 Felly, dwi'n edrych i gael cerdd, eich cyfnod, yn ni'n byw'r cyfrifiad? Mae'r cyfrifiad nawr, dwi'n edrych i'r cyfrifiad. Yn mynd i, bod hi'r cyfrifiadau a'r cyfrifiadau a'r cyfrifiadau i'r cyfrifiadau. Mae'n eich cerdd, mae ynghylch yn Brwyllgor. Mae'r cyfrifiadau Brwyllgor, mae'r cyfrifiadau. Mae'n mynd i gyfrifiadau a'r cyfrifiadau i'r cyfrifiadau. Those are the many we need to be quarred. We've decided to to be on the side of caution because of the escalating situation in South Camberичiw with covid. Other members of the cabinet are joining us remotely but only those members present in the Chamber will be able to move in second motions and to vote. The members who are present virtually may speak in the debate of course a gweld i gweld i'n gweithio'r cyfrannol yw'r cyfrannol yma, a'i gweld i'r cwrs o'r cyfrannol i'n gweithio'r aws. So rhai iawn i'ch meddwl am gafael gan erbyn o'n leisio ar y gallau cyfrannol, mae'n gweithio wedi gyfer rhai iawn ac mae'n gyfrannol i'r lleifeth olif. Rhaen i'r ffordd honno, mae'n gwahanol yma, rhaen i'r gweithiau hefyd hynny. Felly, byddwch chi'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith? Ynw'n gweithio'r gwaith, mae'n gwneud. Felly, yna'n goll i'n gwneud. Felly, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Jonathan Malton yw online. Jonathan, rydw i'n fwyaf ymddangos eich gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio? Prif Weinidd, rydyn ni i'n fwyaf â'r cyfnod ffordd i'r Defnyddio ymddor i'rolaeth am Yr impedance yma i'r ac yn bach Llywodraeth Pell yn ymddorol i'u phrwrddol yma Ieithradd Llywodraethau yn gweithio ysgwrddol a oedd yn cy bulunodd.知ol Garwn i'w gweithio arall. Yr didntydd Pell yn ddiw i'r gael, ei hetfyrdd yr oedd yn bach Llywodraeth yma i'r gym gyngorol nad oedd yn cyngorol i'r komoedd sawl am ythodau a'r Chairman Yr ridell i'r cyfnodd Who's the Vice-Chair of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee. So moving on to item 3. Declarations of Interests. Do any members have interests to declare in relation to any item or business on this agenda? No? If any interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point. So moving on to minutes of the previous meeting which are on pages 1 to 4. Members are asked to approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 19th October. I move the approval of those minutes as a correct record. Have I a seconder? Happy to second. Councillor John Williams is seconding those. Do members agree to approve the minutes? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Thank you Cabinet, therefore agrees the approval of the minutes as the correct record by affirmation. Moving on to public questions, we've received two public questions. I believe both questioners are tuning in online. So, just waiting for our technical wizard to come back. The first question is from Mr Daniel Fulton. Are you there Mr Fulton? Yes, I am. Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Would you like to pose your question? Yes, thank you. In the Cambridge Independent on the 15th of September, the lead cabinet member for planning stated, quote, we are committed to work with Longstanton Parish Council and North Stowe Town Council to investigate water levels across the local area. As part of its investigations into the groundwater levels and the effects of the development of North Stowe, has the district council actually obtained any data on groundwater levels in North Stowe or Longstanton after May of this year? For example, from borehole BH144 or from any of the other boreholes being regularly monitored by the developers? If the district council has obtained any such data, why haven't they been made available to planning officers and members of the public? And if the district council has not obtained any such data, why hasn't it done so? Thank you. Thank you, Mr Fulton. I'm going to call on councillor Tumi Hawkins who leads on planning and is available on our connection to respond to your question. Thank you, councillor Hawkins. Councillor Dr Hawkins, I beg your pardon. Thank you very much, leader. Good morning, Mr Fulton. The district council does not have specific borehole data on groundwater levels. However, as part of the application for North Stowe phases 3A and 3B, the applicant has supplied a technical report setting out the assessment of the impact of that development upon groundwater for consideration as part of the planning application. And the planning service is with consulties reviewing that material. Now, early in 2021, the council funded a study on behalf of Longstanton Parish Council investigating the issue of groundwater impacts upon the Kingfisher pond. The final report from HRW Wallingford was submitted to the parish council in May 2021. The council has prepared a draft action plan in consultation with the parish council that seeks to respond to the conclusions in that report. And South Cams District Council continues to engage with Environment Agency and the Lead Local Flood Authority on the issue of groundwater conditions at North Stowe. Thank you, leader. Thank you very much, councillor Dr Hawkins. Mr Fulton, would you have a secondary