 Felly, wrth gwrs, wrth gwrs, maen nhw'n gweithio'r Fflawn ym Mhwyllgor Gwyddon Llywodraeth Cymru. Mae'r gweithio'r Gwyddon Llywodraeth Cymru. O'r gweithio'r top-taethau, oherwydd i mi i'r gweithio'r Gwyddon Llywodraeth Cymru, yw'r gweithio'r gweithio, ac yw'r gweithio'r i'r seni, oherwydd i'r gweithio'r Gwyddon Llywodraeth Cymru. Armw recur allaf ychwaneg gyda winning distracted ddדיfall grilled Felly, yr wylch swyddhau a'r oeddenniadau i wneud i liei'r yn fφlawn ac oedd dyma hir, ryw пользwyr yr Llywodraeth Cymru a torraethion fel cyflawni lain rhyfedig ac oedd mae'r amlwg chi'n teulu a amlwg wilaf牙ï ac eich weithser plain. When addressing the meeting, speakers should not disclose any personal information of any individual as this might infringe the rights of that individual and breach the Data Protection Act. I can confirm that the meeting is core, there being at least four scrutiny and overview committee members here in the chamber. If at any time a member leaves the chamber, would they please make that fact known to me so that it can be recorded in the minutes? Similarly, anyone joining us online but leaving before the end of the meeting should pop something in the meeting chat so that we are aware. Finally, a report of this meeting will be presented to Cabinet on 27 June as neither the Vice-Chair nor I are likely to be at the meeting is any other committee member willing to present the report. Lovely. Councillor Bradman, thank you for... I'm happy to report to Cabinet if you'd like me to. Thank you for doing that, that's much appreciated. So, moving on to the agenda, first of all, we've got apologies for absence, so I'll go over to Ian for that. Apologies then from Councillor Tom Bygott, Councillor Peter Fane, Councillor Ian Benderwyr, and we've got Councillor Heather Williams. Any other apologies for absence or substitutions? No, okay, so I'll go on to item three, which is Decorations of Interest. Has anyone got any decorations of interest that they want to put forward on any of the items that are coming up on the agenda? Councillor Leaming. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to declare that I am a member of a huge safety partnership. Anyone else? No, okay. I'll move on to the minutes of the previous meeting, of which we'll take as a whole. Has anyone got any comments or anything that they want to add to the minutes of the previous meeting? So we've got Sue Ellington online, Sue. Thank you. I'm Sue Ellington, councillor for Swayfsea Ward. I feel that the minutes do not reflect a question that I raised regarding whether the relationships with other councils in relation to the four-day week were being explored and how other councils felt about it. I have spoken with Ian Senior, and I believe he has produced some words which I have agreed. Okay, thank you, Sue. Have we got those words to display? Sue, can you read those and just make sure you're happy with the detail of that? Would you like me to read them out? No, I think that's fine. We can see them on the screen. I'm very happy with them. Yes, thank you. I'm sorry you can't see me, but I've got the split screen on so that I can see the paperwork. That's no problem. We can see the amendments that you've made, and we did have a discussion about this in the pre-meat yesterday. I'm happy with the amendments as put forward. Councillor Bill Handley. Has councillor Henry Bachelor seen and approved this amendment or not approved it, but has he seen them? No, he hasn't. I think in that instance, if we run it through the Cabinet Member as well. I did take them off the recorded. Okay, so they've been taken off the recorded video at that point, so I think probably happy with that. But we will run it through amendment past him at Curtsey. I think just for a good idea. A fair point. Okay, has councillor Anna Bradman? Just for a little light relief members, in the minutes, collection changes item 6, page 8, in the middle of the second paragraph. I read their approach had involved establishing a baseline for the existing operations based on vehicle type, the nature and weight of materials collected, time travel, collection areas and destination. That's my mind running away with me, so no, the minutes are fine. Okay, thanks very much for that. Is there any other amendments? Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair, just that I wasn't present at the meeting, so I'll understand from vote. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Martin Khan. I was also not present at the meeting, so I'll understand from vote. Okay, thank you for that. Okay, so we'll move on to item 5, public questions. We don't have any, so we will move on. Yeah, so on the minutes, I affirm that we agree those minutes with those changes made. So happy with that. So no public questions, so we'll now move on to the substantial part of the agenda, which is item 6. South Cambridgeshire Community Safety Partnership, spanning from pages 11 to 30. Do we have any speakers on this? Councillor Bill Handley. Yes, thanks. If I may, I'll just introduce a brief introduction to this, because this does fall under my portfolio. Thank you just to draw attention to the main points of the report. It's the CSP, as I'll call it throughout. It's a statutory partnership operating under the Crime and Disorder Act, and made up of representatives from a number of agencies, includes the police, health, probation, fire and rescue and so on. The idea is to help to reduce crime, disorder, substance misuse and re-offending, and also very importantly, the gathering of data and interpretation of data, which is a very important role. Although the workforce into my portfolio, as I've said, the council member representatives are councillors Sally Ann Hart and Helen Leaming, who's here today. They, together with Catherine Hawkes and her team, have been a driving force behind our part of the partnership, if you like. If the committee asks really hard questions, I'll probably refer to Catherine or Linda, who are here today. The council is a name-responsible body and the accountable body for the CSP, and so it must have oversight of and be in agreement with the operational plan, hence its presentation to you this evening. The report details the work for the year 23-24, including budgets, and it's for you and Cabinet approval. If you, for your comments, for this committee's comments and for Cabinet approval. If I could just finish with a brief comment, the council is now in two years of a three-year arrangement with the Police and Crime Commissioner's Office, which provides funding for a CSP project officer, and it's Beth Watson. One of the post-holders' roles is to listen to and work with the public to act on concerns and to give support. If I could just relay a very brief anecdote, because I've, on a couple of occasions recently, had to relay information about low-level anti-social behaviour to the team here, because residents have been in touch. They've complained to the police on a 101, but they've had no response, so I've been pleasantly surprised to find a reaction. The police actually turned up a day or two after I raised it, and, behold, the problems seemed to stop quite quickly. Now, these are young, you know, their teenagers, breaking glass, riding scooters at high level. It's small, low-level stuff, but the fact that police officers turned up and just had a word seemed to have done the trick. There is an example of this system working. The police didn't have the resources, but the CSP seemed to help to target their response. It's an excellent report, and I commend it to you for consideration and for approval for it to go to Cabinet. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that introduction, Councillor Handley. I'll pass it over to members of the committee that want to speak on this. Councillor Wreffith. It's more just the comments that I thought this was really useful reports, and it detailed quite a lot of the actions going forward, especially with a relatively new police and crime commissioner, and I'm also very thankful that there's going to be a deep dive in the ward that I represent, and as does Councillor Bradman round this table. It's quite good to see what's actually happening in the background and how the two work together, and the funding also for Beth Watson I think is really, really crucial, and thank you also to obviously the officers who work on this, put in lots of hours, and to Councillor Leaming, Councillor Hart, who have kind of taken this by the scruff of the neck, and I think it looks really promising. Thank you. Councillor Handley, do I come back on that? No, just to say thank you for the comments. I agree with you, it's a really well written report, and the deep dive is a good point actually. That's something that Canon will be done in places where it appears that the data shows there's a need. I think that should be really useful for drilling down. Thanks. So it's not a question but more of a comment. Thank you. Councillor Anna Bradman. Thank you, Chair. A couple of things. I wondered whether we could add in, and that is whether we have learnings from other deep dives done before as it were. It's interesting because this is the outworking of the work that I see on the police and crime panel on which I sit on behalf of the county, and these priorities are also coming down from the police and crime commissioner, of course, and I'm very glad to see his concerns about violence against women and all that sort of thing, so I'm pleased with that. But what I was just wondering is whether in the deep dive, whether we can actually just look back at some of the learnings we had about new communities when we had a task and finish group some years ago as we were developing Northstone, looking at the early development of community there and looking at antisocial behaviour and isolation there, and I just wondered whether we could include that in our thinking. I'm glad to see Milton and Water Beach get a deep dive, and also I was interested to note just skipping to a later paper in the agenda. Milton and Water Beach is mentioned later on on page 99 in our equality report. It's referred to having, looking at equality profile headlines, and it says, pockets of high fertility between 2016 and 2020 exist in places such as Milton and Water Beach for females aged 15 to 44, and I wondered if that's got anything to do with the antisocial behaviour that we're maybe experiencing and that's contributing here. So maybe it's women becoming pregnant younger and having less resources available to them. Anyway, but yes, can we have any other learnings from other earlier task and finish groups that we can learn from? Councillor Bill Hunter. Well, certainly something that I would be happy to see in there, but of course I don't have to write the report. I don't know if Catherine would like to comment. I mean, this report is for 23, 24, whether it's relevant to have that in this particular report, what you are asking for in this particular report. I'm not sure. I could give a bit of advice on that. Thank you. Yes, normally a deep dive would look at the data that's available in terms of crime and antisocial behaviour, so look at police data via data health, admissions to A&E, violence against the person, public order, that sort of thing, but we can certainly ask the Cambridge Research team if they are able to look at any other papers that are relevant in terms of new communities. But what we're looking at here is the data that's been presented thus far and doing a deep dive into that. It might well be that they need to bring those other areas in for future planning and the designing out of crime if I've understood you correctly for the new emerging community. That's right. The two are slightly different, but we can sign first and then ask them. There's actually a piece of work done for Scroogeyne in Overview some years ago when North Stowe was just being planned and it looked at that very early occupation and trying to anticipate and avoid any problems with isolation and antisocial behaviour that could happen in a new community with little oversight, as it were. I think that's something that we could look at. Perhaps this is a slightly separate exercise, but certainly we can do that. We can also, just to take your other point, perhaps ask them to have a look at the qualities-related data that you've highlighted and see if there's anything going on there. Just to follow up. I think it's at 29th that the Cabinet is due to go to the Cabinet at 29th this month, so we're a bit tight for doing too many amendments to this and I'm not sure that they're that vital, frankly. So if you can do what you've suggested and produce a separate report for Aparuzol, I think that's the best way to do it. The deep dive is something that's planned in for this summer and it's going to be done in the next few months. It's the deep dive that's mentioned in the plan in the paper so it doesn't change the report we have as it stands or we can add that into the work as it evolves. What more I'm suggesting is that there is data that they might find useful to look at in that deep dive. Okay, so happy with that. Richard Stobart. Thank you, Chair. So it's just on this question of data that I wanted to ask some questions. So it's obviously strongly implied that Catherine has just listed the kind of data that might emerge, for example, from the deep dive, but is there behind this a kind of a systematic approach to data but not just data points but also trends? So I have to say that the whole community safety initiative being