says 12 on my thing here. It's wrong on my crib-shoot here. Item 11, the four-day working week. Obviously this has taken up quite a lot of our time in the last couple of weeks and has attracted considerable attention on this council. So why are we doing this? So as we all know there is a national crisis in local government in recruitment and retention of staff. It is country-wide. It's not just sector-specific though we know that planning, building control and so on, HGV drivers are very, very difficult to attract to local government. In South Cambridgeshire I think things are even more difficult for us because it's jolly expensive to live here. So I think as a council over the last few years we have done just about everything we can to make ourselves an attractive and really good employer. We've introduced all sorts of different things so that our staff know that we really care about them, that we are very, very concerned that their health and their wellbeing and their mental health in particular is cared for. We have flexial working which I know a lot of people find very, very attractive indeed. But the fact of the matter is it's not enough to solve the problems that we have. So this year we have filled eight out of ten of our vacancies and the first three months of this year it was only 50% of our vacancies. And in recent weeks we've advertised some jobs which would have been some years ago considered really attractive than you would have expected, lots and lots of applicants and there haven't been any. So it's very competitive out there. We are competing not just with other local authorities but we're competing with the private sector and it's not a level playing field. They can offer so much more money, they can offer cars, they can offer all sorts of perks which we simply can't do. We've been looking at our income, we know that government is not just going to give us more and more money so that we can pay higher and higher wages. It's just not going to happen. So we have to look at innovative ways of doing this. So we are extremely lucky that we have a senior leadership team led by Liz Watson in this council who look at innovation. We've introduced lots of innovation over the last few years. We're not afraid to be the first. We're not afraid to try new things. We're not afraid to fail because the only way you avoid making mistakes or failing is not to do anything. Doing anything is not an option here. Something has to be done. So there's been considerable research has gone on over I think probably a longer period of time than I'm aware of. Looking at the work that's gone on in the private sector nationally but also globally. I was very excited to get a call which said New Zealand on my phone from the global lead of the four day week campaign. I've been attracted significant attention. So you know we know that if this is done properly if there's considerable time and effort spent on the preparation if things if it is co produced with the staff it's not a top down. You know you will do it this way approach. We know that it works in the private sector and there have been some extraordinary accounts of significant improvements in productivity. You know up the tune of sort of 40 45% but also significant improvements in staff's health and well being. And we also know that just working longer and longer hours does not increase productivity longer and longer hours makes people stressed and less productive. And we know that in the 21st century we have to be mindful of staff's health and well being because then they will do that they will do their best for us. So this is a three month preparation period that's being proposed here which is going to be very intense to get this all ready to go. It will launch in January on the proviso that the preparation has gone well and it's ready to go. If it's not ready to go then that period will be will be extended. And then a three month period during that period we will be monitoring all sorts of things. There has been a health and well being assessment done on all our staff prior to them knowing that this was on the table so that we have very good baseline data and we will be very carefully looking at the impact on staff's health and well being. We've also looked today at all our KPIs and we will be looking even closer and more regularly at the KPIs and what our performance is. If there is an indication that performance is dropping off then there will be an immediate review over what we were doing because at the very least this has to maintain performance levels. At best it will improve performance levels. So this has been rolled out to the office based staff if Cabinet agree today in the first instance a three month trial. Obviously we have no desire to create a two tier system within our staff so if this goes well within the office based staff the next stage is to trial it at the depot. I've now had contact with a number of councils who collect the bins four days a week or they do it on compressed hours but it does already exist. Newcastle do it and they say they don't collect the bins on a Monday and the attraction of that is you don't have all the disruption caused by bank holidays and they have an agreement that they're collected on a Saturday when there's a Friday statutory holiday. So that works for them. So there's already examples where we're beginning to see this working within those front line staff as well. So that would be the next stage and I'm told that it's possibly not so difficult as one might at first expect but fortunately we have outstanding senior leadership who are all problem solvers. I have every confidence that they will solve those problems. So as far as going back to the original motivation for this which is improving staff attracting the talent we need and also encouraging that talent to stay and we are already a council of massive talent but we need to hang on to all of you in this room and anyone else listening. You know we don't really expect to see the impact of that in the first three months