question you'd like to pose? Yes, I do. The cumulative environmental impacts on groundwater of phases 1, 2, 3A and 3B are all material considerations for the upcoming decisions on North Stowe 3A and 3B. We had a very positive meeting. Local residents had a very positive meeting last week with Stephen Kelly, the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development. And we understand that he will be liaising with the Environment Agency and the Lead Local Flood Authority, as councillor Hawkins just said. Can I ask if councillor Hawkins, in her capacity as portfolio holder, can please regularly follow up with Mr Kelly just so we have confidence that the elected leadership of the council is staying on top of this issue as we move towards a decision on 3A and 3B. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Fulton. councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins. Thank you, leader. I do regularly communicate and meet up with Mr Stephen Kelly. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. So moving on to the next question from the public. Mrs Jane Williams has posed the question but I think is unable to attend so I believe Dr Kate Grant is attending virtually and will be asking the question on her behalf. Dr Grant, are you present please? Yes I am. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you. Would you like to pose your question? Yes. In May 2020, the council voted to give all delegation powers for planning decisions to a single unaccountable unelected officer. You may recall this change was quite controversial and attracted for syffrous opposition from councillors and a number of parish councils and local activists. You may also recall that during the debate the leader of the council, the lead cabinet member for planning and other from the majority group, repeatedly promised this change was only temporary and that the delegation scheme would be comprehensively reconsidered in the light of the findings of a report by the Planning Advisory Service. The report has long since been published, appears to have been forgotten and yet the majority's undemocratic delegation scheme which was promised to be temporary remains in place more than a year and a half later. The council's leadership has promised time and time again that this will be a modern and caring council that operates in an open, honest and democratic fashion and yet the council keeps falling short of these goals. What steps will the council's cabinet take to get the council back on track towards open, honest democratic governance and when will a truly democratic planning delegation scheme be put in place for the parishioners of Water Beach and residents of South Cambridge? Thank you very much indeed. Councillor Dr Jimmy Hawkins, would you like to respond to that question? Thank you leader and through you. The council remains committed to ensuring that the scheme of planning delegation provides good value for money to the residents and businesses of South Cambridgeshire whilst at the same time ensuring that local voices are heard and recognised in planning decisions. I will tell you and I think you know this that the minutes of the weekly planning delegation meetings are published on our website so are available to everyone to read. And I note with specific reference to Water Beach, the meeting of 26th October and that the letter from the Water Beach parish council is published together with those minutes. And also at the meeting of the parishes and Area 2 team meeting on Wednesday 1 December last week, the assistant director of planning delivery undertook to meet with Water Beach parish council to discuss specific issues of concern and I intend to attend that meeting, my schedule permitting. The planning advisory service recommended as part of its report that the council keep the scheme of delegation under review. And a combined group of members and officers was therefore formed and have had discussions about what changes, if any, are needed to the current delegation arrangements to ensure the best serve our community. There is a wide range of views within the group about what arrangements might work best and exercise is therefore currently underway to gather information from other planning authorities about the schemes of delegation used elsewhere and their respective merits. This information will inform further discussions within the group, which will allow a recommendation to come forward in the new year. Thank you, leader. Thank you very much indeed, councillor dr Tumi Hawkins. Dr Grant, do you have a supplementary question? Yes, I do. And it is topical as a follow up. We are increasingly concerned, despite assurances by Mr Batchelor and Pippa Haleings on the 29th of January 2021, 7 hours, 21 minutes and 19 seconds into the recording that reserved matters for applications on Water Beach. Strategic site would come back to the planning committee. They are now being handled in delegation meetings. Moreover, as Tumi Hawkins has said, minutes are published, but minutes of these are not being published in a timely manner. So currently, as of Sunday, the 5th of December