interdisciplinary is excellent and it allows the opportunity to bring together multiple sources but are there, in a sense, tighter definitions of data that would be associated with the plan? I do have a second question but let me just pose that one for the moment. Councillor Hanlick. I'm going to have to defer on that one, I'm afraid, to Catherine. Sorry, Catherine. That's okay, thank you. I can't go through it now with you, but each year the CSP Commission is from the same research group, a strategic assessment which tells us what areas of crime and or antisocial behaviour we need to be looking at and it's got graphs and trends in it so it's possibly more helpful for me to share that with you and that talks about all sorts of different areas from a constitutive crime, trends over time, gender differences and all sorts of things that are going on in South Cambridgeshire so I can share that with whoever would like to have a read. I asked through you and that data is just generally available to anybody who's interested, perhaps in association with a project or a task and finish group that might be delving into something and we can look at that data. Yes, these reports are done annually and they're published on the Cambridge Research website once they're okayed and approved and agreed and then they can go and then they form the basis of the quarterly reviews of the data so they're not just done once and then left, we look at them quarterly to make sure that everything we're doing is still in line with the original recommendations that were made. So does each successive set of data then is it inspected by the community safety partnership for trends, for outliers, for all of those kind of things that you might get from the set of data? Yes, the quarterly reports. There's currently a monthly tasking and coordination group which is made up of members of all of those different responsible authorities that council handily outlined and they look at those quarterly reviews to understand whether things have changed. For example, it was quite clear halfway through last year that Milton and Water Beach were moving back into the list of priority areas for us to look at as a partnership which is why it's now very definitely on the list of priority areas for us. That came out of one of those reviews. Thank you, but I do have just one associated question which is around setting of expectations and targets. Do you want to take that now? If I could. So the report is excellent in setting out the list of activities but what is the expectation? The data is published, the community safety partnership digs into that data and its implications but what would be sensible is targets for this activity apart from yes, we've done the work and yes, we've published the data. Is there anything beyond that that we might regard as a goal or a target for this activity? Okay, so I'll come to Councillor Bill Handley in the first instance. Can I just remind members just to speak up a little bit, speak clearly so we can all hear. Jair, I missed the beginning of what the Councillor was saying but I think that's one of those that I'm going to have to defer to Catherine. Okay, yes, Catherine. In terms of targets, forgive me if I don't answer your question and I'll try again, but the plan has statutory tasks within it, things like domestic homicide reviews that we must undertake and then a range of project work that we can undertake that's, if you like, optional but it's very much led by the data so for example, the deep dive into milk and water which is something that we would do because the data tells us that but that's not statutory. So what we are trying to do is make sure that in each of the four priority areas we have stakeholder groups that come together and talk about what's going on there and why and what can be done about it. We also have public meetings and we've got a new commitment from police and other partners to hold those in communities on an ongoing basis. In terms of targets, we just try and work on this on an ongoing basis really and be responsive to whatever's going on in those communities. Beth, for example, has worked on things like speed watch and hate crime and antisocial behaviour, antisocial parking commissioning, detached youth work to address particular issues in different communities so that's an integral part of her role but in terms of targets other than those that are set on a statutory basis it's quite difficult to aim for something that's led by the data. Do you have a follow-up councillor to say that? No, that's fine. That's a good answer. So, through you chair, thanks to Catherine for the replies. Thank you. Councillor Sue Wellington. Thank you. On page 25 of the report it mentions that a mental health officer has been appointed and it refers to them helping with orders but there are a number of other issues within antisocial behaviour and so on where a mental health officer might be used and I just wondered, I wasn't aware of this person had been appointed and I'd really like to know the scope of their job description. Councillor Bill Hanley. Can I defer that again to Councillor Catherine? Thank you. Yes, we do have an officer principally based in housing looking at mental health across our tenants and the issues that they're facing there and that's broader than hoarding but specifically with regard to the issues that we've had coming to our problem-solving group of the CSP, which is the community safety partnership we've had a high number of hoarding cases that have been brought to our attention through the fire service because of course there was a risk and a fire hazard a risk to life because of that so in terms of the CSP work we reference that officer because they are going to be working at R and are going to continue working on those particular cases that have been brought to our PSG. I can share my job description if you need that. Kate, Sue, do you want to follow up on that? I would be ever so interested Catherine if you just, because it seemed something that we really ought to have been working for for many years and I'd love to see how it's working out in practice. Thank you. We can do a member update on the sorts of things that he's working on and the sorts of issues he's coming across, that sort of thing. Thank you for that. Can I ask one other question and that is about rural crime and things like hair coursing. I have a number of my farming residents who seem to spend their spring days watching out the window to see whether their crops are being run on by haircoursers and so on and I know there was some specialist work being done to target this. Councillor Bill Hanley. Catherine is offering to us we're going to Catherine. Yes, so we still have the rural community action team, our cat working within the police. They don't work just in South Cambridge here. They work countywide. Obviously they wouldn't stop at a district border if there were haircoursing happening or anything like that. They would travel over and continue their pursuit. So they come to our board which happens twice a year and they talk to us about their work and the sorts of cases they're dealing with. Not just hair coursing but rural crime generally and they came to the data centre report to the last meeting as well so the next one will be in October but those are available for us to share as well so we can make those available for parts of the pack of papers that go to the CSP. I think again that would be useful because some of my farming colleagues like to know what's going on across the county. OK. We'll note that. Lovely. Thank you. So we've got Councillor Heather Williams next. Councillor Bradley, did you want to come in on that point? It was an additional information on what Catherine Hawkes has said. OK, go ahead. It's just that I know through the police and crime panel that the rural crime action team has been very active and they've taken a much more robust approach to enforcement which has helped and there are now areas in Cambridgeshire where certain people have been I can't remember what proper technical police term is for it but they're banned from being there so if they were found again they would have vehicles impounded so they've taken a much more robust approach to that and I think that's helped quite a considerable degree in the part of the county that I'm in depends where else they've gone but I know that they've been much more robust in enforcement. Thank you for that, Councillor Bradley. It's very useful and Heather Williams. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. A couple of things. I'll start on the comments from Councillor Ellington. Obviously one thing as well of the RCAT team is because there are parts of my ward that you actually have to go into another county to get to so they can at least move around what I don't think is necessarily aware and I'm thinking along the lines of page 26 and 28 the communication plan when I reference this is that because there has been changes in the legislation and there has been changes to what you can report and not so you can report suspected hair coursing people going so if you were to see a vehicle likely for hair coursing with dogs and equipment you don't have to wait to report until they're actually in the field now but I don't know if everybody is aware of that so I don't know if something through the awareness campaign just about rural crime and being more vigilant particularly through the summer people are walking round more they're walking round barns more and there is a huge issue in that a lot of farming equipment were made in Ukraine so even if you have it stolen even if your insurance is going to pay you still have the problem because you can't actually get new equipment in at the moment so there is perhaps something that could be worked into the communication plan around rural crime and it can just be so in my village it happened to my in-laws there was just a raid of outbuildings that was organised there was 24 I think done in a night so there could be some advice for residents about what sort of you can actually have alarms and that sort of thing so I think that's something that potentially is missing from that list of the comms plan and also that on page 26 at the bottom it includes county lines for information social media campaigns but when we look at the communication forward plan I'm not clear where that sits in the comms plan so if we could have some clarification about that please chair Councillor Bill Hemsley I can't offer any Catherine again please sorry we can make it clearer but where it's talked about exploitation that's the main issue with the county lines that we want to try to raise awareness of because one of the biggest issues and we've had quite a number in South Cambridge of late is the issue of exploitation of young people as county lines become more prolific Councillor Heather Williams thank you obviously a big component of county lines is the drugs element of county lines we do have in this district issues with drug related drug fuel behaviour I do think that that is something that will be important for us to be part of support on I understand the exploitation often actually comes because of people that are users but equally I think there is a big piece of work you know it will be it's sad but it will be in pretty much every single village of our district and people are noticing it more since Covid so but often residents don't know where to go so I think this potentially that's missing and formed through the gaps here Catherine do you want to add anything on that just to say yes that these are not completely but most of these are areas where we will need for the CSP on the cons and there is a substance misuse board delivery board that we use to deliver the statutory expectations of the CSP and when they produce their cons that's what we would take and then use them and disseminate so it will there work this cons plan it won't just be limited to this is what will lead on for the CSP to make sure that that's included Okay, councillor Dr Martin Kahn Thank you very much I just really wanted to comment about the we've had a good response from CSP in Water Park which was in my ward mainly my brother councillor councillor Hans Raj that has actually been dealing with this which has commented how helpful it has been and now looking I believe at the posibles spreading from Water Park in Tith and Mimpington or problems it's useful to be able to target and identify and look at the background it's been helpful and the coordination councillor Bill Hamley I'm noted and pleased to hear it lovely councillor Helen Leamon Thank you chair so first of all I've been under community safety partnership for a year and I would like to thank all my fellow partners and representatives and the officers for a great work I'm looking through the report and it's a great report of what's happening there's a few technical phrases that are quite specific to the work of community safety partnership so things like the community trigger and the PSG and I think they have quite a specific meaning that's not clear in this report so I just wondered if there could be like a little glossary just a few extra paragraphs in here so that other members and also the wider community who would like to know about this work that's happening in the background they may not be aware that's actually taking place I think it's a really good opportunity for us to explain what exactly happens under the umbrella of the community safety partnership because I don't think people are always aware that