because you know it is just it just will be a trial. We think those benefits will be seen further further down the line. So if at the end of three months this is looking it's looking good then the trial will be extended for a year or whatever. Obviously those decisions will have to be made and then you know we start we hope to start seeing that actually we are an employer of choice. We are somewhere where people think well actually you know South Cambridgeshire is different to other other councils. OK they can't offer me the same sort of money that the private sector offer me but actually what they're offering me is a work life balance. They're offering me better health and well being than any other public sector organisation and there's been considerable interest in this from other councils of all political colours and in fact we're going to have to manage how many people want to come and visit. How many council leaders and their chief execs want to come and visit us because actually we've got a big piece of work to do and we don't need to be distracted from that. But there will be considerable interest from the whole sector. So it is a trial. I am personally really quite excited by this. The response from staff has been really interesting and in some cases quite emotional as well. You know this is this is really really important. This is going to be the game changer of people's lives. If you if you have caring responsibilities as I do for my mum or you know for children suddenly there's an extra day a week where you can pick the children up from school or you can have you can have lunch lunch with your mum and that potentially makes us attractive as an employer to a different element of the of the workforce. You know people for whom a five day week nine to five doesn't work. So you know suddenly there might be more people who we can tap into. So I've taught far longer than I normally do but I haven't going to invite Liz to talk to fill in any errors that I have made. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just wanted to mention that the chief executive of Cambridge City Council has asked that cabinet provide reassurances to Cambridge City Council and Cambridge residents about the potential impact of the trial on planning services as well as the implications for partnership working between both councils during the pilot phase. Get back on script Bridget. OK, so. I'm eating this. Yes. So what what's been prepared is given the sensitive nature of this decision and implications for South Cambridge District Council staff, including the August baseline data we will use to measure performance during the pilot. We were not able to involve the city council as much as we would have liked to have done. However, we fully expect city officers to be involved in the planning phase and we will provide formal updates to the city council strategy and resources committees so that plans can be scrutinised suggestions and recommendations provided, etc. If the pilot is successful, we expect city council members to play an active role in any decision to expand the pilot to other services. For example, the greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service or to make it a permanent policy. I want to offer my full reassurance that this is a learning opportunity and we'd like city colleagues to be supportive and an active partner in our four day week pilot. Based on the evidence of similar pilots around the world, we do expect, as I've already said, significant benefits for staff as well as residents, including in Cambridge. The quality of services to residents will be a key measure of the trial and I look forward to working with colleagues from the city on reviewing all of the data once it's available. I probably should have said that before I went off on a very long ramble, my apologies for that. OK, now I'm sure there's questions. We'll start with Cabinet first of all. Yes please. I will be happy to second this item but would like to speak at the end of the item. Right, any questions for council mitts? Thank you. I think there's been clearly a lot of public debate about this proposal. And we know there's some misinformation, misconceptions about how this would work. And serious concern from the public that will only be here four days a week was one of those misconceptions. So I think it's really important that we lay out for the public the impact of this. I think there's a genuine question that says if you reduce the working time by one day, you lose 20% of the time that the people are working, how can that deliver increased productivity to compensate? And I think that's a genuine question that we would clearly hopefully see after the trial. And interesting that there seems to be a political divide at least locally in this regard. I see some questionable criticism from a local MP. We saw Anna Bailey for example making comments about this but interestingly running a poll that said do you approve of the idea? And she probably got an unexpected result of 75% of those answering said yes they did approve of the idea of running such a trial. So I'm just conscious that we need to handle this well, give reassurance to the public that services won't be impacted by this trial. OK, I'm going to comment on what you said but I'm going to ask Liz Watts to as well. So this is really an operational decision. This isn't really about politics, it's operational. And I think we have to remember that this council is all of our council, all of our officers, regardless of what party we are aligned to. So it's incumbent on all members of this council to want to make this work and to do our bit and there will be a role for members as well. So I kind of hope people will reserve judgement and see how things go and then I hope across party we will be able to work together to see what the future holds. On some of your points, so obviously the council won't only be open four days a week, I'll let Liz state on that. We've actually had some conversations about the contact centre in some shape