evening, there is an unsigned, undated officers report on a major application related to urban and civic reference 21 slash 02009 slash full, where it refers to a delegation meeting purportedly held on the 16th of November, but no minutes have been published as of Sunday evening, the 5th of December. Thus a decision has apparently been made where the grounds for a delegated decision have not been published. Surely this is not appropriate. And furthermore, with regard to the one that Tumi Hawkins has identified, Water Beach Newtown East cycleway footway. Yes, the delegation meeting on the 26th of October did discuss this and agreed that comments should be obtained on the amended scheme. If it was found that the ward councillor and cycle group supported the amended scheme, it was agreed it would be a delegated decision due to technical nature of a discharge of a condition application. Were it the case that concerns remained, then the matter would be brought back to a future delegation meeting. Concerns did remain. It did not appear to come back to a further delegation meeting or not one of which any minutes are published. Maybe there is another set of minutes as yet unpublished. But again, we are not seeing the minutes of the delegation meeting in a timely manner. And we are really concerned with things like the cycleway footway where we just get a decision notice and no conditions at all. Thank you Dr Grant. So there's quite a lot there. Dr Tumi Hawkins, I suspect you might like to get a written response because I think there's probably rather too much there to do off the top of your head. Thank you leader. Yes, I will have to go away and look at the concerns that Dr Grant has actually raised. But I will also reiterate that last week at the area to Parish's meeting, we have undertaken to meet with Water Beach Parish Council because of the issues raised and the concerns that they have raised. And no doubt this will take place very soon. And as I said in my earlier response, I intend to attend that meeting because of the concerns that Water Beach have raised. And I can assure Water Beach Parish Council that we are committed to ensuring that we come to a complete understanding of what was said, what can be done, legally or lawfully shall I say. And we will make sure that we do the best that we can for Water Beach. But I will get back to Water Beach Parish Council with an answer. Thank you. Thank you very much, councillor Dr Timmy Hawkins, and thank you Dr Grant for your question. Moving on to item six, which issues arising from the scrutiny and overview committee. Welcome councillor Grenfell Chamberlain, who's tuning in. Would you like to give a report now? I think there's a few things which actually aren't relevant to the agenda, so over to you. Good morning leader, good morning cabinet. With your permission leader, if I may, I will take each of the items as we come to them on the agenda. I think they will follow up quite nicely, so I'll take it that way if I may please. Thank you very much indeed, and it's nice to see if it seems to be enough for a long time. Okay, so moving on to the rest of the agenda, item seven is the quarter two performance report. And councillor Neil Gough is going to introduce it, but because he's not present in the Chamber, he can't recommend it. So I will recommend it as the leader of council, and I think councillor Williams, you're going to second it, aren't you? Yes, I second it, leader, and reserve my right to speak. Thank you. So over to councillor Neil Gough, please, who leads on this. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, leader. I'll keep my commentary short on this. I think again, against the back ground of the ongoing difficulties with COVID, this is a really good set of performance indicators on ongoing activities. I think there's a couple of areas I would just point out. One of which is the progress which has been made on the call centre. We'll see that for a long time we've been struggling with some of the performance indicators there, but they are actually improving in that arena. And also the initiatives which have been taken place with respect to the new telephony system, with the introduction of the golden number, the interactive voice routing, and the callback provisions hopefully will continue that progress and result in a much better level of service to those residents who call in. And I also note the potential for in the first quarter of the introduction of the chat system, which will help those who prefer to deal with that particular means of interaction. The other area I'll just point out, which I think needs to be mentioned, is on the complaints. We still have areas of underperformance in terms of responsiveness on complaints. That is being addressed through looking at the procedures and the processes we have, the particular areas in planning and housing where those numbers have not met the target, and we have activities in place there to support that. That's the four to two performance indicators. There's also the progress against the business plan targets. We're trying to remember the colour coding there is