 We are now live. Good morning, Members. Officer to any Members of the Public who are viewing this live stream, this meeting, welcome to the Meeting of The Civic Affairs Committee. My name is Sir, we are joined by councillor Mills. Good. My name is councillor Peter Fayne. I'm chairing this meeting of the Civic Affairs Committee. Felly, mae'r cwmysgogol ymlaen nhw'n mynd i gyd ddweud y byddai'r Constitwyr o'r reoliolaethau elektriol i ddod yn credu a'r lleololen o'r standynau etiol. Felly, mae'n rhaid i'r newid o'r bydio o gynhyrch, mae'n rhaid i'r cwmysgogol ymlaen nhw, ond mae'n rhaid i'r cyffredinol yma wedi bod yn rhaid i'n mynd i'r cyfeirio ar gyfer y ddech chi, Unrhyw gweithio cwrs diolawd yn ymweldio'r cyffredinol gen i'w peth yn gwathio'r cyffredinol a bitodol yn ymweldio'r cyffredinol ddeuciog h occasionu Before Speaking gymwysig ymweldio'r cwrs diolawd. Dwi'n rŵn i'ch gweithio cyngor ar i Llyfrin Llywodraethau, arnyn nhw, mae fyddai'n ddysgu'r cyffredinol i'w canedlau dros gyllidoio yllaf yma. I'm not going to read out the rest of this. I think it is familiar to us all, how the system works now. So I can confirm that this meeting is quarried if at any time a member leaves a meeting. Would they please make that fact known to me so that we can record it in the minutes? I haven't been asked to do this, but I am going to just the record ask members to record their presence today. So I'm Peter Fein. We don't have a vice chair because sadly Councillor Paul Bear Park had a bereavement last week. I've sent my personal condoneses to him, but I suppose we ought to have a vice chair for this meeting. Do I have any volunteers to take on the role of vice chair from either side of the chamber as it were? Councillor Martin Cahn. That's what I call a volunteer. You need a proposal, don't you? Thank you, leader. Seconder, affirmation. I think we're all agreed on that. Thank you, Councillor Cahn. As I say, I'm going to just go around the meeting and ask you to just briefly introduce yourselves before we progress to the business. So Councillor, I'll give Councillor Cahn a moment or two to get registered. Councillor Henry Batchelor. Morning chair, Councillor Henry Batchelor, one of the members for the Lins of War. Hardly any introduction needed. Councillor Bridgesmith, a member for Gamelin Gay. Councillor Susan Van Defen, member for the Lins of War. Apologies, chair, because I won't be able to stay very long at all today. We understand that you have other obligations, so thank you for joining us if fairly briefly. Good morning chair, Councillor Lina Niaddo, a member for Hardly. Welcome to all, and we have, as usual, support from Henry Francis and from our monitoring officer. Patrick is the member of Democratic Services looking after us today. And I think we're joined online by one councillor. Councillor Brian. Good morning. Right, let's... Thank you. Patrick, do you have any apologies? Yes, chair, we have apologies from Councillor Paul Bear Park. Councillor Heather Williams said she will be late, but she will be Italian. She will be doing his good. Do any members have any interest to declare in relation to any of the items of business on the agenda? I see none. Obviously, if any interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point. I believe members have had circulated the minutes of our last meeting on 12 September. Has everyone got those minutes? Can I, any particular corrections needed on those minutes? Or can I take those approved minutes of a proposal? Seconder, thank you councillor. Affirmation committed. Thank you. Those minutes stand approved. Anyone want to vote against that? No, I don't think so. So the main business starting item four, the review of polling districts and polling places for 2023-24. So, may I ask Andrew Francis to present his report, which I think we all have attached at page seven onwards. Thank you chair, good morning members. You'll recall at the September Civic Affairs Committee meeting we talked about kicking off our review of polling districts and polling places, which is a statutory requirement that every councill in the country is going to have to complete within basically the next 16 months. So the committee agreed that we could open consultation and that consultation took place over October and November. The report you've got in your pack summarises the responses that we received from interested parties. And it offers some recommendations that the committee can make to council to update our schedule of polling districts and polling places. To run through quickly for members what those changes are. So firstly, we proposed to split Camborn into four polling districts. Historically we've always sent everybody in Camborn to the hub to vote and we've changed that over COVID. And now we're bringing the register in mind with the practice that we'd already started doing. It needed to happen anyway because there were too many people voting in one place. So splitting the register into four different polling districts along the greater, upper, lower and west Camborn areas. We've deleted an area in Willingham which was required due to a community council review that took place a few years ago and resulted in a mismatch of boundaries. So that's purely an administrative thing and no one in that small polling district will notice any difference when they come to voting. We've confirmed arrangements for polling district RA2, which is part of Fenditon, just to confirm that we're going to be putting a polling station in Marley from now on. We updated the polling place for OA3, which is Impington South. We call it Impington South. It's actually the part of King's Meadow in the area. So it's over the King's Meadows road from Orcher Park. Unfortunately, the city council demolished the Meadows community centre, rebuilt it over the boundary in the city. So we just had to update our polling district scheme to reflect that people will be treading over the boundary just about to go into the city council area to vote, but it's still, to all intents and purposes, the same polling station. And thanks to Councillor Garvey, who rightly pointed out that I should have put something in about Eddington and didn't. So we created something that wasn't in the proposals, and that's a new polling district for our part of Eddington. So I'm sure members are aware that Eddington is sort of bisected by the city council, district council boundary. So part of Eddington falls in South Cambridgeshire. And it was right that we created a polling district for Eddington, so we've done that now in this proposal anyway. So hopefully you'll agree that we can recommend that to council for adoption in February. Where does that appear in our list, please? It's the third appendix, so appendix C, which gives you a map of what we're proposing to adopt as the boundary for that new polling district. It isn't just for Eddington. Obviously when you have an area like Eddington, which is partly in South Cambridgeshire and partly in Cambridge City, we have to think carefully about what the best way of dealing with that is. And it would have been quite difficult to point this out. I mean, in my opinion, to create a small polling district just for Eddington. So what we've actually suggested is that we draw the polling district boundary along the A14. So that actually encompasses parts of Gertan Parish, which is south of the A14. So the areas around Welford of Way, that sort of area, and we'll put in place a polling station for that whole polling district, which