or form being open longer hours and perhaps even having a late night opening which I think would land very well. And as you know this is about different ways of working. Now quite what those different ways of working look like I think we don't know yet. I think that's where the co-production with our staff comes in because I think what it looks like in a bank as has been trialled in Newcastle probably is different from what it looks like in an IT company or in local government. So I think we've got to work out ourselves what those different ways of working are. But Liz do you want to come in there? Well thank you chair. I mean just picking up on that last point all of the evidence shows that successful trials are successful because they do involve everyone who's impacted by the change. For those of you who have been involved in large scale change management programmes they generally work a lot better when the people who are having the change done to them actually decide how the change is done. So it's really important that we spend assuming that you approve the trials money that we spend the next three months working with colleagues, with the unions, with our partners at the city council and with you as members to plan really carefully how the trial will work. I fully accept your point Councillor Milne's about trying to be clear with the public about what we're doing and of course if you were a private company and undertaking a trial like this you wouldn't be doing it under the public spotlight but it's important that we're transparent, we're spending public money. And so we are doing it under the public spotlight and as you say therefore it's really important that we're clear about what it does mean and what it doesn't. And potentially we could put something for example in Southcown's magazine next issue to explain a four day week to explain how we're going to approach it, what it will mean for residents. I guess the bottom line for me is that in April next year residents either won't have noticed the trial because there'll have been no change to the services that they receive or they potentially could have noticed an improvement. Those would be the only two bases on which we would proceed to a longer term trial. And the three months is really I suppose a snapshot in time to say can we do it, can we make it work in the council before we go to a longer trial. Thank you very much. Councillor Handley. Thank you leader. I'm really supportive of this but I'd like to echo Councillor Milne's concerns that although I agree with you leader it's an operational matter. It's so counterintuitive that staff do much, do more with less but there's endless scope for political mischief. And we've already seen it coming from as Brian said, we've already seen it coming from the usual MP. So I do think I would like to be assured that we are going to have a very good, very strong policy on this to get our answers out before criticisms come in if we can. So I've almost lived with Gareth and Tom and Catherine actually in the last 10 days or so. Tom in particular has worked incredibly, incredibly hard to manage our communications and we had a lot of interest, bizarrely as some people did an interview with Radio Canada last Monday morning. So lots of interest but so I quite agree. It's really complicated and it is counterintuitive. I had an interesting conversation with some lovely residents in my village who firstly told me that they just loved the bin men and women. They just were their very, very favourite service in South Cambridge on how fabulous they were. They obviously go out and talk to them every day I think and stop them collecting the bins. But this didn't land well with them because they didn't understand it. So we've got to, as we learn more about it, we've got to be constantly explaining how it's involving to people because it is difficult. So it's a point well made. Councillor Hawkins. Thank you, leader. Just to express my support for this trial. I know there's been a lot of attack from the usual sources on planning and I appreciate the concern raised by the City Council Executive. While planning service comprised of some seriously professional, dedicated people. I mean I've seen the way they've worked over the last four and a bit years and frankly there's a loble misunderstanding about what they have to do and how they do it. We are meeting our statutory targets with a lot of hard work from them. And I know that we've also been trying to work more effectively which I think is what will be behind this trial working is that we can find ways throughout the service of being more efficient, more effective. And just ensuring that we are working to the same thing which is to provide us a good service to our residents. So yep, I am in favour of this and I think we will see something good come out of this. And of course if I can get some more planners that would be great because a lot of our planners don't live in South Cairns, they can't afford it. So if I can get some more that would be great. Planners are gold dust, I must say. I think Councillor Dreadman, your hand went up first. Thank you very much, Lydia. I wholeheartedly support this. I think it's an extension of the work that fortunately had been set in place by our chief executive before COVID set in flexible working and allowing people to work from wherever they were. And then COVID made that really useful piece of work to have done. And this extends that into an even more, it empowers our employees and our officers and I think it's an excellent step. And I'm glad that we're running a trial period and I will just say, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the local MP to have expressed a view on it. He's perfectly entitled to do that. But my request would be, and I appreciate, it's hard to monitor until certain stages have been reached and we talked in employment and staffing about how success would be monitored. But I would just like to ask, and I'm pleased at paragraph 20 in the report under the trial