that purple is completed, green is on track, purple is sort of moving forward, but delayed in red is where the targets will not be achieved. Again, against the background of the challenges last year, it's gratified to see quite a few of these areas now turning purple, and many of them sticking with the green designation. So thanks to everyone involved in keeping that on track. Thank you. I'm happy to take it on. Thank you for that, Councillor Goff. We've given quite a lot of interference your end. I'm not quite sure why, but I think we did hear most that clearly. Thank you. Councillor Chamberlain, do you want to contribute anything at this point on behalf of Scoot me an Overview? No, we didn't consider this particular report. Thank you very much indeed. Right, I'll take questions and comments from Cabinet Members and Councillor Brian Mills. Thank you, Chair. I was just going to suggest to Councillor Goff that he lifts his papers rather than rest the Molly's laptop or the device, because that was causing the interference and made his... Too late, I'm afraid. Thank you for your technical input there. Are there any more comments from any Members of Cabinet? If you wave, I think I can see you all. I shall thank you. I'm going to go to other Members present. I'm going to take initially Councillor Heather Williams, and then I will take Councillor Anna Bradman. So Councillor Heather Williams, welcome. Nice to...very kind of you to attend. Thank you. Sorry, it's a bit of an interference on the microphone. I'm just looking at page 13. I think it is. It's hard when it's over printed. It's about the attendance satisfied with the response. I noted in the comments column, it says about a text message of a survey link is sent as soon as a job is completed. Now, I don't know about other Members, but quite a few of the correspondence that I have over the phone are from tenants in our council houses, quite often not having access to internet or not being of an age where IT was in the curriculum and indeed don't have a mobile phone. So I'm just wondering whether it does refer to the fact that we have quite a low response rate, whether really we haven't got the suitable format for them responding and whether that could be looked into. And the other issue that I wish to raise was about the response on page 20, the formal complaints result within timescale because it seems to be an ongoing issue really. It's not sort of dipping in and out. We've been below intervention for a while now. So just wondering if there's any way of accelerating and adding some additional resource into that area to bring things up. We don't like it when, for people to feel they need to complain anyway, let alone if we're starting to get complaints about the complaint. Thank you, leader. Thank you very much, Councillor Williams. I'm going to ask Peter Campbell to respond regarding your first point and Geoff Member on the second one. My understanding with the sort of feedback from tenants is that we're looking at a sort of multimodal approach and that the feeling was that asking tenants on the doorstep, after a piece of work had been done, their level of satisfaction actually often garnered a more optimistic response than if they weren't having to talk to a person who had just done the work. But I'll bring in Peter Campbell on that initial point. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, leader. What you say is absolutely correct. That our returns have been low. Some of this has been people have been looking to pass things over as well during COVID and take things off people. We recognise that what we need to do is offer a range of options of people to give feedback. Eddie Spicer has been recently appointed as our new service manager of housing assets is leading on this. We're going to look at introducing a range of options within the current contract and certainly with a new contract start later in the year. We'll have a whole range of options embedded within that contract. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Campbell. I think what we want is an honest and realistic feedback from tenants, not them feeling that they're having to be kind to the people who've just done the work. So by having this multimodal approach, hopefully we'll get a more realistic feedback. On customer complaints, I know Geoff Member has been doing a vast amount of work and we're really pleased that we now have the golden number and also the additional phone back facility. So I think a lot of work has been completed very recently, which we probably aren't yet seeing the benefits of, but you can probably add to that. Thank you. Yes, thank you very much, leader. As you suggested, Councillor Williams, there was a need for additional resource to get the complaints, particularly in the planning service up to date. That resource has been put in. I had an update from that person at the end of November and the vast majority of the backlog of complaints have been cleared. I'm expecting all of the backlog to be cleared over the next couple of weeks. Obviously we'll be into the next quarter's performance period whilst that work's