is an option to help in their ward or as a resident that that's actually happening behind the scenes I think it could be quite useful if those things were explained thank you Councillor Bill Handley, well noted the glossary idea sounds a very good idea to me someone who isn't actually on the CSD would help me to do you have a follow-up at all? Councillor Anna Bradman Thank you chair just while we're thinking about antisocial behaviour I just wanted to let members of the committee know the Police and Crime Commissioner attended Water Beach Community Forum which is arranged by Southcams last night in Water Beach and one of the things that came up out of that was we were talking about antisocial behaviour and he said a group of Police and Crime Commissioners have gone to the government and required there to be a change in legislation around nitrous oxide little silver canisters that are technically used for firing up aerosol cream dispensers but are used to give people a temporary high but there is a risk because people often do that at the same time as they're driving and so in fact that is just to let people know that that's actually shortly to become illegal the use of these nitrous oxide canisters and also of course when they can't get those online they get the larger canisters which are really sizeable and there's a risk to help people know thank you chair did you want to comment on that at all no thank you take that as red thanks very much thank you thank you I wanted to reference stuff that's on page 15 .18 and then page 16.19 there's a big reference made to .18 allocated £15,000 per annum south camp digital council budget and then there is also reference on next page .19 about south camp digital council in year 2 three year agreement with the office of the principal prime commissioner £45,000 per annum CSP project officer I just wondered from the perspective of cabinet leading on this what thought had been given to the fact that the operating of the time of a high inflation so therefore the cost of doing everything has significantly increased and I know that at different committees across the council that has been conversations about the extra building cost for instance in relation to north stone and other such matters I just wonder whether or not any conversations have been had regarding making sure that the funding that was put in place previously for this remains an adequate level of funding when through both pay rises and for the ongoing costs of all services provided there has obviously been quite a significant increase in the costs that are accrued for these projects Councillor Bill Handley Yes, luckily I've got John Williams next to me Councillor Williams who is the finance lead member he tells me that these kind of things will be taken care of within the budget structure so that should not be a problem Great, thank you very much that was my question The other speakers at all In that case if I draw members' attention to page 11 and the recommendation which is item 2 there and are the committee happy for this document to go forward to Cabinet with the things that we've suggested and commented on noted Agreed Great OK So we'll now move on to item 7 which is the performance report and I think Geoff Membrey wanted to speak briefly on this Thank you chair through you with your permission I just wanted to highlight the mystery shopper exercise that's been included within your pack for this quarter Members might remember that just over a year ago now at scrutiny after we introduced the golden number and made changes to the telephony service Members of this committee wanted us to find a way of ensuring that the customer was receiving a good quality service from us and we did was commission a company that's worked with some other local authorities because this sort of exercise isn't routinely undertaken by other authorities to undertake a mystery shopper exercise this happened at the end of March and the beginning of April which is our busiest time to ensure that the results that we got were representative I think Members can see for themselves how we did and I think that they was a pretty good performance I thought it was just worth talking about the net promoter score that's shown in the pack because this is something that's slightly unusual Members might have experienced for themselves that when you've gone on to a Kansas website or spoken to people on the phone or bought a service often you're asked to say whether you'd recommend that service that organisation that firm to friends and colleagues what happened here was after the telephone call was completed the person undertaking the call was asked that question and they scored us out of 10 if they scored us 6 or less that was taken as a negative score if they scored us 7 and 8 that was considered to be passive and if they scored us 9 or 10 that was considered to be actively promoting the council that gives a result that goes between minus 100 and plus 100 South Cambridgeshire District Council scored plus 43 which is lower than we'd like our aspiration is to be the same as some of the big commercial companies that score sort of 60 plus but the local authorities that were benchmarking against the average score for those was minus 36 I think that shows the quality of the service that we're providing that if those people were residents of South camps rather than somebody employed by a company they would be promoting the council to their friends and family so I thought that was worth highlighting thank you for the opportunity to highlight that Thank you for that Jeff so now we'll open it up for questions and just to remind members that this is on the whole of item 7 spanning from pages 31 to 78 so who would like to go first on this? Councillor Anna Bradman Thank you chair so one of the things I understand is well the performance indicator report that's pages 37 onwards I notice that the little graphs that we get no longer have an X axis and it just says three year trend now I understand that perhaps the reason that has been put in instead of the years was because some people found that I'm not saying it's necessarily this committee but some people who received this report found the graphs perhaps a bit densely packed with information and so it's been simplified by doing this but I think that loses rather a lot of detail and so I would ask if we could find a compromise position between no data at all and something that makes it confusing to read so I would suggest it would be helpful if we could just have at least maybe the January of each year marked so that we could see where we are in the administrative year because obviously a lot of these scores go up and down with the administrative year I mean classic one is the number of people trying to contact the contact centre immediately after you've issued a council tax bill so it would be useful please could you return to these graphs something which is an indicator of the time of year on the graph that's one thing and I'm just pointing that up on page 37 another one is I know Jeff has given us on page 45 this is the average call answer time at CC 307 and an explanation about why that's amber because of course we're concerned we're continuing to give a good quality service to our residents and what I notice is that that January February March figure has actually increased in the time taken to answer calls and that's why it's in amber and the explanation is given is done deliberately at a quite a busy time of year and it was compared with last year and it was considered to be better but I just wanted to be sure that we were going to get we were going to try and work down from that obviously you would but maybe we could have some narrative around that I'll stop there for the moment yeah we'll take those two I think so I'll come to councillor John Williams in the first instance so I can see Phil Bird wants to come in but if I come to councillor John Williams first Thank you chair, can I point the councillor in the direction of the comment because if you read the comment you will see why in March the figure was particularly high and that if you take out those additional calls 307 307 if you take out those additional calls then actually the number of calls taken basically the same as the previous year it's not a lot of difference so we have to accept that this particular year March financial year just gone but in this particular March we did receive some additional calls because of things like the mistake that the councillor made over which actually in the end we were able to correct before our bills went out but nevertheless there were people concerned about that so you always get a higher number of calls obviously in the last month of the fourth quarter because that's when people's bills start laying on their door mats for the next financial year but nevertheless I think it's the comment I think provides an explanation for that and I think I would say overall I think we should refer back to what the Bennett Institute said about our performance in that last quarter of last one year they could see no definite worsening of our performance in that last quarter it's very similar to the fourth quarter of the previous year and I think we should if you look at the trends and if you read the comments that's borne out thank you for that Councillor Wins Phil Bair did you want to add anything to that if you're indicating to speak thank you chair and I wanted to address Councillor Bradman's first comment about the graphs so unless there's any more on the contact centre feel free to address that now yeah thank you chair so yes we did make some changes to the graphs that we got from Cabinet they wanted the graphs to be made a bit more straightforward and easier to read I fully understand that they want to see a high level of data and scrutiny probably wants to see a bit more of the details so it's a bit difficult for officers to find the balance but I'm happy to take on any feedback and comments you have today and what I propose to do is come back with some options of how we display that information in the future if that would be agreeable thank you very much for that Councillor Bradman did you want to come back that would be helpful I think just an indication of the years beginning of the new each new year so that we can see where they are in the movement of the data that would be helpful thank you thank you for putting those options forward to us Councillor Bradman did you have anything else you wanted to night okay Councillor Helen Leaming thank you chair I've got a series of questions about the mystery shopper please so I wondered whether we could understand what was the prompt for doing this exercise why why were we benchmarked against Hertfordshire in particular how much did this piece of work cost who undertook this work who is the research the research body that undertook this and how are they chosen and is this exercise that we can see in the report is it a one-off or will there be subsequent subsequent visits of doing the same exercise please I think that's five questions actually but it would be great to understand the background to this please okay I'll come to Councillor John Williams in the first instance yeah thank you chair I'll leave to Jeff to go into the details but this study was undertaken as part of the four-day week trial Jeff memory yes indeed it gives valuable information about the four-day week trial the actual prompt though was initially questions at this committee as I say about a year ago after we introduced the golden number members were commenting about the fact that the figures were looking very positive in terms of of our performance but wanted some reassurance that we were providing a good quality service and something independent rather than just what officers reporting on the KPIs so as a result of that officers went away and and took this exercise the reason as I said initially this is not routinely undertaken by local authorities so when we went out we were looking for an organisation that had worked with other local authorities said that we had a valid comparison this company had worked with 11 different local authorities in Hertfordshire which was the biggest comparator that we could get and it was a wide range of local authorities so although it didn't include the county council it also included primarily district and borough councils so what we were able to do was to have very close comparisons on the sort of scenarios that they were testing and to ensure that the information that we were getting was as valid as possible the company called Insight 6 and they've undertaken this work with as I say a number of other local authorities 11 for us this was the first time that we've undertaken this exercise for the authorities that we're compared to actually it wasn't the first time they were part of a process where they'd undertaken this before they put in an action plan they've made changes and then they had another survey so actually that actually puts us I think in an even more creditable light that we're talking about our base survey against the comparison with other local authorities that have already put in place an improvement plan the cost was around £8,000 I can't remember the exact details of that council leaving I'll get the exact figure and send it to you after this meeting but what we expect is it to be able to enable us to continue to deliver the service that our residents expect and that particularly members of this committee every time I attend remind me of the importance of