period, it's been mentioned that there's going to be a sort of, and if the initial results are positive, the plan would be to continue the four day week during April and May whilst we analyse the full results and report back to employment and staffing committee and cabinet in May 2023. But I was simply going to ask that if there are interim results that they could be brought to employment and staffing, I'm assuming you mean before that. So there are meetings of employment and staffing on, obviously there's one on the 10th of November, but that's too early. But the 23rd of February, it would be interesting to hear an interim, even if a very informal report at that point. And our next, the Employment and Staffing Committee meeting is on the 18th of May. So I'd just like to have an early view from officers as to how it's going on that meeting of the 23rd of February if we could. Thank you. Thank you. Obviously the role of the Employment and Staffing Committee is going to be really very significant and this was. Thank you and through you, Chair. It is one of the recommendations at Power Graph 6 of the report that we bring update reports to Employment and Staffing on the 10th of November and the 23rd of February. Thank you very much. And they are going to have a wider, more detailed briefing pretty soon. Unfortunately our last meeting was curtailed. Thank you and I don't yet have the dates for the scrutiny committee in Cambridge City Council, but we'll also be taking reports to them as well. Okay, thank you very much indeed. And Councillor Ellington. Thank you Chairman. I understand the issues which have brought you to this point in consideration. But I have failed to find any four-day week examples which are based in a service industry. Yes, I can well understand them being in an IT industry or in a production industry, but I think a service industry is very different. And I really look forward to seeing how that will roll out. I think the underlying thing that has come from discussion with my residents has been the concern that you are undervaluing the current staff by assuming that they are currently wasting 20% of their time. And that may create the opinion, a feeling of reputation within the staff that they are being undervalued and that also may affect our residents' attitude to them if you see what I mean. And I think you've got to work jolly hard to get that message across. I do hope this will bring further improvements in our recruitment position, but I do fear that it may be quite difficult to put the genie back in the bottle if it doesn't. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ellington. I'm going to let Liz Watts respond in the first instance. Oh, thank you. And thank you, Councillor Ellington. There are certainly a number of examples of service industries that have adopted a four-day week. In fact, there's a bank in Peterborough who have adopted a four-day week and a member there, senior management team, was on Radio 4, I think, with Councillor Smith talking about the experience and how well it had gone for them. I think where there are not so many examples is in public sector service and there are a number of current trials going on, not in the UK in the public sector but in the US. And I'm in contact with the academic who is leading the data analysis of those trials to see what we can learn from them. So, there are gaps in terms of some of the evidence base. I guess, we're referring back to something that Councillor Milne raised earlier about being in the public limelight. There are lots of public sector organisations who, while they may wish to undertake a trial or considering moving to a four-day week, aren't necessarily prepared for the intense scrutiny that comes with it. And so, I guess, from my understanding, that's why there are fewer public sector organisations, I don't think it's possible to do in the public sector. In terms of undervaluing staff, I mean, I think that's an interesting take on the approach. So, I think if you look at the experience of COVID and when we all started working from home, I think there was a feeling before COVID that working from home was taking a bit of a day off. And it was only when we actually started running the entire council from home that we realised that actually lots of our colleagues are way more productive at home because they don't have the disturbances that they have in the office. And sometimes those disturbances can be good. It's about meeting colleagues and being social and interacting. Sometimes you just need some quiet time. And so, I think the situation is probably the same in terms of a four-day week in so far as we don't know what we don't know. Lots of colleagues have said to me, actually, if you really want to know what I think about how I could be more productive, it's A, B and C. And those colleagues haven't said that to me previously because I haven't offered them the opportunity to do that. And people don't always want to, I suppose, come forward and make potentially quite bold statements about their own work and how it could be more productive. But I think the other thing to say is that there is clear evidence that productivity decreases as hours increase. So the question is, can you increase productivity by decreasing hours and effectively making sure that the hours that you are working, you are not distracted, you're not in unnecessary meetings, you're not copying loads of people into emails who don't need to see them, you're automating what you need to, you're being a good colleague and that's a really important thing. Quite often people will find that what stops me from doing something is that somebody else hasn't done something. And a collective approach to everybody wanting to make the four-day week work should be able to help us address some of those issues and implement some really transformational change in the council that I think without that offer of the four-day week, it may not happen. And we do know from transformation programmes across the whole of the public