being undertaken. So I doubt we'll hit target for next quarter, but it's looking very promising for the quarter after that. Thank you very much indeed, Geoff. That's really encouraging. Thank you. Councillor Anna Bradnam, you had a question. Thank you, leader. Yes, actually Councillor Heather Williams has asked the question I was going to ask about tenets satisfied with responsive repairs and I'm very encouraged to hear that Peter Campbell has appointed somebody to that post because of this need to give people time to think and not just respond on the doorstep. But I do wonder whether something on paper might actually be a useful way of contacting some of our residents who maybe don't feel so confident on social media. Having said that, lots of them are very good at using electronic means quite a lot of the time, but I just suspect there might be some who would find that harder to respond to. Thank you. Peter Campbell, do you want to come back on that? I agree. What we want is to recognise that we've got five and a half thousand tenants each with their own different needs. Some will prefer to do things immediately. Some may prefer questionnaires through the post. Others prefer a telephone conversation afterwards with some losing independence. As leaders said, what we want to do is to offer a range of options to best capture the feedback from our customers. Thank you. I'm certainly getting very positive feedback from residents living in Gamlingay as well. Thank you very much. Councillor Williams, do you want to summarise as the seconder? I will ask Councillor Neil Goff if he wants to add anything. No, I'm okay. Thank you. Councillor Goff, is there anything you wish to add? Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. The recommendation is set out in paragraph three of the report. That's to review the KPI results and comments at Appendix A and progress against the business plan actions at Appendix B, recommending where appropriate any actions required to address further issues. So, do members agree with the proposal? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Nope. Okay, thank you. Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation. Moving swiftly on to number eight, which is the empty home strategy. Councillor Batchelor is not present. So, I will propose this, and I think Councillor Bill Hanley is going to go to second it. Yes, I'll agree to that. And I think that Julie Fletcher is going to talk to report for us. Thank you very much, Julie. Thank you, Leader. Yes, so today I bring you the empty home strategy with the recommendation that this now goes out to wider public consultation and that Cabinet gives delegation authority to the lead member for housing to approve the final strategy subject to any minor amendments. So, the strategy really sets the scene as to the current picture of empty properties within the district and how the council aims to tackle these in the future. There was recognition that, whilst there are no particular real hotspots of empty homes causing significant problems within the district, nonetheless, any empty home is a wasted resource and can be detrimental to the neighbouring area. So, this has really been recognised in developing the strategy with the establishment of the Challenge in Buildings Forum and also the Enforcement Working Group, which will provide a consistent and much more joined-up approach in dealing with issues relating to empty properties. We're also looking for additional resources for 2022 to fund a dedicated officer to lead on empty homes, which was supported by the Scrutiny and Overview Committee. That committee also asked Cabinet to consider further options for the council to buy empty properties with the owner's agreement under the terms of the council's investment strategy. I just wanted to note that there are already options for homes to be bought or rented out through either Ermond Street or Schierholm Lettons, but these options do have to be financially viable to make them work for the housing companies. I would assume that this would be the same for any sort of council investment through the investment strategy. There was also reference particularly to shared ownership and equity share properties that the council has a stake in and potentially being able to buy these back. I understand that Ermond Street has actually done this in the past, but again it has to be at the right price and it has to be financially viable. Scrutiny and Overview Committee also made a suggestion that perhaps we should consider raising the premium charge for the council tax, but I understand that these are set out by regulation and the council currently charges the maximum that it can. From listening to all the comments received during the development of the strategy, I do think that the council does need to be more proactive in working with owners to bring property bats into use and I think by having a dedicated officer and the working group set up, this should help to facilitate this. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed and I congratulate you on a really clearly written report and a copious amount of work that's gone into this. We're very grateful for it. Councillor Chamberlain has obviously been significant input from Scrutiny and Overview in this work, which seems to have been highly beneficial. Would you like to comment at this stage? Thank you very much, Lady. Yes, we were very complimentary of Julia's report as well and I'm most grateful to her for delivering most of my report, so I thank you very much for that. We believe that we should be more proactive in trying to recover these empty properties back into use and provide families with homes and we were really surprised to hear or I was surprised to hear one particular example of a property where this council has a 25% share of the ownership and yet we have put in place a covenant which prevents it being let and I think there are opportunities for us both in terms of seeking to acquire properties by agreement with the owners and either refurbish them and re-letting them or selling them and that can form part of our investment strategy. And certainly where we have a shared ownership, putting a covenant in place which prevents them being re-let and therefore leaving people who desperately need a home without one, that seems to be an area in which we could take a more flexible approach. So other than that, Chair, I believe I have to say we very much support Julia's report and are very grateful to her. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Julia, when does this go out for consultation? How long is that level? Consultation will go out in January now, I think it's not worth sending out before Christmas and we usually have a six week consultation period. Jolly good. Thank you very much indeed. So any comment from any members? Are Councillor Williams. Thank you, Leader. First of all, I'd like my congratulations and thanks to the officer for such a comprehensive report. As you can see, the number of homes that are empty for more than two years is very small compared with the total housing stock in the district. However, empty properties not only mean homes, not being available for use but can also cause a nuisance to neighbours if left in a poor state. We want to minimise the number of homes left empty and this strategy helps us to do just that. Why homes are left empty is varied and in many cases complex and Councillor Grenfrew highlighted a particular case which was just that. And as a result, they need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. So for this reason, I agree with the proposal that a dedicated post is created within housing to take this forward to help to ensure that the housing stock is fully used at this time of great need. So I should certainly be supporting this. Thank you, Leader. Thank you very much indeed. Councillor Goff. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Leader. I'm very happy to support this. I particularly want to welcome the challenging buildings forum and the focus on problematic properties because while as the Julie has pointed out, we don't have a widespread problem of buildings which are unoccupied, we do have a few very difficult situations which do give rise to where the property is derelict, potentially intrusion with the risk of safety for people who are actually entering those buildings and antisocial behaviour. So this is something which I know residents in my ward will welcome as a way of sort of coordinating activity across the council and other bodies to try and improve the situation of these buildings which recognise a few in number but they do cause a lot of concern to local residents. So I welcome this and welcome the initiation of that aspect of this report. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Goff. Pop points well made. A Councillor Brian Milnes. Yes, I'm rather going to echo previous comments as just made the ASB aspect of empty properties can quickly escalate local cases where we've had to try and get police action but we've got our own ASB housing enforcement officers who can pick up this action. So that is important that we actually as a membership of the council are aware of that. So I definitely welcome this report in that respect. And the other thing that I'd like to pick up on is Councillor Chamberlain's comments from the Scrutiny Committee and I think we do need to look at that strange situation where basically you've got tenants in a bind in regard to that covenants that we impose where it's a very frustrating situation for those tenants and we need some flexibility in order to be able to sort those situations out sensibly. Thank you. So thank you, Councillor Milnes. Councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins. Thank you, leader. I know the problem is not widespread but I happen to have two in two of my wards out of five villages in the ward. So that's 40% for me. I therefore welcome this strategy because I have been asking about it for quite a while. One of those actually we have as a council done some work on the property to strengthen it and I think we have a restriction of some sort on it. So we do need something to help us move forward and I particularly will be looking forward to