will be more accessible for everybody in Eddington and in the part of Gertan south of the A14. Sorry, if I'm getting a bit too local for everybody. We need to know, but there's a proposed polling district boundary there. The other thing that would have been difficult is if we were to have a narrow polling district just for Eddington and not to include the other parts of Gertan, is that we probably would have had to send them to the same polling station that the city council would be sending their electors to in Eddington, which is not really good practice and we ought to be trying to avoid really if we can do. So that's why I think this is the best option. Thanks to Councillor Garvey for raising this with me and I was a bit annoyed. We talked about this in the team and then I neglected to include it, so apologies for that. I have talked to Councillor Garvey and Councillor Stobart about this and they both offered their support for the proposed boundary for this polling district. So that's really it in a nutshell in terms of what we're trying to take forward. I think all of these changes will either be unnoticed by residents if they're administrative in nature or that improve things, I think. So hopefully members feel happy to make these recommendations to council. Happy to take any questions? Council can't. I've written to you yesterday. First of all to say that I'm happy about the movement of Kingsmeadow polling district to the new community centre. It's in my ward, so the fact that this in the city is a matter of a few metres, so it's not really a concern. I did raise the issue of the part of Milton Parish which is detached, Fenrodde Chesterton, which is votes, as I understand it, in the community centre in Milton. That was quite a way. It was awkward. We go through a large area of the city or by footpath along the canal, at least the river of Toparth, and it's an area which is of people, generally it's not a very prosperous area. It's many people living in mobile homes, so I think that that's quite a disincentive to actually voting and it would be very much more desirable if you could have a polling station close in the area or even perhaps just over the area in the city would be much more accessible to the area. You said that it was difficult. Is it possible to review that to see if a new polling station could be provided somewhere more accessible to them? Not necessarily in the thing, but close by. Thank you, Councillor Cahn. The first thing I'll say for the purposes of this review, Milton said that it's O2 in our polling district scheme, it's identified as a separate polling district, and I think no one's suggesting that should change. It should be separate because it is quite unusual, really, detached from the rest of the parish that it sits within. So that's fine as it is in that respect. I would give some assurance to Councillor Cahn and the rest of the committee that we've looked at this a few times over the years. I've been here a long time now, so I've looked at it a few times over the years. It's always proved quite difficult to find a suitable location, and I noticed in the report, and I didn't mention it, it may go should have done, that we've already said in response to a few electors who raise individual concerns that will take a few of those areas away and keep on the review over the next period, and I'm happy to do the same with that. So it's been a few years since we've looked at it, and there are a few businesses down that area that might be amenable to us. I mean, one of the big problems is there's no, it's a narrow road with no easily-hierable buildings, and that always puts us in a difficult position. So, I'm very happy to accompany that with what I've said. Actually, you might be interested in that, Histon and Impington, one resident raised an issue with our voting arrangements in there, so I've said to them that we're happy to review that over the next year, along with gambling there as well, because somebody raised that. So, I'm happy to include OT2 in that as well and see if we can improve things. So I totally agree with you, Councillor Cahn, that the current situation is less than ideal, and I'm happy to take that away and see what we can do. I hope that's okay. Did you have any further responses to the appendix B suggestions, including from Councillor Graham Cohn, in relation to, for instance, the temporary caravan? What's the situation on that now? Yeah, so full-born Beechwood is the area of full-born Parish, which is butchery Hinton. It's where the full-born Tescos is, and our current station at the moment is sited in the car park of full-born Tescos, which, you know, on the face of it sounds unsatisfactory, but if you go out to full-born Beechwood and you walk, and my team won't thank me for it, but I asked them to go out to full-born Beechwood and walk from where people live to the car park in Tescos, it's far more accessible than any of the alternatives in that polling district at the moment. So there are, there is a sort of sports and social club, which has been built, newly built around the, I think it's called Vision Park. I can't remember to my head, the business park area, but it's a really long walk, and I'm not keen on making people walk. For exactly the reasons that Councillor Dock's just mentioned really, don't want people to walk a really long way. We keep all of these things, it's not always visible. I appreciate that. We keep all of these areas under review, especially the ones that have unusual polling arrangements, and we always, we always want to do the best we can for residents, and if any option comes that is, I don't know, more secure and more safe, because safety is one of the biggest concerns in the car park, frankly. How do we keep people safe? How do we set up our polling station in that car park to ensure that no one's put a risk because it is in a car park? We work really hard to make sure that happens, but we will always open to change, and as things develop in that area, then we'll keep that under review, and if we can do better, we will do better. And we always ask people to send us. If they've got options, send them to us, wherever you have to look at them. We're happy to continue using a caravan led by a parishioner? Yeah, well, they're not really led by a parishioner. They're not from my caravan, it's under the bus or anything here, but we pay for their caravan, so they are hired, and they're not the sort of voluntary offered. And in fact, the one that we use in full-on test goes now is a mobile library, which we rent from the county council, so we now use a mixture of three or four caravans and a couple of mobile libraries, which we're trying to use the county council to get a little bit of money out of it, and they have a bit of visibility, and I'm not going to pretend it's perfect, it isn't. But it's a slightly more secure range in addition by the parish council than by the caravan led by a parishioner? Yeah, it isn't that. And to be granted the alternative to one-pointing stations is you start talking about porter cabins, which come in at £3,000 plus, and you need a site to put them on as well. So, you know, not keen to go down that route unless we really have to. It might be at some point in the future we do have to, but that's not where I want to end up, really. And what was your response to gambling-gay parish council suggesting that they might need more than one-pointing station in gambling-gay? They're hosted in the same building, so that is something that I