 any questions about the questions? Similarly, I shall ask people if you've got thoughts about questions for the Chief Constable. Okay, yeah that's also a good idea. If we could let them on, let them have them in then at least they can come prepared and that'll be useful. You won't get feeling anybody's collar! Oh, there's Claire. Hello, Claire. Hello, hello. Long time no see. And, and, and Granville, I will say this at the meeting, but I would be happy to join the Covid task and finish group. You just told me, I'd be delighted. Thank you very much, very much. And Nigel, you're now in twice. I've been twice. Oh, here's Nigel. Well, there we are, you see. You can actually see that. Yeah. You look as if you're in the middle of fog, Nigel. It looks as if it's a foggy night with your headlights behind you. Oh, no, I don't know what that is. I, um, I haven't. Yeah, no, it's something seriously wrong. Yeah, with a built-in camera. Good evening. Hello, Brian. Hello, Brian. What's this? This is outrageous. I think you might find it quite interesting. No. Since you've gone, you see, we've gone to many agendas. Count it as one in the bag in the bank till next time in January. He won't be complaining, Brian, when you're looking at January's on the other side. I thought we had a 500 page minimum, for God's sake. The count's up for the postage any longer. No, that's right. Mine came with the grateful thanks of the postman, who's no longer got back. It was saving the NHS money, you see. So what did you think of last night's East West Rail get-together, Granville? Well, at least they're having an open discussion. That's all you can say. I don't know where this is going to go, Brian. Well, literally, and you'll excuse me having a little joke at your... Absolutely. Literally, where they will go, if they go a northern route, how do they then expect to get down to Cambridge South? I've got no idea. There is a route, perhaps. There is a draft route. They have a draft route. They're just not telling anyone yet. Is there anybody that might live in the area? Absolutely. We'll just have to wait and see, I think. I mean, that whole northern route seems to be predicated on little houses. Yes. Absolutely. And the stuff that Stephen Kelly was talking about, I think, did he talk about going from a 7,000 home town that we've got now to, I think, another 25,000? Yes. It's a campground north of Sir Kate. Yes. Of course, that whole East West Rail is, I would say, predicated on new housing. Absolutely. Can't imagine a queue getting into Campbell, can you? There will be. Can you hear me? Yes. What I've thought about East West Rail, the assumption is that the new housing and the railway station will be close together. That's not necessarily the case. What you could find is that the housing goes somewhere, probably maybe on public land, in order to pay the railway line in a totally different location. That was mentioned to me, and it's an intriguing possibility. Thank you. I don't think there's any public land around there. It's all privately owned. Yes. There is a lot of interest in making sure where it goes. Yes. There's a lot of money up to be made. Yes. Good evening, Bridget. Sorry, I'm muted. Hello. Hello, Richard. Good evening, Bridget. Nice to see you. Good evening. Yes. Hello. Nice to see you. Thank you for coming. It's been a long day. Bridget, I'm sorry I didn't manage to get to join you yesterday, but I had a hospital appointment. It went on much longer than I expected, so by the time I got back. A more important night, all of a sudden you want to talk about, just give me a ring. You are fine. Right. Well, according to my time, it is now 17.20. Yes. Are we poorer to the moment, Victoria? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you like me to take you live? I think just give it two more minutes, please. Just see if we get a couple more members join us. But if not, then we'll go. No problem. Martins joining. Martins joining, yeah. We have a member of parliament. Who's that? Oh, Peter Maddock. Right, Liam, if you would be so kind, let us go live, please. Sure, you'll take me a moment and I'll let you know once it's live. Thank you. OK, chair, I believe that we are now live. Thank you very much, Liam. No problem. Good afternoon, members, leader, cabinet members, and any members of the public who may be joining us this evening for this meeting of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee of South Cambridgeshire District Council. My name is Grenville Chamberlain and I'm the chair of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee. I'd like to start if I may with a few housekeeping points. Could I ask members please to make sure that your device is fully charged or is charging? Please switch off your microphones unless I ask you to speak. And when you finish speaking, will you please turn off your microphone immediately so that we make sure the sound is best for others? Please speak slowly and clearly and do not talk over or interrupt anyone. And if you wish to speak on an item, please indicate this using the chat function which the vice chair, Judith, will be managing for me. I'm pleased to say that present online with me are the following members of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee who I will now invite to introduce themselves. Members, after I call your name would you please turn on your microphone and introduce yourself so that we may formally note your presence? Please remember to turn your microphone off after your introduction. Can we start with councillor Anna Bradlam? Yeah, I believe councillor Bradlam is still to join us. Okay, councillor Martin Carn. Thank you, Martin. councillor Nigel Cathcart. I'm the member for Battingbourne been on the council for many years. Thank you, you're very welcome. councillor Sarah Chung-Johnson. Hello, Sarah Chung-Johnson, councillor for Longstaff Mountain Ward. Thank you Sarah. councillor Graham Cone. Chair councillor Cone is still to join us. Okay. councillor Claire Dalton. Yes, hello. I'm Claire Daunton and I'm one of the members for the Fenditon and Fullbourne Ward. Thank you, Claire. councillor Douglas Delacy. Chair councillor Delacy is also still to join us. councillor Peter Fane. Peter Fane. Member for Shelford Ward. Thank you, Peter. councillor Joes Hales. Good evening chair. councillor Jeff Harvey. Chair councillor Harvey I believe is also still to join us. Okay. councillor Steve Hunt. Hello, Steve Hunt here. councillor for Haston in Pincton and Audra Park. Vice-chair of the meeting. councillor Judith Ripeth. Good evening. councillor Judith Ripeth as you've just been told. Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you. councillor Richard Williams. Thank you chair. I'm Richard Williams. I'm the member for the Wittlesford Ward. Thank you very much and welcome all of you. We're also joined this evening by the councillor councillor Bridget Smith and Cabinet Member Brian Mills. I believe that that is all of the councillers here with us this evening. I'd also like to welcome Rebecca Dodson, who is the new head of democratic services. A formal welcome to your very first scrutiny and overview committee and we look forward to working with you. Could I ask that if any member has to leave during the meeting could they please make this known so that we can formally record that. So we've moved item one on the agenda and apologies for absence. Sorry, do we have any apologies for absence please? I've received no apologies however councillor Cohn, Delacey and Harvey have not yet joined us but I've not received apologies from them. Chairman can I apologise for being a bit late but I'm glad to be here now. It's councillor Andrew Bradnam. You're very welcome and lovely to see you. Thank you for joining us. The agenda is declarations of interest so can I ask members does any member have any interest they wish to declare? No thank you if not if you do decide at any point in time that you wish to please speak up. Item three on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday the 7th of October. Can we just go briefly through them for accuracy on page one page two page three very short minutes for us. If everyone is happy I will sign them at some point as a true record of that meeting. I agree. Thank you very much. Item four is public questions and I can I think confirm that there are no public questions so we move on to perhaps what is the main item on the agenda this evening which is our work programme going forward and you will recall that we have spoken about the triangulation meetings that we have held with the leader and members of Cabinet and we are therefore making sure that the first of our task and finish groups reports quite soon and I'm hoping that Sarah Chung Johnson can give us an indication of when her equality task and finish group is likely to come back with a report to us so that we can plan that into that work programme going forward. Sarah do you have an indication or a feeling for the time frame that you will require for your task and finish group please? It's a short answer but we are making progress we had a really productive meeting with Susan Gardner Craig to talk through some of the employment aspects of the motion but we haven't actually convened just as a task and finish group just ourselves following that yet so we've got that meeting in the diary and we will look at the naming and also a definitive date for when we look to finish this piece of work. Do you think February of next year would be appropriate time? I think that would be realistic that would be the time frame that I think we had in mind. Let's plan on your report meeting in February because then that would probably work rather well because what I would like to do this evening is to instigate a task and finish group although the recommendation was that we should only work with one task and finish group at any point in time I do believe that we can handle a second one which would look at the COVID-19 impact on community facilities and I believe that we could start that now and hopefully move that fairly quickly with a report coming to our January meeting that would be my objective. So far Judith has agreed to join as has Joseph Hales and Claire Daunton too I'm happy to lead it and if one of the councillers willing to join I think four or five would be ideal five would help us just in case one member was unable to make a particular meeting so if there is another volunteer I would be delighted to hear from you. Chairman I'm sorry Councillor Bradman has put her hands up can you use this chat function though please Sorry I missed that Councillor Bradman Thank you sorry maybe it was said at the very beginning I just wanted to say that if I'd be happy to be part of it but I'm also from Milton and Water Beach so although I sit on the Milton and indeed assist the Land Beach Covid groups you might want to view from a different part of the district since Judith is also a representative of Milton and Water Beach you might want to view from somewhere else That's very kind of you to offer and if there are no offers I will happily take your volunteering contribution Thank you Does anyone else like to take part if not Councillor Bradman will be very welcome Councillor Bradman thank you very much it looks as though you've got the role and I will liais with democratic services and the community support group at the council with a view to getting our first meeting held perhaps within the next week or two and I'd very much like to understand and I do believe that some work has already been started on this to understand what community facilities are fully open which are either partly or fully closed and can we find ways particularly leaning on the experience of Joe's hails and the wonderful performance of the Melbourne hub can we use the experience to the benefit of other parishes within the district and I think letters have already gone out to the parishes to identify exactly what facilities they have which are open and which are not so I'm hopeful that we can get that underway very quickly and then my next plan would be that immediately after the conclusion of that we would set up another task and finish group to look at the impact of social capital on our communities with a particular focus I think on doctor's surgeries because that seems to be an area of concern for many of us so bear that in mind as the next stage of the task and finish groups coming forward but if we could just spend a moment now to talk about the December schools and the overview committee meeting we have the empty home strategy we also have an acceptance from the Chief Constable of Cambridge here Nick Dean who will be joining us and I think it would be very helpful if anyone has got any particular questions that they'd like to ask if you drop them to Victoria we can give the Chief Constable an indication of the thrust of the questions that he may face this is certainly driven by his announcement that he's going to cut the number of PCSOs by 50% I have to say that in the main the peace presence that we see in Harwick is generally by our local PCSOs and if they're cut in half we won't see them very often