seeing the outcome of the consultation so we can get this thing in place and moving quickly. So thank you. Thank you, yes. We look forward to seeing positive results from this. I think that's all cabinet members wishing to speak. Councillor Anna Bradlam. Thank you, leader. I am just mindful that one of the options that is offered to owners is that the council purchases the property through, I believe, through Shire Homes or Irmin Street and I just wanted to check and maybe ask the question who would do the valuation because we need to be very clear that a reasonable value is being put on a property and I wondered whether we would probably use our own values but also would we use a commercial value to assess the value of a property. I wanted to check out how that might happen. It would be very unfortunate, for example, if we acquired a home and rented it out for rental and it was found that the original value that was paid to the owner was very low. Thank you. I can see that Peter Campbell is offering to answer this question. Yes, of course. Irmin Street, of course, has got a good record of buying properties and the process is that it would be valued by a risk-qualified surveyor and to make sure it's stacked up financially. Leader, may I... Yep, you can, please do. Sorry, but the argument would be if that was a qualified surveyor but working for the council. I just wondered, would, as it were, the owner be able to get a valuation and have that put into consideration as well? Of course. Okay, thank you. Of course, but if we got... So it wouldn't be like a right to buy where they've been in negotiation. It would still have to financially viable for the council at the end of the day. So the balance of power will probably be more with the council than the vendor in that case. Yes, okay, thank you. Thank you. Councillor Flair Dawnton. Thank you, Leader. Could I ask a question about the scope of the consultation? Who will be consulted and when? Julie, would you like to answer that? Yep. So we have a consultation web page on the web pages. So it will go up on there. And we can send out to those that we know have an empty property. So all the owners of empty properties, we can let them know that the consultation is live as well. Might I come back, Leader? Yes, please do. Thank you, Julie. And I assume then that we as members should let parish councils know that this consultation is going on. Julie, I'm sure we are, aren't we? Yes, I think it's a standard practice of the way of the consultations on our web page, but I can definitely let them know just to sort of highlight it to them more than happy to do that. Thank you, Julie, because I guess I'm other, myself and others will have questions from parish councils when empty homes become an issue in our ward. So it would be really good to include parish councils. Thank you. Thank you. And there's obviously a role for all of us to raise the consultation with our residents and with our parish councils as well. I know from personal experience that just one empty home can cause a huge annoyance to people living in a village, as well as frustration that there's a home that somebody could be living in. So I welcome this. It's a really good piece of work and it'll be very interesting to hear back in a few months' time about how effective it's proven to be. Councillor Handley, as a seconder, do you want to add anything to this before we go to the vote? I don't think I need to add anything. Thank you. That's lovely. Thank you very much indeed. So the recommendation is set out at paragraph 4 of the report. A, approve the draft empty home strategy 2021-25 as set out at Appendix A and go out to wider public consultation. B, delegate authority to the lead member for housing, Councillor John Batchelor, to approve the final strategy subject to minor amendments, if any, arising from the consultation. Do you members agree with the proposal? That's unanimous. So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. Moving on to item 9, which is at page 65 to 110. This is the investment strategy and Councillor John Batchelor is going to be presenting this and I am very happy to second it. So over to you, Councillor John Williams. Too many, John's, my apologies. Councillor John Williams, over to you. Thank you, leader. Well, as we all know by now, changes to the public works loan board rules last, but this time last year actually, almost a year ago now, have made this necessary because those rules have ruled out 21 investments, which are investments that have purely for yield. So the opportunity has been taken to not only amend the investment strategy, but also to review it in entirety and to not just take into account the wall changes, but also to adjust the figures so that they are in accordance with the MTFS, the midterm financial strategy that this cabinet adopted very recently. The main changes to the strategy involve stream 2. These are investments which are done not just for commercial gain, but include things like regeneration. What we've done is we've split that stream 2 into, divided it into those investments that are made to support local services