think maybe is not obvious to people from the outside. As soon as you go to a polling station and you're asked to split off by which road you live in, that immediately will tell you there are two different polling stations operating in that building, so that's for the purposes of making things quicker. Again, if we start looking at those sorts of things, then that opens up, actually, frankly, the whole district, and all of a sudden we'll end up with 250 polling stations instead of 125, which is already quite a lot. So it's about balancing acts, what's accessible, and in truth, I'm not dismissing any of the input from anyone that came back to us. These are really the first times I've heard any of these things come up, so we'd need to do a bit more digging and work to figure out whether we think there's legs there or a better way of doing things. Again, I've offered that we will keep all these things under review over the next year. See how we go on. Councillor Heather Williams, do you want to comment on this, Councillor Williams? Thank you. Yes, just in relation to Tadlow, which I think is the only polling district where it's actually in somebody's house, because there isn't anything. That house was up for sale at some point, and there's potentially a change of ownership, just checking you've checked back in with them and that we're still all good to go. If not, the church may be finished soon. Yeah, we used to have a second one in Connington, and we moved away from that to the pub, which I think works better. In Tadlow, I'd need to touch base with my team, but I think we've booked them for the second of May already, so I think that's already, that booking's already in place. Again, these sorts of situations really evolve over time. You can't really, you can't really, you want it to happen that you can have a house that's suitable and the people that live in that house are happy to run the polling station. And so, yes, we need to start contingency planning for Tadlow, but I think we're all sorted for the second of May. So, in conclusion, it seems that there are some minor changes still to be made to the table. Council of Milms, sorry, Council of Milms, I'd missed you. Sorry, attending virtually has its own issues, doesn't it? I think the screen is too small for you to spot you, Council of Milms. Yes. I've been called now, so I'll speak. I just wanted to add another slightly parochial issue, Trumpington Meadows, and I'm sure Andy Francis is aware of that. It's another place where we've got the boundary, the city boundary and south camps running us through the middle of the development, and that development is being extended as we speak. And I just wondered whether he'd got that on his radar. Thank you. So, we have a dedicated polling station in South Trumpington, which is at the school, but on my radar, the electorate in that polling station has grown really significantly really quickly over the last couple of years. So, yes, on my radar already. I think it will still suffice in the school, but I'm certainly aware that we need to keep that on our radar to make sure that what we are doing is fit for purpose, because some of these areas where we have a lot of growth, if you stand still, then they can all of a sudden not be fit for purpose anymore. But, yes, certainly on our radar, Council of Milms. I think I was particularly interested in understanding how the electorate was guided as to where to vote, because if city council elections, for example, coming up this time or in thirds, I don't know if there is an election in May there. But if we're having both councils being elected to, what happens? Does that polling station switch from being operated by the city? So, we have a polling station in our district in South Trumpington, in Trumpington Meadows Primary School, and I don't, off the top of my head, know where trumpington ward electors go to vote. I have to say I don't know, so I'm afraid that's a city council question and I don't know the answer, but it would definitely be a separate building to where our electors go and their poll card hopefully makes it clear to them where they go to vote. I mean, there's always, look, there's always a risk on these city fringe areas that people go to the wrong polling station on polling day and we have a dialogue with city council colleagues to make sure we can redirect people if that sort of crops up on the day. I don't think it does too much, to be honest, so hopefully not too much of an issue, but yeah, we'll keep it on. Yeah, putting it on your radar, thank you. Any other comments? Just simply wanting an update on how information is going about the requirement for an ID, which will be obviously a matter for coming elections. I don't think we've had one yet, which you need to show in South Cambridge and so it's interesting to know what preparations have been made. So, yeah, we haven't had an election with ID yet. We are ramping up the work we're doing to try and communicate that with electors and hopefully everyone saw there was a full page Electoral Commission advert in the South Council magazine that's hit doorsteps over the last few days and I'm about to lobby the magazine members to do the same for our spring copy of the magazine because I think it's really important that we need to try and shout about this as much as we can. We've sent large posters to all of, maybe not all, but as many of the public buildings in our districts as we could think of and many of the polling station venues that we could think of anywhere that we've interested. If members want any voter ID posters, they can drop by our bank of deaths and pick some up. We've got some that you can take. If you can think of places in your parishes where that might be helpful, we're really happy to do that. Hopefully early in the new year some of our bin lorries are going to be carrying voter ID messaging on the side of them. So I'm really excited about that and very happy to talk to any member that thinks of any ideas that we could try and cover because we don't want people turning up in May without ID. So we're doing our best to try and get that message out there. I'm going to keep that separate from this. I've just come to Council Smith and then back to Council. I have the audience. Thank you very much. Since Ganagay's been mentioned, the ICA Hub is the only fully accessible on-a-bus route venue with ample car parking. Simply isn't anywhere else. I'm not sure I'd waste resources to bring it under review. I've never ever had a complaint in 16 years and actually it's big enough it means that people stay and they socialise afterwards because there's plenty of space for them to do so. The most important point that's been raised in the second appendices is about accessibility and I've realised that's quite challenging if we're using things like caravans. That's the most important thing that I think we should be striving for, full accessibility and disability compliance. Just to be really clear, when we use caravan, we undertake polling in the awning and the door is not attached so no one has to go into the caravan. It's all level access. The mobile libraries are a bit more challenging but they do have lifts to help people get in so they're all accessible, those mobile stations. We spend a huge amount of time training our staff to try and help them support people with access to disability issues. We really want to exclude no one. There's three people. Two people if it's possible. Councillor Williams. Thank you, Chair. It's just in