ensuring that our contact centre which is the council shop window on the world as it were is providing the service that our residents need and expect so we will be seeing some benefits come out of this I think you'll see there are a couple of areas where we can do more work on adding value and personalising the calls that we get from members so I think that it was money well spent OK, councillor Leeming Thank you chair but the one question that I have remaining is this a one off exercise or will it be repeated again at a future date please Jeff memory Yes sorry councillor Leeming I didn't answer that the intention was to undertake this again in future after we've implemented an action plan we don't have a date for that yet I have to be candid and say it was although it was really positive to see what good results that we got until we had the results and we didn't know how much of an urgency there would be to undertake this review again which is why we've not had a particular date in place I think most of the work that we need to do now is quite nuanced around training and development so I suspect it would be more than a year before we undertake this survey again but I'd be interested to hear members' views on that councillor Leeming Thank you Mr memory and that's a really helpful and detailed answer and I think that's it from me thank you very much Thank you councillor Heather Williams Thank you just following on from those points chair, when you've found the costings I think it would be good to have that circulated to all members and perhaps a written note of a follow-up in the minutes so that everyone can see the costings that are associated to this in relation to the mystery shopper obviously the contact centre did very very well but I am acutely aware that those sorts of processes can actually put officers under more pressure even though they're doing a good job you know that there's somebody watching you scrutinising you and that's not necessarily a bad thing but I'm just wondering what support was put in place for officers during that period the other question I have relates to page 33 and 34 we can see that quite a bit at the moment is in the amber rather than green and it's not in a particular area it's a little bit more green to the core but it is in each area and I'm just wondering if there's a common factor as to why we're in the amber a bit delayed or whether it's just individual issues a bit of context on that please chair can we just ask council Williams which targets you are referring to cos I can't see anything on page is it 33, 34 the report I'm referring to the graphs page 33 and 34 the graphs ah okay sorry thank you okay I'll come to council John Williams in the first instance no problem but if you refer to the business plan progress report you'll see that most of the amber has come about because there have been changes in the time scales for some of the things that we've particularly North Stowe and Water Beach Deco and we've had to adjust the timetable so as amber, as it says amber is where we've had to change the end date changes in circumstances but it will still be completed there's no issue about completing that particular piece of work but it's just going to be put back because of changes in circumstances that meant that we've not able to deliver when we assumed we were going to be delivery so in particular for example I think there are a number of things in North Stowe for example the community centre where we've had to change the delivery date for that project because of changing circumstances so it's amber because it will it will be completed but it will be completed later than we expected Councillor Heather Williams Thank you Chair I do understand what the amber means that it's got a new delivery date with the exception of North Stowe my question is why have we had to extend so many delivery dates we've got North Stowe as an example but there's far more than that and the fact that there is such little green and more amber is there an overarching reason why we've had to have such revised delivery dates or if not can we have a case by case breakdown as to a reason why John Williams the explanation is given in the report it's given in the table the explanation as to why those particular items are amber and not green is given in the report but I would also say that the vast majority of projects are actually purple they've been completed so I don't think I think we should recognise that the majority of the business ban has actually been delivered that there are certain items that we're not able to deliver on time because of other circumstances and the reasons for that are given in the report I'm just going to remind something other than North Stowe and I can use that as an example John are you, whilst you're looking for that are you happy for us to bring in Phil Bird Phil do you want to come in there and then I'll come back to Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair, I'd just like to pick up on Councillor Williams' question around support for staff the contact centre staff were aware that the mystery shopper exercise was taking place they weren't informed of what questions were going to be asked they weren't aware of when it was happening we did explain to them we had a meeting and everything before had to explain that it was very much like an audit if you like a critical friend rather than an attempt to catch them out and that kind of thing we also had one of our senior contact centre members to staff acting as a champion as a go to person so if anybody felt they had any issues or problems or concerns about the exercise as a whole or any particular call that they could take it to them in the first instance so we tried to provide as much support as possible during the exercise and also just to say based on the results although as Jeff alluded to earlier there is certainly some room for improvement we think overall the results are more than satisfactory so we're having a sort of a celebratory lunch with the contact centre staff to show them how much we appreciate the work they've done and the performances they've put in OK, I'll come back to Councillor John Williams in the first instance and then back to you Jeff, thank you chair for example, I'll just come across the first one A3 which is deliver support for start-ups and small businesses and the action for that is to provide a new space for growing small businesses or shared work space for start-ups or micro businesses and the comment is Amber as we continue to work towards providing a new space for small businesses or shared work spaces that are south camps or premises and we all know that because we are in the process of doing that but it's not it's later than we expected which is why it's not green but it's down to be done which is why it's amber and not red if we weren't going ahead or we couldn't do it it would then be red but if you see from the rag for this particular for the business plan you'll see that amber means just basically things have been delayed for example let's look at another one for most south camps that are vibrant, attractive and commercially welcoming place page 64 the action is 500 additional jobs created on enterprise zones by the end of 2024-25 financial year and the reason it's amber is because the economic and legal due diligence is being undertaken with external consultants on delivery routes for the enterprise zone due to the scale and cost of bringing forward the development covered with the lack of internal expertise to deliver a commercial benefit scale it is unlikely to be completed by the end of 24-25 financial year so that's why it's amber and it's not green so the explanation is there why they are amber and not green okay do you want to come back on that at all council Heather Williams yes because if you look just below there this is my issue is the explanations amber because planning application was not submitted by end of quarter four now that is the criteria of why it's become delayed but why why was the application not submitted by the end of quarter four why did we not have the expertise in place to do things in north stone there are reasons for delays but we're not really seeing why these are coming about or how they're likely to be resolved councillor John Williams can I suggest that Ann to come in here and explain this particular issue okay if you're happy for me to come in at this point chair thank you so just to say with regards to north stone more than happy to look at the narrative that we put into the business plan update and to think about how we can better explain things and we can take that away with regards to quite a lot of the actions that are amber on north stone you'll see that they're all related so for example the action we were just talking about with the planning application that also relates to the action just above it as well so they are interconnected in that sense and that's why I see quite a few of them as amber with regards to the enterprise zone and the local centre at north stone there is quite a lot of work going on in the background but as councillor Williams was saying we're not at the point that we expected to be and this business plan was created at the start of the business plan year so that's why they're amber it's not that the work isn't happening and going on in the background it is it's just taken a bit longer and there's a couple of reasons for that one is that we've been focusing as members will know on the community buildings at north stone over the last year and as the plan outlines we are quite close to opening a new temporary community building and also to the first pavilion working on the permanent community building as well and looking forward to putting a planning application in for that over the summer and it's simply a case that to be honest as the senior responsible officer I had to make some decisions speaking with members about the capacity that we had internally to develop a series of projects all at the same time and we listened to the community and we were taking on board comments and we knew that the community centre the temporary community centre in particular as members will be aware we have brought that forward very quickly over the last year so in terms of the enterprise zone it's a very different offer to building community buildings it is a large scale commercial build and it does need external expertise that would always be the case and one of the things that we're doing at the moment is we're working with external advisers to look at how best to bring forward that offer to the market and we don't want to pre-empt that by putting in a planning application and then finding that that isn't what the market is telling us they would build that or indeed in terms of what they would like to occupy so all that work is going on just to provide that reassurance and again as I say very happy to look at the narrative and make sure that that is reflective of that work for members thank you chair okay thank you for that and Councillor Heather Williams that I think more substantial narrative is needed rather than just sort of like an excuse we actually need to know the way working through and I would say that I conclude that there is an overarching theme to this is that we don't have the resources to do all these projects so I would suggest that Cabinet reflect on that okay we'll move on and Councillor Sue Ellington hello I'm looking particularly on page 35 which is talking about green to our core and identifies a number of tasks that are being completed in order to do that but if my memory serves me correctly we were looking at developing some recycling bins which could be provided in our villages so that we could do more instead of the current bins which are not recyclable bins and just all go down in the black bin area and we were talking about being able to deliver those recyclable bins if we were running fares or fates or village whatever in order to encourage our residents to recycle when they're out and about and I see no mention of that going forward and I wonder whether it has been snowballed or muffled okay we'll come to councillor John Williams in the first instance but we have got an abode in the room thank you chair just to confirm that we have this in place so for fares for events, for community activities the waste that's produced is classified as a commercial waste so it's not something that we can collect with the domestic stream a commercial waste service they offer a bin that's clean, it's separated and the deposit at the event people can hire that in advance and then they take it away and make sure it gets recycled community groups spotting events parishes, use that facility already so we actually have this in place and it's quite popular we also have a leaflet that we make available to people that are planning events encourage them to use recyclable use reasonable materials and then also signposting them to the commercial waste collection services so we have all these in place at the moment councillor Sue Ellington just that I haven't seen them being used around my area and my understanding was that we might be looking at the bins on the playing fields and parks and so on in order again to provide recycling opportunities for our residents Bode on that do you If it's okay, everybody can take it offline directly with councillor Sue Ellington I think we may be cross-proposes but we do have facilities in place but I can speak to her offline Thank you very much that would be great Thanks Bode Thank you councillor