sector that while the benefits may seem really deliverable, actually banking them, getting them and delivering them doesn't always work because there's not a lot in it for the people who are affected by the change. The big difference here is that there's a huge amount in it for the people who are affected by the change. And so it's underpinned by the serious social exchange, it's a reciprocal deal. Far from undervaluering stuff, I think it's valuing stuff to say to us, you know how you do your work and you know how you could do it better and you know what you need other people to do to help you be more effective and that kind of collective conversation over the three months of the planning period is what we will undertake to try to improve things. Thank you, that was really very interesting. Councillor Williams. Thank you, leader. I do have a series of questions, but actually before I start, because this is the point we are seeing a lot, I have always taken the view that everybody in this council elected to it cares about it, that they may have different approaches and different ideas as to how to do it. I think that extends beyond the walls of this council and for many people. So before I continue my questions, leader, can I just ask, will cabinet appreciate that, appreciate that I have genuine concerns, may have a different view and will it be respected, not dismissed, ridiculed or described as mischievous because I don't believe it is just because we have a different view. So before I proceed, could I have that assurance chair because right now I don't. Okay, so I'm very happy to give that assurance and I can assure you that within my own group this has been seriously challenged and I don't imagine actually you're going to ask any questions that haven't already been asked internally within my own group and obviously a cabinet have to, we very much respect the challenge we get internally from our group and we will similarly respect the challenge that we get from you and your group. The Employment and Staffing Committee is obviously a cross-party committee where I trust there will be free and open debate about this. We are stepping into the unknown here and as I said before it might work or it might not work. If it does work I hope that we all as a council, members and officers all take the credit because there's a role for us all to play here and the challenge that we all give to this will help Liz and her team to formulate a plan that works. If we all just keep stum, actually those difficult questions and difficult issues won't be addressed so it's perfectly right and proper. So I welcome your questions. Thank you, leader. So my questions are how will this affect holiday entitlement as that's normally calculated on hours? How will this affect statutory sick pay entitlement as that is calculated on a daily basis? How many staff will we be taking below 16 hours a week? How many manpower hours are reduced through this plan? How many hours over time are we currently relying on and will overtime be paid if over 30 hours during the trial period? Our agency worker contracts also being reduced to a four day requirement and as if they're not then we won't be really seeing the true effects of four day week. How are we advertising new roles currently at the council on a four or five day basis and any new starters will they be going to a 30 or 37 hour week? Will this inflated pay rise mean a freeze on officer pay or will there still be pay rise negotiations? How many man hours will it take for preparations in the coming months as that is time that could be spent on other duties? Do you think it is right to separate white and blue collar workers in this way because there has been a lot of uncomfort about the terminology being used in that respect? All those on market supplements keep such payments if this is successful. How will this affect those on performance related pay as they will now have less time to fulfil their performance? Does the leader agree that three months is not significant for any trial especially as it is for the months of January to March when taking annual leave is much lower? And if this is to be extended can we be assured that the months of July and August would be included in a trial as they have the highest leave rates? Does the leader and cabinet appreciate that there is unhappiness about this potential decision and will that be taken into consideration during the decision making process? We touched on Cambridge City but have Cambridge City Council agreed to this? I'm assuming from what was said earlier not. Will they reimburse us for planning services on the basis of the current arrangement and pay or will their contribution reduced due to reduced provision of days and hours? Page 102 says selected councillors will be asked to be interviewed or this include any opposition councillors. And two other points. Does the leader believe it is right that cabinet is making this decision today for it is our view that decision of this size and implications should be debated by four council. We have one literally in ten days time to ensure all residents of South Cambridgeshire have a voice in a decision that will affect all residents of South Cambridgeshire. And finally, leader, was it right that the national press were briefed and informed before our offices? Thank you, leader. Golly, that was a lot. Okay, there's an awful lot of detail there which I can't answer. I'm sure Liz will pick up what detail she can but I'll just pick out some things that you've said. So I think we need to be really careful with language like inflated pay rise because that's not what this is about. So I think we need to be very careful about saying things like that. I'm absolutely happy that it is right and proper that cabinet approve the trial. This is approving a trial. Cabinet is the right place to do that. Council is the decision-making body. This is going to a trial. So I think that's fine. Briefing the national press, everything. The timing was really critical for this. It