relation to the voter ID but also postal votes applications and things like that are changing quite differently to make sure that if you've done something in the magazine that it covers postal vote changes as well. Of the Elections Act continues to bring lots of change in the world of elections and what Councillor Williams is talking about there is that over the last three weeks it's become possible for people to apply for a postal vote online. So that's now, instead of a paper-based process it's a web-based process which is good. It opens it up for people hopefully but it does still require people to take a photograph of their signature which is not something that's totally easy for everybody. So again, there's more changes to overseas electors coming and then after the elections next year changes to the voting rights of EU citizens as well. So that's something that I will be coming to members to talk about I think later next year to give you maybe do a bit of a briefing on that to go through some of these changes. But for us a lot of change all at the same time especially with the uncertainty of when a general election will be as well. All that's stacking up at the moment. So Councillor Williams there will be some further changes and a further update in a future date on this committee but let's not go too much into that today. Chair, I just wanted to ask I'm imagining that the comms team is working with you on that because it's a big thing. I mean one of the things is sharing all the information with members so that we can push out to residents but it is a big thing and I'm hoping that there will be a comms plan on that. Yeah, so we have a member of my team who part of her role is to try and engage with communities and so we do lots of work in care homes we do lots of work with students so we've pretended fresh as fares at CRC and Gertan College this year. If any members have ideas that they think we could get into or do better then I'm really happy to hear them always happy to hear them and part of what Beth does in my team with the comms team to try and get those messages out. Any ideas, I'm always open to hearing them really happy to talk about that. Andy, thank you for that and for the recommendation. Just before I put this to the committee for approval otherwise can we just check that this appendix A which you need approval or is this the whole report? Appendix A reflects all the changes that I've talked about so that is what I would need the committee to recommend adoption to council. As we talk about loads council only is responsible for polling districts and polling places so they're the bit we need to nail down. If we say we'll keep polling stations under review then we can do that outside of the adoption process so there's no issue with that so no as long as the committee can recommend to council adoption of appendix A as our new scheme. The reason I asked about where Eddington is earlier is I couldn't see that change reflected in appendix A have I missed it? If I point you to... When it's listed by Ward looking at Gertan we call it QD to Eddington and Gertan South. Okay so it is. So can I have a proposal that we approve of appendix A? Council Henry bachelor somebody would like to second that proposal Council Bridget Smith Are we all in favour? Are we all in favour? I think we can take that by affirmation. Anyone against? Right. The committee therefore recommends to council that it adopts the revised schedule as set out in appendix A. So we come to item 5 which is the independent member of the Audit and Corporate Governance Committee and this has come to us from the committee. Before we get into discussion may I ask Jonathan Tully to present the report please. Thank you Chairman and good morning committee it's nice to be back. So this is a follow-up report on appointing an independent member to the Audit and Corporate Governance committee as their best practice. If I can direct you to page 23 of your agenda packs it highlights in the first few paragraphs in the Executive Summary the journey so far. We've taken it to Audit and Corporate Governance Committee then it came to Civic Affairs and it went to full council where it was approved but with the amendments that we need to define a resident of Cambridgeshire for the purposes of the change to the constitution. So this report really sort of details that work and we're then going on to page 24. I suppose the key commentary here is that we've looked online and there is no one single definition of residence. We've highlighted some of the more common ones in paragraph 16. So this does give us some flexibility to define our own definition of residence and we've proposed that in paragraph 17 that it is a person who lives or has their home in Cambridgeshire. So that gives us a few options to agree our definition as was asked by the council that officers propose the term for residence or for the committee to propose a different definition. And then that then enables us to proceed with the recommendations which are the same as before just with now defined residence. So that's really all I have to say introducing the report. Thank you, Jonathan. I would stress that we have already discussed this matter both as a committee and a council of Bridgesmith. Yes, please. So I appreciate so I understand that agreeing that definition is the main thing we've been asked to do today. And I understand that the recommendation has come from the Audit and Corporate Governments Committee which is a statutory body their recommendation has to be accepted. But my understanding is that best practice is considered to be two independent members, I think with voting rights. So will this committee request that the Audit and Corporate Governments Committee in 12 months time perhaps review their recommendation to hopefully bring us in line with best practice because I'm disappointed that we're not adhering to best practice here. I think that was an opportunity. Is it the place of this committee to request that that is reviewed in 12 months time by the other committee? There's no reason why this committee shouldn't recommend what it likes but the recommendation before us today which has been through council is to make a start on that process and to move towards best practice not to necessarily meet best practice at this stage. In fact this is whether we need to formally recommend that. I think the Audit and Governments Committee are very well aware of that requirement and I suspect we'll come back to it but I can't speak to them. I'll remember the Audit and Corporate Governments Committee just for clarity. Obviously the decision actually goes to full council and it gets voted on in full council and that's why every member gets an opportunity at that point. In relation to page 23 it refers to appendix C and when we go through the papers of the report we've got appendix A and B unless there's been a supplement that I've not been able to find so I think that's just the wrong I think it's the wrong letter but given that's the recommendation chair I felt we should make sure that the recommendation that we're voting on was accurate. I'm sure we had all the motifs there. If not happy to go to a vote chair. Thank you council Williams. Changes to constitution as you say are included in appendix B. Any further comments or members of the committee? Council middleman's his hand up. So sorry a residual hand fair. No. Right so again the committee is being asked to accept the recommended definition I think that is the only