Ellington so that's me next so mine were just two quick questions first one is on page 44 let me just bring the question out so this was in relation to blue bin waste the amount of blue bin waste has increased which is obviously a good thing more people recycling when the black bin wastes at the same time has reduced slightly my question was around co-mingling and with that final sort of raw product out of blue bin waste are we finding that people are sorting as well with the increase in blue bins or we finding that there's more contamination with the increase so happy to go to Bode Thank you chair the recycling facility we have has a threshold beyond which we then get penalized that threshold is about 6% contamination so far on domestic waste stream we have not exceeded that so what we are finding is that people actually do put materials out quite cleanly we also have quite a lot of social media posts that are quite people to rinse some of the materials for instance we are going to recycle the yogurt pots to rinse them out and put them in the blue bin so generally we do have a good uptake and we haven't exceeded the threshold when it comes to levels of contamination on the blue bin we have a bit of a bigger challenge when it comes to trade waste because of restaurants and places like that, pubs but in the domestic streams our residents are quite helpful and we are bringing out the materials and they are ready to be clean manner Thank you for that my second question was on page 41 in relation to tenants satisfaction with repairs I just wondered if there was a breakdown because this performance figure falls slightly under if there was a breakdown where residents were unhappy with repairs was that in repairs to electric works or plumbing or gardening maintenance or so on and so on are there any trends within that that we can see so again I'll come to Fruge on with the others Peter Campbell I suspect so but I'm not 100% certain so can I go away and check the dates and get back to you outside and listen please You can Peter Thanks for that Councillor Judith Griffith Thank you Thank you for inviting me I need the microphone on page 51 back to the mystery shopper where we've got the information about the contacts made and at what times and days of the week and since this is also I understand being it was used because of the four day week to see how things were going contact centre we have actually got an evening on a Wednesday evening I think operating until 7.30pm and there weren't any calls made after 5.30pm I just wondered if that would have been useful to see how that was working from a more flexible point of view from the residents being given that flexibility to call when maybe they get in from work which makes it easier if that could be considered if we do this a second time around if we're still in the four day week and if we've still got a late evening That's my first question Councillor John Williams I don't know if you've got some figures on how many calls we're having Definitely I don't have the detailed figures so far the take up is relatively light but that's often the way when you're extending your services it takes a little bit of time for people to get used to that It's a really good point Councillor Rippath the mystery shop exercise needs to be planned some months in advance and actually when we first went out and started doing the contract arrangements for this it was before we were aware of the four day week but yes if we run this exercise again or when we run this exercise again we'll make absolutely certain that we have made in that additional time Okay thank you an extra sort of comment connected would be would it maybe be possible to even run that evening slightly later because it would fall after people got home eating their dinner and they could make their calls and I think that would be really useful if that was an observation from the mystery shopper My other point was back on page 38 and I note the comment where obviously you get high volume of calls because the end of the financial year is coming up and the bills land on the door mat and a lot of people had transferred to 12 months rather than paying over 10 months I just kind of wondered if this coming year next year staffing could be sort of directed or like the extra staffing in February March because we've across a living crisis the expectation is probably that lots of people will stick with spreading the cost over 12 months as opposed to into 10 months Do you see what I'm driving out so I may not be that clear but if we could try and avoid that happening again Jane Thank you You met a good director to you Thank you I think there are two things here One is the number of calls to the call centre and the number of calls to the call centre is always going to go up when people start getting their bills and one of the reasons quite rightly is that given the cost of living situation people are going to be asking those that haven't already some people are going to say oh I understand I can spread my bill over 12 months so there's those calls but the actual spreading of bills over 12 means that we're collecting less money now at the beginning of the quarter then we would in the past and I think that's one of the things I think we're going to be looking at at the actual what we should be targeting for now given that we're starting to see quite a significant number of people change their payment arrangement so that they pay over 12 months instead of 10 otherwise we're always going to be in the red I think in the first month of the last quarter of the year so there are two separate things there but take your point about contact I'm sure Jeff's got that in mind that we do get more calls in the last month of the last quarter of the year and one of the ways we could overcome that is of course getting more people to go online and register for the so that they deal with their council tax inquiry online rather than go through the call centre Thank you Yes, thank you chair you noted and obviously that's the drive behind this to try and limit the number of people who need to call but still provide the service but I suppose if there's any way of thinking about the staffing and also the staffing and the revenues department during that kind of crunch period or whether that's something which I'm just trying to plan ahead and think of ideas Thank you Councillor John Williams, do you want to follow off at all on that? No, thank you Okay Sorry, Councillor James Howe Bray Thank you chair So I just had a question about the so this is one of the KPIs on page 39 of the report a PN511 and so clearly there is quite a lot of detail written alongside the data here and I've read it and I understand it so this is a metric that is just on the intervention point and some explanations are given and at the end then something reassuring is said which is once you've worked through the backlog then we expect these numbers to come back towards the target level and so given all of that is understood then I had a question about the way that this is presented because it seems that the method of computing a metric has changed for the last two quarters because the comments made about that in the notes here on the other hand it looks as if the graph has been plotted with the old metric used up until Q3 and then the new metric used afterwards which means that we can't really see the trend as properly and I wondered whether it would be better to present the older data computed under the newer metric so we can actually see how the trends are see what the trends look like under the new metric does that question make sense? Councillor John Williams yes it does make sense I don't know if someone would want to respond to it yep through the chair so I think what I understand is that this is the two-year metric so it's still reporting on the same the same axis it's not a change it's just that the fact that there's a basically if you do have a good performance in a previous two-year period it helps to to smooth out I suppose the performance in that period of time now we've moved into a different period of time that's what's reflected in the graph so I think it matches what it should match it's just that it's quite complicated I'm happy to take this separately and have a conversation with you if that helps so my basic question is really are we still does the graph presented to us here still show that the real trends or is it distorted by the change in the measurement metric and if the answer is no could the way you plot this change says it does show the real trends it does show the real trend so that is the trend it's just that it's impacted by good performance in 21 or prior to 21 but so we were expecting it to be amber it will now move into green and as I said I'm happy to take that separately and have a conversation with you to go through it in detail if that helps thank you that would be helpful yes, thanks very much okay Councillor Martin Cahn I really just wanted to comment on the mystery shopper reinforced some points already made which I think was very good useful exercise I was keen to see it and keen that it should be repeated I also take agree with the point that Councillor Heather Williams made regarding the impact on the staff it is very stressful but actually very helpful because feedback helps you improve the service a context a common similar sort of thing I remember when I was a student most of the departments except one didn't have any monitoring of their the lectures by the individual departments one did it for every new lecturer and while not all the lecturers were marvellous they were all competent and that wasn't true of all the departments so it really does help having a monitoring of this does really help in terms of the service you learn lessons from it and staff should be looking at it in that line I would also comment that I don't know how much and it would be interesting to know how much the social composition of the area that you're looking at or the people monitoring might affect how the service is pursued every time I get somebody to number from 1 to 10 how the service I've received I immediately reject it because I hate it that everybody now asks me to do it maybe that's my social background everything but it's something that people respond differently it may not be evenly among different groups it may not be even among how it's monitored so I think that's interesting nevertheless the difference is dramatic here and it really does comment well upon our authority that's more than could be possibly explained by any such difference but I think it is something that we do need to bear in mind that it may not just be measuring the response it may also be measuring what we're looking at so in that sense repeated comparisons between authorities will be very useful whether improving and how we're responding in the same sort of context a controlled situation and that will be interesting thank you very much councillor John Williams do you want to comment? councillor Anna Bradman thank you chair three questions here but they're all short first one is about on page 62 looking at A1 Roman 5 and this is that I think we've been confirmed recently with the CCTV policy which was questioned by the taxi drivers I think that judicial review has been found in our favour now that the amber is no longer amber it's now purple the second one relates to page 69 C3 where we're retrofitting our commercial property and it's relating to C3 Roman I or Roman hmm I think that probably should be 6 right at the bottom of the page oh see it's 1 3 1 that's right and it's talking about the building management system is installed but the connectivity to the ground source heat pump is still being built and I wondered if we could just have an update on that and when that is expected to be connected so we can see how much our lovely solar panels are generating and the last one I have is on page 75 it's D51 and it relates to councillors being provided with increased access to teams and office and it's regard to us not being papers in meetings now I just observe that I have not actually found modern gov entirely helpful I have found other methods of accessing papers online slightly helpful but I called Aaron about that this afternoon and said but can I just check how many people are using modern gov and how many people are just downloading using adobe acrobat and after a bit of discussion he said well actually modern gov is perhaps more flexible than you realise and he said actually I've been thinking that we ought to do some training offer more training to members so that they can be using the full flexibility of modern gov so I just wondered if we could add in a thought that training might training offered to members to enable them to use modern gov more easily might be a good idea but if I could have a question answers to the first two that would be helpful OK I'll come to councillor John Williams in the first instance I don't feel I've got an answer to the really be bode yeah Phil Bird Phil's Phil Bird is indicating to speak do you want to come in now Phil? I'm happy to if that's OK with you chair and bode I have an update on the ground source heat pump it was actually commissioned which means it was approved and it's working as it should on the 2nd of June we have three heat pumps and they are all working autonomously and in parallel with one another so they're able to operate independently around heating and cooling so they're working as per the design there was a slight noise in one of the pump we