was imperative that the health and wellbeing assessments were done not in the knowledge that this was going to happen. So I think it was right and proper but this might add some more to that. I think I'm going to pass on to Liz and then if there's anything that you want to come back to me on specifically for me then do but there was a lot of questions of detail there. Thank you, chair. So just going through those questions from top to bottom I think I can answer most of them. So holiday and statutory sick pay. Sorry, holiday and statutory sick pay. So the idea of the trial is that we change as little as possible in terms of or we don't change anything in terms of terms and conditions because the point of the three months is to ascertain is it possible to operate on a four-day week and still maintain our performance and will we see an improvement in health and wellbeing? So there will be no changes to terms and conditions so if you want to take a week of holiday you take five days and that includes the day that you would have had off if you were at work. So there's no changes to holiday or statutory sick pay. I don't have the detail to all of these next few questions. There was a question about people under 16 hours and we have nine of those. In terms of overtime will it be relied on? So we only approve overtime at the moment for specific projects or specific pieces of work that we really need people to do. Of course the idea of the four-day week is that as people become more efficient and more effective they're able to do their work in less time. In principle we wouldn't expect to be seeing people doing overtime other than those sorts of areas where there is a very specific piece of work that needs to be done. We've said to colleagues, are you able to do some overtime? We have examples of that for example and we have something like a Ukraine project and suddenly somebody is not only doing their day job but also doing probably an entire extra day job as well. You asked about agency offices, Councillor Williams, and we will not be including agency in the trial. The whole point is that we want to be able to obviously reduce the number of agency but it's not... The agency colleagues that we have at the moment will not be part of the trial. Although I think it's fair to say that the planning period of three months isn't a period where my colleagues say to people this is how we're going to do it and if somebody made a compelling case for including agency then of course that would be something that we'd consider. We're at a starting point where we're saying this just applies to people who are on a South Cams contract. Will we advertise new roles as being four-day? No, we won't because we know we're near that position yet. I think it won't escape people applying for roles that we're doing a trial. In fact somebody mentioned to me last week that during an interview somebody had said that we were really excited to see that we were doing a trial and they thought it was a really progressive way of working so we certainly won't be advertising it but I think people will probably know as they come for an interview. New starters will not be put on a 30-hour a week contract. For the purpose of the trial everybody will stay on their original contract whether that's 37 hours a week or part-time depending on what kind of hours that you do. So no, new starters won't be advertised on a 30-hour week. Is it an inflated pay rise? I think the point here is that we pay people to do a job. We don't pay people to do a certain number of hours and so if people are able to do the job then their job has been graded at the salary which we pay them. I don't think it's an inflated pay rise. I think it's about an organisation that needs to address a really specific challenge, two specific challenges. One is about recruitment and retention and one is about the health and well-being of our colleagues and their ability to work as productively as they can when they're in the office. I don't have details on the hours that it will take for the preparation during the three-month planning phase but I suppose what I would say that is that if those are hours that are being spent understanding as 470 colleagues how can we be more effective? How can we be more productive? I think those would be hours well spent and regardless of what happens in the trial if the trial were to be unsuccessful I would be almost certain that there will be different ways of working after the trial that we will continue with even if the trial doesn't continue. You mentioned about the difference between desk based staff and staff in the depot and we've been really clear that the two trials would be very different so the trial for desk based staff is considerably more complex to plan for because we're what's known as knowledge workers and our knowledge or expertise is what gets the job done by and large and so everybody works differently and it's a real analogy of a Rubik's Cube we'll be changing the ways that we work but we need to make sure at the same time that all the colours of the Rubik's Cube end up on the right side and so it's a complex trial to plan for the depot trial is less complex to plan for insofar as there is a limited number of ways in which you can collect bins so that trial probably is slightly more paper based in the sense of how do we organise the rounds what would the impact be and we can model this through on things like sick pay would people have less time off sick and therefore potentially you'd make some savings there what's the impact of agency stuff and so in a way that's more of a desk based modelling operation as opposed to working with nearly 200 colleagues who collect our bins and say how could you do your job differently so the different trials I think we could have done both trials at the same time I think we're realistic that we don't want this to be a distraction and so we basically decided to take the trials one after the other market supplement so as I said there'll be no changes to people's pay or