change here which is up to paragraph 17 and to recommend the report itself to council so this would allow the appointment of an independent member of the committee noting that they should not have voting rights they should be a resident of Cambridgeshire and the recruitment process be dedicated to the audience committee working with officers. Now query in terms of this definition the definition is just a person who lives or has their home in a place does that allow somebody to have a second home is it a major home I just wondered how that would apply because there's a certain ambiguity you don't know whether it's their main home or whether it's any home I'm aware that officers have been through a lot of different variations on this in order to come to this definition perhaps we could ask Jonathan to comment on that how this would apply in the case of second homes I think really it's up to this committee to decide really thank you I turn it off again ultimately it's up to this committee to decide really I think we wrote it probably with reference to the prime prime home but it's an open debate yes my understanding is that this would not prevent somebody who's home in this because in Cambridgeshire is a second home from being selected and I'm not sure there's any particular reason to change that was that a proposal that would be changed Councillor Cymre? No I just wanted information I would accept that perfectly happily that it could be the second home an important point is that the reason why it's proposed is that somebody has knowledge of the area and they can have a knowledge of the area to have a second home so I don't think I wanted to know for clarity purposes okay but before we go to the recommendation let me take advice from our legal officer on this Thank you chair, good morning everyone having worked with Jonathan on this report I'd like to thank you for his hard work I think the view that the officers took was that whatever definition Jonathan put in his report there would always be somebody that would have an argument to say yes but can I see clarification the view we took was I think officers have tried to be pragmatic here in that there isn't going to be a recruitment process which will be officer led but working hand in glove with the chair of audit and the pragmatic view we took was let us get a simple short definition in and allow those undertaking the recruitment process to test the candidates and to explore with the candidates how they best satisfy that definition so in your example it would be a matter I imagine for the recruitment process to explore with that candidate and ultimately if they have a candidate they believe is capable they would make a recommendation that's my understanding I think that subject to anything Jonathan might to qualify was the thinking behind the way we've approached inserting this definition So I think the question arises if somebody who is being considered has a second home or another home in another county would we wish officers and the audit committee to exclude that person from selection Councillor Hurdle will use I just want to clarify obviously the constitutional change to the appendix B but we have got appendix A which gives a very big steer to officers it is the role description of the independent member and does offer an extra clarification I think we would be potentially looking to if we make changes now on to different things that potentially be seeking to overturn the full council decision so we ought to be careful where we are going through and I think appendix A offers enough steer to officers in my view so how to go to a vote that's very helpful we have a proposal to go to a vote can I have a seconder for that councillor can we take that vote by affirmation so we have therefore recommended to council that the constitution be amended to allow the appointment of an independent person to the audit and corporate governance committee subject to the restrictions that we have discussed I would like to move on to the 50th anniversary of the council this council was established following the local government act on the 1st of April 1974 by the merger of course of the then south camp rural district council and the chest rural district council we are not alone in having been established on that date but it seems appropriate to mark the date or as near as possible we can now the advice of chief executive we set up a small working group which met about a week ago and I think all members have received an email from from this is a note written by Catherine Southwood and was sent to members by email on 12th of December has everyone received that note of our discussions I think so now we talked about I'm just going to briefly run through that to highlight some of the key decisions the purpose of the event would be to celebrate the 50th anniversary it would be an opportunity to highlight significant developments and events in south camps history over the whole of that 50-year period including the move from the base in Hills Road and in fact I think Hills Road wasn't where we were originally established and at the suggestion of the chief executive we are proposing to commission somebody or in fact well the suggestion it should be anti-carpon but I don't know whether he has yet agreed to that to put together a review of the history of the formation of this council I will suggest later that we might involve others in that we had a suggestion from councillor Susan van der Ven who's not able to stay with us that we should involve the local history societies in the parishes and villages which I think could be useful suggestion as to the date again on the advice of the chief executive we should avoid the possibility of the pre-election period and the suggested date which has been cleared is the 20th of March timing early evening and I believe democratic services have not checked but there are no clashes for that date it's proposed to use this building that is the street downstairs and we'll need to review how we arrange that who we involve in it this will be a separate event from the proposed opening of the ground floor to local businesses which is a controversial matter I'm aware but it's proposed to be launched on the 24th of April I would appreciate suggestions from the committee and from others as to what we should include in the celebration event and I'm particularly keen for instance to involve we've chosen the charity the Cambor News Forum they have this is a risky suggestion they have been putting together a number of musical groups and I think we need to be careful about who we invite to this I'm being very informal here but I have recently attended I had the privilege of going to the Haverall Carol concert they had a superb brass band now I don't know what we have in this district in terms of competition winning brass bands or other bands I'm not very musically aware some of us attended a superb Diwali event recently in Cambor is it appropriate we should involve them in this what how should we mark this occasion both on the day of the event and as Susan van de Ven Councillor Susan van de Ven has suggested should we organise other events around this to celebrate the event so I would very much appreciate comments and also the agreement of this committee that I should mention the proposal to the invitations which is sorry it slipped off my it's down the bottom there there are what we call the usual suspects or the chain gang of the chairs, mayors leaders are usually not treated as usual