were not sure what it is so rather than turn them on and hope that everything's working normally we've got the subcontractor to undertake a further investigation to establish what that noise is but as of the 2nd of June they have been commissioned and are working as they should so there's just one final small hurdle to get over before we can turn it on completely Thank you for that Bode did you want to come in next? Yes Thank you very much for spotting that error I think the report was published when we were still in a period of potential appeal of the judicial review that I found in favour of SCDC so that appeal process or that appeal period I believe has now passed so this should be green Liz Watts do you want to come in here? Thank you chair and just in response to Councillor Badnam's third point about the request for training I think Maud Gove is incredibly powerful as a tool in terms of being able to manage committee papers and if members aren't able haven't yet experienced the functionality of Maud Gove then we definitely need to get on and do some more training so thank you for that suggestion I should point out I have had some training in Maud Gove and I have used it but I haven't found it easy to use and indeed in my conversation with Aaron Clark he said of course it will never feel the same as working with papers inevitably he said perhaps there's some functionality that you're not aware of so I'm very happy to have that explained to me further Okay Councillor Stovart Chair, thank you so I've got some general questions but I'm going to hang them on some of the items in the business plan so first of all page 63 and that's item A3 Roman 1 and this refers and the following the next item in the list also refers to meetings with businesses and so I had two questions in relation to that which is to what extent cabinet members get involved in interactions with business and the aim appears to be to inform businesses of the grants and the support that South Cambridge District Council can offer but what's the feedback what's the take up and when we're talking about for example in A3 Roman 1 which is a green grant scheme and I'm assuming that that is a green grant scheme which would be applicable to small businesses how do we measure that rate of take up I just want to add another comment because the same comment could almost be applied to parish councils and their rate of take up of having publicised and there is this question of the preparedness of one side business the other side parish councils to be able to bid so are they ready and does this liaison function actually help prepare respectfully businesses and parish councils to be ready with their project ideas when finally the grant scheme is announced so you could those two questions interaction with business feedback do we get it touches on in the sense of the brand values of South Cams in the business community and then this degree of preparedness that's kind of prepared in that community also amongst parish councils how do we help them basically to be ready lovely thank you councillor John Williams has indicated and Ainsworth can speak on this thank you chair so with regards to the feedback that we receive I have to say we do receive extremely positive feedback but I'm very happy to provide more detail we get feedback through a range of ways from businesses and we do collect that feedback so if I could provide a written response to committee on that we could provide a comprehensive answer if that is okay with regards to that question chair it's okay with me is that okay with you councillor Stobart yeah just fine it would be just nice to understand more and then perhaps explore it later on could I ask a second question as it were online so it's related to my second point which is and I'll just supply a little I know we shouldn't be guided by anecdote but when I was interacting with one of our parish councils about the electric vehicle charger scheme so electrical vehicle chargers are available through the excellent grant scheme but in the discussion there was well we have a car park and we think we don't think we can lose too many spaces in that car park because it's always busy and secondly we haven't thought it through properly and we think our EV charging point will get used by taxi firms so all that that said we are not ready with this to respond to this grant application we haven't really thought it through so I'm actually referring to page 71 item C5 Roman 2 which is a lot about zero carbon communities if you will in the sustainability space with parish councils what's our experience and are we missing something in the way we work with parish councils how could we make parish councils better prepared to receive this news if you will to have a list of projects which they're preparing and how could members contribute to that to the process of the parish council interaction with the grants and information schemes Councillor John Williams in the first instance yes thank you chair we're not experts in the installation of you know EV charging points what we can do and what we do do because I know the officer concerned does do this because it comes to the grants committee is that we give advice and we try to signpost people and get them in touch with people that can help design something for their because basically every community hall is different you know and it's not just physically but in the way it's used and the sort of demand that there could be around it but we're not the actual experts we can't go in and do the the sort of the mathematics for them we can't actually say this is the sort of thing you should install and you're going to get this sort of return on it we have to rely on putting the parish council if they're interested put in the parish council in touch with someone who can do that and then it's down to the parish council then to make that decision itself as to whether to go ahead or not and some parishes have decided that it's too risky or they don't believe they've got strong enough return and other parish councils have decided yes they will go into partnership with a particular supplier so it's really difficult to say that we can give the sort of level of support that I think you're asking for I think all we what we can do is we can provide a grant if the parish council wants to pursue an EB charging point in their community and we can put them in touch with people we think that we'll be able to help them that at the end of the day we can't offer that advice we don't have it in house Councillor Stobart you'll come back on through you chair thank you for the reply this wasn't really so much about expertise it's about the time if you were the kind of gestation period of the project so a community requires time to digest the idea and to wrestle with how do we respond and parish councils take some time to do this so it was really and I appreciate council Williams comments I think it's both the time and the availability and this might be officer time so as a grant is emerging as a possibility and I think zero carbon communities is great from this point of view because that interaction does take place but as a general rule you have to have that lead time to give the parish councils or whoever is going to bid for the grant just time to mull it over internalise it in the community take some views and then we act so I think it's preparedness warning officer availability would really help Councillor Bill Handley I'm pretty sure that parish councils were made aware of this through the parish council regular reports that they get and they'd have been given a contact email for more information I will check after the meeting that that was done but that's the normal that's the normal way that parish councils are notified of such things Councillor Stobart I appreciate the comments that are being made I don't want to press this any further but simply to just reinforce that point that sometimes the deadlines are quite short parish councils may not be prepared and we would need perhaps to give a little extra time and support to make things happen and just as a footnote any further it would be nice to know what the response rate from parish council were and were there hotspots where their parish councils are particularly adept and others that were particularly sluggish and it may be down to personalities but it would be nice to know Thank you for that Councillor Bradlin did you want to just come in there at all Thank you chair my recollection is that parish councils were given an early warning of the zero carbon communities grant because I remember saying to my parishes this is going to become available soon look at the website which gives you a lot of guidance about how the sorts of things you might be looking for and I'm sure other councillors in my own ward and others have done exactly the same and warned people this was coming up so I don't recall it being a sort of suddenly landing and everybody having to decide at the drop of a hat I think they were advised certainly That's my recollection Thank you for that point of information so we'll move on to Councillor Sue Ellington I think the moment has passed Sorry I put my hand up and was going to read comments but it's gone by Thank you very much Councillor Ellington Councillor Stephen Drew Thank you Councillor Cove Can I first reference to page 74 and it's in Appendix B and it's D3 I notice that we are purple on having achieved the target of at least 25% of our taxation and central government grant that our investments in commercial activity will deliver at least 25% of our taxation and central government grant income by 2023-24 I note and recall a number of times in different meetings Councillor John Williams and others involved in investment strategy and strategy in finance talking about how difficult it has become in recent years to achieve really successful outcomes from investments and I just wondered if Councillor Williams could just give us a brief kind of explanation of how the council has managed to achieve this what strikes me is a really great success despite the fact that we are in difficult times and there are great challenges in play Councillor John Williams I can first say I think you know that the business rates so we've actually got more business rates coming in than we did assume for the coming year so it's actually going to be quite difficult to match that 25% going forward because actually the income again from business rates has gone up How long is it going to last because obviously we've got people appealing against that which is why we set aside quite a bit about £8 million against those appeals we'll wait to see but certainly for the year that's gone we did achieve that 25% and it has been difficult because as you know the government changed the rules regarding a loan from the public works loan board which has limited what we can do in terms of investment purely for for yield and now we are limited in what we can invest to regeneration or social or the provision of social facility nevertheless having said that we do have a number it wasn't retrospective so we have got those investments that we took out before that change happened and those investments have been very good for us and we have also added value to those investments by doing certain things like cleaning PV and things like that so that we can charge more in range so we have been very candid in our investment and it is rather annoying that having taken so much I mean to tell you that's a pair in ensuring that not only have we got the right physical investment making sure it's it's not falling down etc and require a lot of maintenance but also we've got the right tenant there to deliver us the return that we're looking for a high return and in this area we're very fortunate with life sciences that we can get a very good return from our tenants it is annoying that we've been numbered with the people who haven't done that who have been very reckless I think a woking for example where it's ladded itself with a one and a half billion pound in debt and FoEc and other councils where they haven't been so careful with the way that they've invested and it's a shame that we've been penalised as a result of that but nevertheless I think give credit to our finance team and to Ann and the way that we have managed our investment portfolio is such that yes we are delivering that target so far but as I say to be 25% of all the taxation and grants that come in obviously we have no control over the taxation grants that other people give us so we can yes we can strive to make sure that our income from investments is 25% of that cake but for example if we suddenly have a big increase in income from business rates we can't suddenly change our income from other sources to maintain that 25% great, thank you thank you for that and as you say well done to everyone involved that's a really really good news story for everyone who lives in South Cams I can just draw your attention to the next page 75.d4 for the first part where it says we are green on track where the 12 services available for customers to self serve online I always read these things in a really positive way and it's absolutely great but I would just like to hear those involved say that residents who either don't wish to use the online services or who find using the online services extremely complicated I just always like to hear a recommitment of the council to providing the, shall we say action non online services for those of our residents who do not wish to use the online so I