terms and conditions for the three month trial we will need to look at if we were to extend for a year and then look at potentially moving to be a four day week employer we would need to review all sorts of issues to do with our sort of employment terms and conditions but we know we're near that stage yet same for performance related pay so you mentioned that you didn't think the three months was enough and I completely agree with you there but the three months is basically for us to be able to say is everything still working at the end of three months are we still delivering strong performance in all of our services and have we seen some benefit from our colleagues so those are the two things that we're testing in the first three months if that's all positive we will move as it says in the paper to a year long trial and that's when we really test things like recruitment and retention so the three months is really I guess can we make it work period of trial and then we'll be followed by the longer trial interestingly in terms of annual leave you said you were concerned about January to March actually because our annual leave year now ends at the end of March quite often annual leave can be quite high in January to March because people are using up the end of their leave allocation if they can't carry it over but it's a fair point that we'd need to before we move to anything like us that's a permanent four day week employer we need to do at least a year's trial to understand you know throughout all of those seasonal periods what is the evidence that we're collecting and there'll be plenty of things that we don't anticipate now as we collect evidence over the longer period we'll find out so the chair's sighing at me now oh no I'm not so sniffing I'm not sighing the city council I think because we were we had a that the research questions in the field regarding health and wellbeing and that research was being collected right up until the day when we the day before we announced the trial while I'd had conversations with the chief executive city I'd asked him to keep it confidential and so I'm responsible for having not necessarily briefed city members in the same way that I had our own members but following the announcement and briefings that we've done I think they're certainly supportive and interested they will be scrutinising the report at their I think it's called their scrutiny and resources committee on the 10th of October so I'll be attending that meeting and answering any questions that they have and I'm sure you know as our own members have they'll be plenty of questions on reimbursement so there won't be any changes during the trial period in terms of how we run the shared service in terms of finances at least on that I anticipate other than that because we're unlikely to see savings during this three month trial period because we anticipate those savings coming from being able to recruit more full time people and therefore spend less on agency it's unlikely that that would happen during the trial period if that would happen during the longer term period obviously the shared service is funded by both the city and south camps on the basis of cost drivers related to number of applications and the work that's being done so if there were a saving in staff salaries then those savings would be through to the city council and I hope that's the question that you asked it wasn't okay so I get to the end and then which councillors will be interviewed certainly will be interviewing members of the opposition as well that's my perspective really important and did you answer the question about the national press being brief? Thank you very much very interesting do you want to come back on any points that haven't been picked up councillor Williams? Thank you leader, it's just a couple it was one that got missed is how many manpower hours are reduced through the trial that question didn't get answered and it was we discussed overtime but my question was where are we classing overtime during the trial so if somebody goes up to the does their 30 hours and let's face it, none of us know what's around the corner at the moment we have to get them to do more are we paying overtime on 30 plus or on their contracted 37 plus that was my question as to where the overtime cut-off comes in my question around pay rises was will there still be any for negotiations on pay rises I didn't get an answer as to whether we would still need to negotiate the other the other thing that hasn't been answered is relation to performance-related pay I have the market supplements but not performance-related pay we've got many people on performance-related pay that could be impacted and with in relation to the Cairish City perhaps what would be really helpful leader is for us to know how we calculate their contribution because towards the service because I'm guessing it's not just a 50-50 split we've had that in the past so if we're paying on an hourly or daily rate then for example that would then be effective so maybe if we could have some more understanding as to how respectfully how our calculation is I think that would be really helpful because there is a concern that we will end up paying the difference otherwise which might not be an issue but without seeing it we just don't know if that could be answered respectfully thank you very much thank you all I'm not sure I can answer all of them in the meeting so I'll come back to you on a couple of them Councillor Williams on the city so the way that the budgets constructed and it's probably too much later for this meeting there are some areas of planning where the split is 50-50 for example something like planning policy the planning policy team to work for both of us to work for the plan there are some areas for example in DM where it's the split is income driven so and linked therefore to planning applications and workload so what we will need to do in the longer term should we do the longer term trial and deliver the savings to work through how