suspects they're invited on their merits of various local councils and I think we should invite them they invite me as your chair occasionally to events in their districts in the county I'm suggesting we also invite former mayors I'm not sure our former mayors former chairs in this council certainly former leaders and senior officers of the local authority since 1974 and also that we invite long standing former elected members there's only one member that I'm aware of who was on the council as it happens both before on south cams or a district council and immediately afterwards on the south cams council that's Councillor Mason I believe there may be others we're doing some research on this the problem with inviting former long standing members is what the threshold should be and it has been suggested to me that we should use the 20 year threshold some of the long standing members will fit in other categories anyway and so for instance people like councillor Deborah Roberts and other former long standing councillors would fit in that description again I'd welcome discussion on that I don't suppose we need to discuss here the budget is just a fact or the catering we have existing arrangements and then at the bottom there is a table suggesting responsibility for the different elements of it I can't actually read that table on my laptop but I think that's my fault I hope the other members can read that see if we can get that no yes right let's throw this open to comment and suggestion is there going to be a theme a theme good point I think the history and development of the district but maybe we need to develop that theme do you have any suggestions councillors what the theme might be I was just thinking that these occasions we should try and make them as meaningful as possible and by that I mean that in my opinion we should be celebrating democracy we should be celebrating our diverse our population who we are our residents the diversity and I think it's also an opportunity to I don't know encourage we all have different opinions there's lots of different political parties all of this and I think it's going to be an opportunity to promote values about respect diversity so I think it's an opportunity to make this very meaningful not just a party yes personally I would very much welcome that I think the themes of democracy the diversity of this district and our values of respect which is a matter that we've discussed in full council and passed motions on are important themes that we should certainly include in this councillor Heather Williams thank you chair so I've just been involved in the 90th anniversary of the school I went to and one thing that was valued from a lot of people that came to visit was we had a display of the history of the school and we sort of had each decade and a sort of display on each decade so I think there's probably plenty of things that we've got in archives or old photographs there was that lovely millennium photograph that used to be up in the mezzanine so something like that which could be in the chamber if we're not using it potentially or something to that effect that people could or have it in the foyer so people could just come and have a look around and then that could stand for a few days if people wanted to see it yes I think councillor Mark Howell and I looked at that photograph the other day and he was able to identify all the people in which I was not he doesn't quite look the same in that photograph and he is actually producing for us a little list of who is in that but that is one of many things we have very little in terms of the history of this council in the chamber or those display cabinet at the entrance and I again speaking personally I notice the contrast when I enter for instance the Guildhall and also other council chambers but there is not much to mark our history and to show where we have come from so I do welcome that suggestion I mentioned earlier the local Susan Banda Venn suggestion that we involve the local history societies certainly in my own village we have two local history societies in Stapford and Great Shelford I'm sure others here could mention that perhaps we'll do so and I think we'd all welcome suggestions subsequently on that councillor Bridget Smith Thank you so I think that idea of themes nice I think there's some risk about this being very very retrospective though and bearing in mind that as a council we recently had a task and finish group on young people and I would like to see our focus being the next 50 years so the 50 years ago there was no political parties in this council everybody was an independent so it is radically different you never know in another 50 years it might end up back in that position so I'd like to suggest that part of the theme is the next 50 years and perhaps we hang that on something like a photographic competition for young people about what does what would the next 50 years look like where are we going where's the evidence in south Cambridge of the direction of travel for the next 50 years and use this as a means of encouraging more young people more young people to get involved in local government so I think we know let's be forward looking not just make this a big historical backward looking exercise which will you know it will be interesting for some of us but it's not going to grab the attention of the next generation of people who will be sitting in this chamber yes I think that's very important we did after all have the the working group the task and finish group on that and there is ongoing work in relation to the not only the six more colleges but also the village colleges and how we can connect with I guess particularly students who have a not just those who are being taught of course in politics others may have interests too don't do those follow those studies but this would be an opportunity to take that connection forward and develop it. I mentioned earlier the involvement of the camp born youth forum but that is only one of many youth forums there is a lot of very valuable work and we should highlight that perhaps thank you for that suggestion councillor Henry bachelor thank you chair so I was actually going to suggest more nostalgia but I appreciate that might not be but I mean absolutely support the idea of looking back over the 50 years that this council has been around and where the council started then and how much it's changed and progressed then to where we are today absolutely take the point that in another 50 years time at the centenary of this council where it may well be then because we do have a lot of plans in the pipeline to grow South Cambridge here and grow this council so I think maybe there could be a balance to be struck between the nostalgic side of the celebrations and also a celebration of where this council the opportunity this council has to grow further so just going through some of the suggestions made by the working group I mean I think inviting former former leaders and potentially chairs of the council I think would be useful because everyone loves a story from days gone by so I think that might be a good idea but obviously also on the flip side inviting trying to engage the youth in the celebrations as well I think would be a positive thing too so I don't know if that helps enough I think council of actually you're more likely to be involved in 100th year celebrations than I am but I do work on this and others possibly but yes I think that's a very good point can I just ask members for their