and I think that's something that many of us will be concerned about but we also have coming to that meeting a detailed update on planning Judith and I have met with Stephen Kelly and Sharon Brown this afternoon and once again I can give you a heads up on the topics that we will be that they will be presenting to us at the meeting on the 17th of December and the scope of the presentation will cover the following items the key service outcomes and the progress over the past six months including details of the backlog of planning applications that we presently have staffing and resource situation as it is in terms of both permanent staff and the vacancies that exist the budget risks and other challenges that the service faces including both ICT and COVID the usefulness of the terror quest contract review a planning advisory service review of the planning committee findings, conclusions and recommendations one of which is that a member task group is set up to oversee the implementation of those recommendations a review of the implementation of the three development management geographical areas and their recommendations for adjustments to areas I gather that at present area one has less work than areas two and three their plan for service improvements going forwards and finally legal processes so those will be the headline topics of the areas for discussion next month so there's a huge amount coming there and should there be a property investment decision to be made then we may be faced with that as well so whilst looking at page five of the work programme December looks a bit thin there's actually going to be quite a lot on the agenda and my expectation is that we'll probably have the chief constable for an hour ish and then we'll probably spend an hour or more talking about planning so although the agenda is short it could be quite a lengthy meeting January as you will see from the list of items there is once again a very busy meeting and we can now add to that a report from the Covid-19 impact task and finish group and February whilst it looks thin at the moment it's likely to include the report from the equality task and finish group so once again that looks like being quite busy meeting and inevitably there may well be items from January which slip back into February and similarly other items might come forward but I'm happy to take any questions on any point if anyone has any questions none in the chat so far chair well this could be something of a good if there are no comments on the work program item 6 is to note the dates of the future meeting and as I mentioned that will be held on Thursday the 17th of December at 5.20pm the next item is a confidential nature item 7 and at this point I propose that the press and public are excluded from the meeting during the consideration of referring item sorry I'm sorry it's just beat up so sorry so sorry I'm on my phone and I couldn't find where the chat was cos I'm not used to using it on my phone I just wanted to ask if we briefly chatted about this the ICT scrutiny piece and whether or not we wanted to kind of restart that subgroup that we had given another recent spate of instance I think we should and we now have a familiar person on the cabinet who is looking at ICT who we can question at length on all of the ways that he's holding them to account Councillor Milans Yes indeed and very sharp he is I can promise you on ICT matters as we all know so we will all the A's with Victoria and we'll set up a task and finish group in the another meeting with the task and finish group in the next few days and Councillor Daunton would like to speak sorry Graf Berly it's Councillor Daunton please go ahead I think I was probably half asleep when you quickly passed on to the next item I just wanted to say on the work program under January we got a lot of financial material there and we touched on this yesterday in the free meeting I just want to make it clear that I thought that scrutiny was looking at the strategy the strategic issues to do with finance strategy and policy issues and not the sort of detail Well I'm very hopeful that the reports that come with the with the presentations will be at a fairly high level and therefore enable us to focus on that but not cutting out any of the detail that members would wish to explore further at a high level but nevertheless if there aren't particular items that you wish to dig down into then we'll have that opportunity as well Chair the leader would like to speak Leader please do come in you're very welcome Thank you sorry I was trying to put something in the chat and the whole thing just kept crashing so I don't know what's going on here just on the ICT I'm very grateful for the work that you have done on ICT in the past because it's actually formed the basis for where we are at the moment and I know there's been some very irritating glitches recently but we are in a completely different place now thanks to the work of Anne Ainsworth so I wonder if I could make a suggestion that might save you doing unnecessary work and perhaps invite Anne to come along and make a verbal verbal report to you on exactly where ICT is and the work that she's been doing specifically with the shared services because I think that might give you the reassurance that you need without commissioning a whole piece of work and after that obviously you could then you then like choose to go and do a full TNF group after that but I would just suggest that might possibly be a starting point that's very helpful, thank you very much we'll invite Anne to come to her December meeting bring us up to speed and then we'll consider if we need to have a task and finish group meeting in January we'll do that and I hope that satisfies you Councillor John Johnson yep it does thank you that's a good suggestion thank you very much leader if there are no other questions are you happy that I move to item 8 and therefore I propose that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of agenda 7 gender item 7 in accordance with section 100 A Subjection 4 of the local government act 1972 on the grounds that if present there could be a disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of part 1 schedule 12a of the act does the committee agree that the public interest is outweid by the recommendation to exclude the press and public for this agenda item agreed agreed thank you very much can I therefore ask that the live stream of the meeting is ended please hi there I'm just going to be a minute doing it and I'll let you know once we are no longer live chair thank you