just want to give the opportunity to recommit to that council Williams of course can I bring Jeff in we are not going 100% AI in this council we recognise that there are people that we have residents who have difficulty with the digital world and we must ensure that we meet their needs as well as everyone else's Yes through you Jeff absolutely I think what we're trying to illustrate is the fact that we've got a commitment to ensure that not only do we maintain the other ways that people can access services particularly through our contact centre but we're looking to improve them we're really trying to focus on with our contact centre is to ensure that when somebody contacts us in the future we're going to have a fully operational CRM we're in the process of developing that so that when they speak to somebody in that contact centre they'll know not only what's happening around the inquiry that the person's asking about at that moment in time but what other inquiries they've made if there are any other outstanding issues so they can provide a holistic service to that customer also the self-serve options that we're providing for our customers to use can also be used by our customer contact staff so it means that they don't have to be an expert in all our back office systems if somebody contacts them because they want some help with say claiming benefit or doing something on their cancelled fax rather than just taking a note and referring it to the back office our contacts and staff will be able to use those self-serve options on behalf of the customer and actually undertake that process for them meaning that they're going to get instant results rather than having to wait so yes I think we're very happy to confirm that we're committed to improving the other ways of accessing our services but we do want a good quality digital service for those people that want to operate that way particularly for those people that want to access services out of hours so self-serve allows people to access things so self-serve comments have been made already about the fact that we've extended telephone hours and I think I'm pleased to let members know that over within the next month we'll be trialling web chat for the first time for the council we're going to start small tested out and develop that as we go but again that just gives people another option for ways of contacting us trying to do is ensure that our telephone lines are free for those people that want to contact us that way because other people that want to contact us online have had the opportunity to do that freeing up the telephone channel great, thank you very much so if we go back to page 31 which is the covering document there I think we have met the recommendations to review the KPI results, make comments and they have been noted by the members of the cabinet that are present is the committee happy with that great lovely so we will move on to item 8 which is the draft annual equality scheme review pages 79 to 112 have we got anyone that wants to speak on that Tumi Hawkins council Tumi Hawkins good evening chair basically the paperwork's got my name on it so I just thought I'd say a few words please do I mean obviously this is the equality scheme report that we publish annually and the one that's before you today is for the year 2023 to 24 just to say as a modern and caring council equality diversity and inclusion is quite important to us and the list you have here shows the list of actions we propose to implement in the coming year to establish this within the council and hopefully within the wider district too just to say we've started to collect some very useful statistics which I think you might find interesting in the council Bradnan made a reference to one of those before this is the equality profile headlines one of the documents is for the national context and the other one is for the south camps context which shows the diversity of the population for example the pockets of high fertility that was referred to before there used to be Cambon I think years ago and the fact that we've got some of that says the residence age 65 plus will potentially become 22% by 2031 rising from 16% in 2011 which means one in five people in south camps will be over 65 years of age by 2031 which is sobering actually but anyway I know we've had two hours already so I wouldn't say too much other than appendix A contains the actions we're hoping to take in 2023-24 and appendix B is what we've done so far with the right ratings and a lot of it is positive so we know we don't know everything so we're hoping to get some feedback from you as to your news before this goes to cabinet for approval thank you thank you very much councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins for that introduction it's very helpful and I will now open it up to members who would like to speak on this okay so we've got councillor Heather Williams I think just on some things that would maybe help make it clearer as when it comes forward to cabinet if I look at pages really page 101 which is that I appreciate the national context but I'm making assumption we've chosen those stats and put it together it says about in the top left one in five LGBT staff have been the target of negative comments when I originally read it I sort of missed it I thought it meant staff of the council and then I thought to myself oh please tell me that's not true and then I sort of looked more so I'm just saying when we're using terms like staff it might help to really clarify in where we're at and there might be something more that could be done there there are some comparisons between the South Cambridge here and the national I'll just wonder if there's room to get some more comparatables particularly if things like age or the fatality it might be helpful to sort of see that it's reflected on the national so we can see where we're setting there are going to be some bits actually that we want to look at obviously for our area but it did feel like there wasn't many comparatables so I sort of wondered why the national bit was there because it wasn't giving much to compare from thank you chair councillor Tumi Hawkins this is the first time we're doing this so yes I think we picked stuff that we thought to highlight something specifically within South Count but yes we can refine that as we go along thank you councillor Heather Williams would you like to come back on that at all? no that's all and please do make sure there's great clarification around staff lovely thanks very much councillor Judith Griffith thank you thank you I think it's really useful document and I'm really pleased to see something also with national context for the first time with kind of more detail than I've ever seen here before and there's one one thing which was like a typo but it was just we're referring still to warm hubs but we changed that to community wellbeing hubs that's on page 88 so to get that sort of language and I think the national context is really useful again I mean this is really disturbing about the number of hate crimes against transgender people which is obviously a national stat here up 26% and I'm just hoping desperately that I don't know how this can be measured or monitored locally but that those figures aren't as bad as high as that but have we got that kind of covered it felt like a lot of the other diversity points were kind of more covered with more actions I'm just really opening that up to see how what kind of research has been gone into that on a council basis councillor Tumi Hawkins Thank you I'm not sure how we can get that specifically within South Cairns but it's something that we can have a look at actually I've also got Bill Byrd who is online who might be able to add some of this because he's been part of putting all this together Yeah Bill Byrd Thank you chair Thank you Tumi At the bottom of the page it does give us some indication of where we got the statistics from and it was certainly as councillor Hawkins said this was just a first attempt what we're really trying to show here is not just what the data is but that we're actually starting to collect this sort of data and start to analyse it which is something as you've already alluded to that we've not done previously so any feedback around the type of data you want to see and the style of data you want to see will be taken on board there are more places we can gather this information from and we can delve deeper into the areas that we're already looking at i.e stone wall and the home office reports etc so more than happy to take aboard any comments and try and get this to a place where how it pleases everybody basically Yeah thank you for your answer councillor Anna Bradley Thank you What I observe and I'm sure Phil Burden and the team are very well aware of it is that there's quite a lot of this data is some of this data is available through Capture Insight as well isn't it and you know I would have thought that would be a good place to gain some extra data from the I felt certainly on this obviously the things that concern us are on the south Cambridgeshire page and I thought actually the team had done a good a good comparison with national data in most of these cases and certainly bottom right male residents in full time work it was a comparison with the national data as well so I think the team have done a good job of trying to show us in the context of the national data and I think the data if you wanted a comparison in Cambridgeshire because it comes largely from police data for things like stop and search that we would have that data for Cambridgeshire not just national so you could do a a Cambridgeshire comparison thank you I think it's an excellent report Thank you for that Councillor Bradlin Councillor Dr Chavie Hawkins your comment on that at all No, we'll take that away and hopefully by the time you see this report again it will be a lot more interesting with more data than we see at the moment I think also the reason if I may, sorry chair through you I think the other reason for putting the comparison is it's valuable to see it in context because otherwise it can look misleading if we can see that we've got so many of something but actually that's the same as every other county you can see we're doing no worse than anybody else but if we've got a stat that's higher or lower then we can see that there's an area that we might need to put some attention into Thank you for that Councillor Richard Stobart Thank you chair I'm just going to endorse a few points I think the infographics are great it's a very clear way of presenting data regional, national and if we could see that's more of that as there are more dimensions to the data up here that would be helpful against objective one to understand the diversity that exists within South Cambridgeshire is this more than just a kind of data point but there's also a trend and the trend could be taking us in different directions we didn't talk about the trend in regard to the over 65s but there will be other trends that are perceived from data so I'd just suggest that as another aspect of the data that you might look at and there's a series of if you're partnerships and access to other data but there may be others and I wonder if the team responsible could keep a watching brief for the sources of data there are many in diverse and you can take data from social media you can take data from studies and those studies might be national in scope or regional in scope but that would be a kind of watching brief to look at emerging sources of data so there are just a few suggestions and one other thing that might be part of the project is that perception or perhaps an understanding where South Cam sits in terms of its preparedness to handle this data is it in the top 25% of districts that are looking at this kind of data how do you make that comparison then adopt best practice so there are just a few suggestions chair thank you for that councillor Dr Chimmy Hawkins you want to comment on that yeah it definitely will not be able to say South Cam is with anyone in the top 10 for doing something really good but it's trying to get so much data we need to decide if you can be a bit more specific as to this for the trends for example is that for the 65s because we kind of know we have an ageing population but it's actually useful to see some real figures so it's not just as we say anecdotal you want to know on the 18s on the 24s if there's any specific group or trends that you think would be useful for us to look at then find let us know what those are how we can have a chat with the team and see where we can get them from and how we can do the comparisons thank you thank you very much councillor Richard Stogart well through your chair thanks for the response councillor Stephen Drew thank you really strong report as you referred to councillor Hawkins just to pick up a few things and just maybe ask the council's position is on it in relation to things that maybe might be seen as being outside of our remit but obviously we're choosing to flag it up quite rightly but I'm just wondering what you think the council should be doing to deal with this so for instance on page 99 where we have the first of the infographics it's the bottom left to stop and search it already looks like a very poor performance a very worrying figure when we are saying that black residents of Cambridge are ten times more likely to face stop and search then white residents but actually that interestingly is even worse than the national figure so the national