views on this suggestion that we in inviting former members who don't fit into other categories we use 20 years as the threshold that's the came because the county council I believe use that for designating Alderman whereas we don't designate Alderman otherwise we have the danger of somebody feeling that they've been left somebody's been invited and they haven't I mean I'm totally relaxing additional people who don't necessarily meet the criteria are also inviting but I just think we need to have a threshold council that's how it is I think we have that threshold which brings us in parity with what the county does but at the end of the day it's going to be an advertised event and I'm sure of anybody but we've made a specific you know effort to represent that 20 year service but I'm sure other people will joyfully turn up if they feel so inclined yes I don't tend envisaged while they're standing at the doorway asking people if they were only a member for 19 years I it's just a thought in terms of event to talk about involving the young people music groups a number of our I know at least two a council and a former council who are very interested in music and singing former councillor Douglas Delacy who's very active in quite a few thousand my son is performing in Councillor Ariel Cahn is performing in the Goethe musical theatre I'm sure there are others but would it not be a good nice idea to have councillors involved in events to perhaps think about performing something together or perhaps they could be persuaded to just a thought yes I think this suggestion of a councillor's choir is perhaps a little dangerous I certainly wouldn't propose that I should be involved in it but I perhaps should just comment the one of the great advantages of brass band rather than an organ which we found out through the night is that it completely drowned out the singing even people like I were able to belt it out at full volume without any danger of ruining the event and I think to be serious about it there are some musical groups which may or may not have involvement of particular members which we shouldn't what we can't do I think is invite every musical group in the patch to come up on stage we need to be very careful about this and we need to have someone with rather more perhaps discernment that I have it myself involved in the selection process so yes I think that's a good point any other groups that we should involve this is perhaps a very good way of involving younger people isn't it I don't know what the average age profile is of the Gertan theatre probably older than the probably older than the probably older than the we used to I think it was from the 2012 Olympics just think of younger people we used to do a grant for people that was sort of Olympic hopefuls I know of one who I think still classed young early 20s who actually went on to be European diving champion so you might want to look at the sport as well as the musical there may be people that the council has supported that are now doing I entirely accept that my problem is that we have a limited budget for this event and if it's a wider proposal for how the council might sponsor other activities I think that goes beyond the scope and the budget of this event I was just saying that we could make something of that cohort of people that receive funding in that 2012 period and now where they are in their careers so that would show a way that we could have a display of how the council supported those individuals and what they're going on to do because that is part of our history they are part of South Cams I know we had a couple of people from my ward that received that support as I'm sure others did as well well certainly if we could identify people who fit sorry who fit into that category we should do so I'm trying to remember where we are at the next Olympics can you remind me or Paris next year isn't it so it is quite immediate but I just don't know if there are particular people we could identify Councillor Smith I'm a music side but I suggest somebody has a chat with Councillor James Hoverer who is a very accomplished musician and part of a very highly thought of group of musicians because he might be free in both senses you word yes I should say that just informally I've spoken to Councillor Lacey also who made music very much a theme of events organised during his period which were really the last time we did any civic events perhaps we need to put together a small working group of people with a better musical ear than myself to take that forward I don't know whether officers present have any suggestions suggestions from I don't see Andrew Francis offering to organise a choir for us but I don't know why comments are very welcome thank you members I think probably that's been a useful discussion of the ideas set out in the and if I may I suggest we invite that working group to consider it further does anyone want to suggest additional people we should involve in the working group and perhaps we should invite Councillor Hoverer to be involved in the working group your conversation first and see where it gets to yep okay I don't think we need a vote on this item at all it's just been a useful discussion and so I propose to move on to the next item which is the update on the code of conduct complaints item 7 may I ask John Murphy to introduce his item please thank you chair a very short report for members if I quickly run through what I've written in the report in the table and then I've got two remarks to make and then happy to take any questions so I've just bring to the committee's attention that a matter which I had earlier reported on was now completed and that was completed after a breach had been proven against the South Cams Councillor and under the ethical Hamburg code of conduct complaints procedure it was closed using the summary resolution procedure that is a matter in which I gave prior notice to the chair of this committee and I'm happy that that has come to an appropriate end I have a number of other matters South Cams Councillor complaint where with the consultation of the independent person we deemed that there was no breach not appropriate for formal investigation so we closed that matter I have a currently live complaint against a South Cams member I have written in the report which was written some days ago I was awaiting the outcome of the consultation of the independent person I've now had that but only in the last 24-48 hours and I have not yet communicated my decision to the subject of that complaint so with your grace chair I will report to the committee next time when the matter has completed its evolution Just to confirm you have my support of that I don't know about my grace with yet me there are a number of other complaints regarding parish councils and town councils which I'm in the process of liaising with parties and awaiting responses so they're all live that's all I propose to say on the table in the report two remarks I would make to members is that firstly I understand that a member of the public has emailed the members of this committee this morning I wasn't included but a number of you have brought it to my attention so thank you I don't read of that email and I'm happy to share my view is the email highlights that under our ethical handbook Code of Conduct Complaints Procedure where a breach is proven the monitoring officer can make an assessment that the matter is appropriate for summary resolution which I've already touched upon in my earlier