those savings would sort of flow through that financial model so on performance related pay I think there's only one or two people who are on performance related pay in the organisation so I don't speak about that because I don't think it's appropriate to identify them on negotiating pay rises we're obviously still in the negotiations for this year and anything negotiator will be backdated till April we would then start new negotiations next year as we do every year I don't want to sort of preempt what will happen with the child but clearly if we were to move to being a full day week employer I think that would be a significant benefit that we could put on the table in terms of our negotiations and I don't really want to preempt anything other than to say that I think that would form part of any negotiations that we had and can I come back to you on the other questions on overtime and the hours reduced because I'd like to make sure I get the right numbers I'm happy to have the response after meeting on that Peter Thank you Thank you I'm going to ask councillor to second this and make her points Thank you Chair I come to this with different perspective as well and also thinking about a broader thing across the country probably across the world because of COVID I think all of us are really re-evaluating our work-life balance and how we conduct ourselves, how we conduct our lives generally and has already been mentioned retention and recruitment is a problem and we can't just do nothing but the idea behind this is to work more effectively to work smarter and as was presented to I believe all of us the fourth day week is not a pay increase it's 100% of the work in 80% of the time with 100% of the pay I think that's really important to have that in mind and thinking about people's wellbeing if you feel happy if you feel like you can manage to do your job because there are 4 people in your department for example planning I'm just going to take that example and you're not trying to do the job of 2 people it improves your efficiency I think that's anywhere any person's job and I feel that this is the right thing to do it chimes with my values and how we should be looking forward in a 21st century workplace and surely if you had 3 days you were going to be refreshed for the 4 days so you work better but this is also as people have pointed out we're not a business in the sense that's just what we are we're here to serve the residents and the businesses but the residents of South Cambridgeshire and this I'm hopeful and it is a trial and that's what a trial is for to try it we'll actually deliver improvements for the lives of those people living in the district because if you can attract people to work and work more productively and also most importantly make some cost savings because at the moment I believe I'm right we have the equivalent of 23 full time agency workers costing £2 million and I gather from my colleague John Williams who's not here today so you can't correct me we would be able to save £1 million and that £1 million would be not only a saving of money towards services, grants etc to help our residents especially bearing in mind across the living crisis and everybody is short on money looking to see how can they get through this winter the next winter I think that's a really important point that £1 million could be saved apart from the health and wellbeing of our staff that also has such a positive impact across the area and as we know agency staff come and go people might start on the planning application with one person sorry to use that example again but it's a quite handy example which impacts a lot of people and then it changes somebody else because there's new member staff it's so much better if you can have permanent staff in an organisation such as ours because then they have that experience the continuity and security as well so things work more efficiently and finally this is a trial it's an attempt to address an issue and to head it face on and I am really hopeful it will prove to be fruitful and in the long run will be beneficial to the residents of South Cambridgeshire and so I wholly support it and I'm happy to second it Thank you Councillor Rippus so the recommendation set out at paragraph 5 I'm going to read it A, approve a trial to be run from January to March 2023 preceded by a planning period of three months I request the Employment and Staffing Committee to receive update reports at its meeting on 10 November 22 and 23 February 23 with a view to reporting back to cabinet after the end of the trial making recommendations as appropriate C, receive feedback from the City Council Strategy and Resources Committee on the 10 October and continue to keep this committee updated with information during the planning period and trial Do you members agree with the proposal? Agreed Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation So we're now going to move on to a proposal to exclude the press and the public It's the point in our agenda where we need to consider whether to exclude press and public from the meeting. This is because the next items contain information which is commercially sensitive. Members of the public are advised that if cabinet agrees to exclude the press and the public, the video stream will end. I therefore propose that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business in accordance with section 100a brackets for the Local Government Act 1972 on the grounds that if present there would be a disclosure to them of exempt information as to find in paragraph 3 of part 1 of schedule 12a of the act brackets as amended. Is that seconded? Yes happy to second Do you members agree with the proposal? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation Members of the public who are watching the webcast this means the video stream will now end Thank you very much for joining us to view today's cabinet meeting I know the next meeting of cabinet is scheduled to take place on Monday the night 14th November 2022 at 10 o'clock