figure according to the office national statistics shows that black people in the UK are seven times more likely to face stop and search and in Cambridgeshire we see that they are ten times more likely to face stop and search so an already really bad picture actually apparently is even worse in Cambridgeshire so I'm just wondering from the perspective of the district council what you feel that we as councillors or you as administration can be doing in relation to work that the police in Cambridge are engaging in to deal with what is clearly a very concerning figure Thank you chair that is a figure that concerns me and declaration of interest and all of that group and as a council as an individual is one of those things that you talk to your children about means you be careful don't get involved with the police now as a councillor actually I was sent a report recently about somebody who experienced racial discrimination and I go it's expected but it's not something I think that we as individuals or as a council can do other than to talk to the police within the partnership and say look this is what the stats are saying this is what our residents are saying can you make sure that your officers are aware of that behaviour and stop doing it that is all we can do but hopefully it might improve but seeing stats like this certainly we should be sharing with them because it's their role that's causing this Thank you second question on the same infographic I'm wondering whether or not this I may be completely incorrect but the infographic related to the gender pay gap refers to male residents in south camp's journey on average £4.3 more per hour than female residents compared with a £1.22 per hour difference nationally I'm just wondering if the district council has any sense of why that might be the case that our figures within south camps again are even worse on a figure that we already know nationally is problematic I have thought in my head is why it might be but I wondered if you had any thoughts about how the district council could be involved in that and why it might be happening Thank you chair No I don't necessarily know why it might be happening how I feel Bird might have a bit more detail on that Thank you Chair, no I have no idea why that is the case all we've done is collect the statistics unfortunately if there is a piece of work that we can undertake to try and establish that we'd be happy to do so but at this stage all we've done is collect the data without really analysing it so far so I'm sorry I can't answer that question No that's fine I raised it in part because I'm always struck by the fact that we quite rightly talk very positively about the economic benefits of being south camp which the council Williams referred earlier to how that feeds through to be able to charge my events or such like but it's clearly an issue I'd probably be more than Councillor Stobart coming Yeah Councillor Stobart Sorry to come in very late but I was just thinking about generational diversity as it were because our recent history has been marked by very different generational behaviours and influences and even down to what we might call COVID generation those who had their education really seriously affected by the whole COVID situation but am I right in thinking that this would fit in the general equality frame and particularly if we're thinking of mental illness amongst teens that has been a very dynamic kind of situation all kinds of social policy as well so does that fit in this frame or is it for some other consideration Thank you for that Councillor Stobart I will also bring in Councillor Heather Williams and then I'll come back to Councillor Drew and then back to the cabinet It was just in relation to the male residents in poor time work earning more than female residents just something to bear in mind there was a study recently and I can't think of it off the top of my head but basically said where you have areas that are more affluent which I think we all agree is and you have higher earning powers it's more likely for households to go to one dominant worker household that doesn't mean that the other person wouldn't have a job therefore some work but that there was more likely to have a one parent working household because the income is higher to support that and we do know that predominantly in that situation it is more likely for women to stay at home than men not always the case but it can be so it might be worth just ensuring that we understand fully how those figures have been brought together whether they've just looked at working age for women of which case there's because you normally find in more deprived areas there's more necessity for two parents to work so that could reflect in the figures slightly not to mention the nature of the industries here as well Thank you for both of those points so I'll come back to Councillor Drew Yeah fine thank you my third one which again which may be in my way may be very simple may prove not to be I've got a reference sheet to page 108 it is really referring to recruitment and obviously we are aware that issues related to diversity of staffing groups and the issue of ensuring that you are employed that the council is employing the most diverse workforce for all the benefits that we know come from that of having the best people I'm just wondering within this if there is any specific HR policy or actions that are being taken by the council to give you an example I'm aware that some employers in order to avoid unconscious bias within their recruitment will ensure that the people making decisions on who is interviewing have no information regarding the name or the age or the gender or the nationality ethnicity of the person so they just make the decision based on the information in front of them I know it's something where I have done that in my professional life in order to avoid unconscious bias so I just wonder if there is anything the council is specifically doing at this stage to fulfil these targets from that perspective Councillor Chimmy Hawkins Thank you Jack on that last point I don't know but perhaps Archif Egezek will be able to say something on that Jack Menbray I'm sorry it's too coming from Yes Jack Menbray Thank you Yes indeed Councillor Drew people selecting people for interview don't get to see the age, the ethnicity of the person sometimes if people include a CV they can possibly work out the age but we do everything that we can to ensure that and we do train our managers when we do recruitment on ensuring that they don't have unconscious bias and that they're selecting purely on grounds of merit Great, thank you very much I'm happy for you to move on at this stage I'll just come back to Councillor Chimmy Hawkins Thank you Jack Just to pick up on the two points made by Councillor Stilbert and Councillor Williams Thank you for that more in-depth look as to what the reasons might be for those discrepancies and obviously the points you've mentioned will be part of what we look at Thank you Thank you for that Okay, so we've got Councillor Helen Leaman Next Thank you Chair I'm actually really interested in the appendix B seeing how these stats might form targets or in our policies but actually my point on this report is actually slightly tangential I was looking at the information on page 109 talking about the disability assessment of our offices and that at the moment we haven't been able to complete that because of the greening of south Cams Hallwork and all the building work that's been undertaken I just wanted to check that although we hadn't been able to do this formal disability assessment I just wanted to make sure that we had put adequate interim arrangements in place and there have been some adequate things put in place to ensure that we were meeting our disability compliance Councillor Chymri Hawkins Yes we have we've rolled that into the action plan for 2324 so we'll be doing that Thank you Thanks Is that okay? Lovely You know Okay so page 111 it's just a quick point firstly I would like to also say that I think the reports are very good one it's easy to understand it's got a lot of detail in it and I like the graphics and things that we get I think it's really good so third row down where we've got we're talking about the gypsy and traveller accommodation needs assessment I'm pleased to see that this is now in progress but really I just wanted the cabinet member to comment on whether she thinks we're doing enough like fast enough given some of the statistics in the background around that group being particularly discriminated against in many areas and at a disadvantage are we doing enough fast enough to make sure that we are accommodating that group and I know that is not an easy thing and the council is working towards it but if you could just comment on that that would be helpful council tuning Thank you chair we definitely are aware of the issues with the gypsy and traveller community and I can assure you that we're doing the very best that we can it's not easy the expertise in that is something that we have to get those of you who are planning committee know about Smithy Fein and how long it's taken to get to where we are now but we definitely are aware of the requirements and we're doing our best to make sure that we provide for them especially looking at it also in terms of the emerging local plan lovely thank you for that and Councillor Anna Bradman Thank you I was just ruminating on the numbers that we were looking at earlier on the business of the males earning more than females compared with the difference nationally and it was just a word of warning we've all been suggesting you could get data from X, Y and Z and I just think it would be a wonderful exercise for more or less on Radio 4 because I just think we need to be careful that we are actually using comparable data because it's all very well saying well in South Cams we've got this and nationally it's that and I know that the sources have been referenced but we're looking at different parameters in the South Cams version and the national context I'm sure everybody will have thought of this but it's just to make sure that we are actually using data that has been calculated from the same base data when we're comparing across the two from South Cams to national Thank you Councillor Dr Chumi Hawkins We will definitely make sure that we're comparing apples and apples not apples and oranges Thank you OK We've got Councillor Sue Ellington Thank you I just I'm looking at page 101 and under hate crimes it talks about a rise of 26% from 2021 I am always very sceptical about percentage rises if my maths is correct and I know there are people there who probably have got better at maths than I have but if there were four people who had hate crime in 2001 and there's five people now I believe that would be a 26% or 25% increase and I think we need to have figures not percentages they are really really deceptive in providing information in my being Councillor Chumi Hawkins Not at your Thank you very much Councillor Sue Ellington Did you want to come back on that at all? Thank you to me Thank you We now have Councillor Judith Griffith Thank you for letting me come back a second time Talking about context of figures I like on page 99 it's been referenced already about the high fertility in Milton and Water Beach that could be a good thing especially if we've got a lot of older people we need to be careful later and that provides funding in the future for that section of the population that's actually a national issue as well with the ageing population and we don't know exactly where that all lies and Milton and Water Beach has had and will have in the near future quite a few younger people moving in into the area and that makes perfect sense and I know it's bigger and that's nothing to do with the comparison but I think somebody said Tambol used to hold that title but Newtown, young people and I just wanted to point out that may in fact be more positive than people think I felt that when reading the report as well but to Councillor Chewney Hawkins It's one of those things that will change over time as the new towns are coming on board really and expected as younger people moving in fact I spoke to somebody in Codicob today who said we won't care because we need to bring up a family so Indeed I think that's a real positive if people want to be there and the facilities there and that's a welcome hit Okay, so I think that's all the speakers that I have so if we go back to page 79 and look at the recommendations at point 3 I think we have covered that in that we've made comments and reviewed the documents that are in front of us on that agenda item and thank you Councillor Chewney Hawkins for coming to introduce that as well and we all happy as a committee that we have done that agreed? So we'll move on to item 9 the work programme which starts at page 113 to 128 so I was just going to say that Councillor Stephen Drew Ian Senior and myself are having meetings regarding the work programme and members know that they can bring things to any of us to bring forward or things that they would like to come up on that work programme Did anyone else have anything they wanted to add or bring up at all at this stage? Okay So I will move on then to item 10 which is the date of the next meeting Ian the date of the next meeting is the 7th of September so if you just note that and it is at the slightly later time as it was today at Hubhouse 5 so thank you all for attending the meeting and I will now close the meeting