example or if it's not appropriate for summary resolution is frustrated by the member who is the subject of the complaint it would move to a determination hearing after a determination hearing the monitoring officer does write a decision notice and that is published on the council website so effectively members of the public would know the name and the details of the proven complaint that goes to a determination hearing I think the email from the member the public says why doesn't that apply to summary resolution because the breach has been proven it is a matter that I'm aware of and I always keep how we handle our Code of Conduct Complaints under review but at this stage I don't think I can tell you that I'm going to do anything or we're going to have a report and take consultation with other members and officers but he makes an interesting point and I will consider it moving forward Thank you Can I just clarify the news this morning has been about an MP who's been named who's been suspended for 30 days or something like that so that's been a news today so we all know who that person is and I do what that person did So is the practice that we implement here is that normal practice within local government? I think the honest answer is other places do things differently I've had experience elsewhere where I have been the deputy monitoring officer where they took a more transparent approach to any complaint where a breach was proven but as I sit here today obviously I follow the existing SAVCAM's practices and procedures and I have it in front of me on the laptop and I'm quite clear that what has been done has been done correctly but the member of the public has highlighted that there is a distinction that perhaps he can't understand why things have been done differently and I'm certainly after this meeting happy to go away I have a think about the point that has been raised and consult with members in senior offices I don't know about others I was just going to say I can talk to the LGA about it I'm just interested to know what is this most common practice I just need to know that we're largely in kilter with other authorities I need to know really What is the most common practice I'm willing to look elsewhere and bring wider circumstances to bear in terms of how we might move forward There are limited circumstances in which the monitoring officer consults me as chair of this committee but I do not I often don't know the names and I do not consult others because that's not provided for but what it's worth is that we can be but I also accept that we need to retain an incentive to resolve these matters by agreement and if that incentive involves the name then being withheld because the matter has been resolved without the name publicity then I can see the benefits of that but I entirely support what you say Councillor Bridget Smith that we should as far as possible not only be in line with the LGA but we have tried to be just one of our values I think it was mentioned earlier on but I think it's something we should consider and we maybe need to consider whether we should invite the monitoring officer to formally review this rather than many discuss it with the team formally at another day Councillor Smith I think you make an excellent point there about incentivising resolution and I think that's really really important and I think we also have to be very mindful about mental health and the reasons why people might deviate it's not necessarily because people are just bad people it's because life is complicated these days and we must be aware that there can be longer term serious consequences of any decision we might take about this so as I say my question was just about are we largely aligned with other authorities are just my question I'm not requesting reviews or other things Do any other members want to comment on this before we invite John Murphy to respond Councillor Cullin I would simply say that I think it's certainly like Councillor Smith said I think very important that we look at other conduct in other authorities also looking to see if other authorities create problems I mean not the other authorities might be ubiquitous but it might also cause problems so I think we do need to look at what common conduct is and if there are any problems with that common conduct John perhaps you would respond and let us know whether you feel that we need to formally review this and we'll just have further informal discussions about what the procedure might be Do you want to bring this back to a future meeting of this committee for instance Thank you chair I think as a monitoring officer I always keep things at a review and I have various comments throughout the year from people suggesting or highlighting issues and when speaking to senior officers and members I'm always looking to see if we can improve our procedures I think at this stage chair rather than any definite commitment I'd just make the comment that I will always keep it under review and should I find that I've got concrete grounds that I want to invite this committee's comments on I would liaise with you and bring something to the committee Okay so the views of members on those points are noted and with that I would just ask the members that we Sorry My apologies I just have one more short point to update you really You'll see from the table I've got a couple of complaints from parish councils, town councils I've reached out and made friends with the local association of local councils Kapalc as it's often referred to and at their next training day where they bring in from far and wide various representatives from parish town councils It's been suggested I go along and introduce myself I'm hoping that won't have the effect of increasing the number of people who complain now that they know me Rather I will bring to their attention and encourage best practice and codes of conduct awareness So that's just for this committee to note Yes The council can't Yes It's been reported that there was a problem I don't know if this is the right place to meet him but I just asked maybe you can outline that there was a call case of an assault on an officer here by a member of the public in his building Perhaps you could give some would this be the point to clarify what is the background to that It's a slightly separate issue but if you would like to comment on that it would be very helpful It's a legal issue This is an open Sorry thank you very much That's information that I need to know Yes to all members I think The matter to which you refer I think is currently a hot topic and is probably best not dealt with here whilst it's on going but thank you The only other comment I would make is that I know from past experience that we may regard our processes as being confidential but particularly where parish councils are concerned in practice parish councils know exactly what complaints have been are being considered and it does throw a shadow over the members concerned if it is a member who is being considered particularly when they cannot speak publicly about what is going on and I think we need to bear that in mind as well but no need for a response on that Can I just ask members of the committee that we formally note this report Affirmation All agreed Not against thank you next meeting The next meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday 14th of March at 10am again Thank you very much for your attendance and your participation Thank you chair Please declare this meeting closed