and those that are undertaken to deliver commercial regeneration and housing. For both of those, the current minimum yield of 2.5% is being retained. I'd just like to say that there are some changes that need to be made to the report. First of all, in paragraph 7.3.2, the yield should be 2.5% and 2 has been missed off and there are figures to be updated in the tables in paragraphs 8.4.1 and 8.4.2 and I think we were going to have these amendments shown. Here we are. You can see there that the figures that have been changed to those that are in yellow have been highlighted in yellow. It's not a great change on this particular one but there are some slight amendments that have been made to bring it in line with the new MTFS. Obviously, as we go forward and we consolidate the budget and complete the budget for next year, in all probability these figures will change again before the report is presented to council. That's 8.4.1 and 8.4.2 can we see that? That's 8.4.2. Again, those figures that have been changed have been highlighted. I'm quite happy to answer any questions, leader. Thank you very much indeed. If you could take the slide down please so that we can see people again. OK. I hope that was all comprehensive. Councillor Chamberlain, is there anything you want to add at this stage? You're muted Councillor Chamberlain. My apologies. It seems to be the most popular term we hear today. If I may just say a few words on this and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Thank you. I really did recommend that the cabinet considers the adoption of the principles of disclosure, particularly where those investments might be impacted by climate change. We wonder whether it ought to be the investment strategy in view of the changing circumstances in which we find ourselves. A review perhaps more often than 12 months could be appropriate. We did indeed have a significant discussion clarifying the new rules relating to the Public Work Sloan Board. Whilst there are risks for the council, there are also opportunities, particularly in borrowing money to promote green to our core objective of the business plan. We were grateful that we were able to clarify that the new rules would not preclude us from borrowing money to maintain properties outside the district, those particularly that have been bought through Ehrman Street Housing. I would like also to invite the cabinet to highlight the idea of bringing the empty property acquisition into this investment strategy. We clearly have to be by agreement with the owners, but we feel that there is a significant opportunity to create some income as a result either of letting or reselling property at a profit. Finally, we members expressed concern about the potential for conversion of offices to residential use. Usually the design and structure of offices is not particularly suited to residential use, and there has been a lot of criticism in other areas where this has been done. Thank you, leader. Thank you very much indeed, Councillor Chamberlain. Councillor Williams, do you want to comment on scrutiny's suggestion about the empty home strategy forming part of the investment strategy? I suspect some work needs to go on to actually identify what the opportunities are. Thank you, leader. There's no reason not to treat that as part of the investment strategy, although clearly the numbers involved, as we know, are extremely small, and it's certainly something we will look at, but the current, that is really the current policy if we can, we will not purchase if it's financially beneficial to do so, but it certainly can be done within the investment strategy, and it's something we can look at. Picking up on the other two points that Councillor Grenfell made, yes, reviewing this every six months, I think that given the present very changeable financial circumstances, we find ourselves in a relief with regard to Covid and Brexit, and I think that it's very sensible, and we certainly will look again and review the strategy every six months. And the last point you made, which was to do with, I can't think what it was now. Conversion is offered. Oh, that's right, converting offices to homes. We have no intention at the moment to do that. It's not our policy to do that, but clearly we cannot rule anything out. But certainly at the moment there is not a necessity to look at that. And also there have been no commercial properties anyway that have come forward. Given the situation we find ourselves in Greater Cambridge, where demand for office space is very strong, I doubt actually it would be financially viable anyway to convert office accommodation into homes because of the premium value that is put on office accommodation in the Greater Cambridge area. Thank you very much, I'm grateful. Thank you very much indeed. I'd like to add anything to that as well. I think what was said earlier, I think Julie mentioned it, that any property that we purchase, as John said, would need to be financially viable. But it also needs to be the right property in the right place as well. Thank you very much indeed. Are there any questions from Members of Cabinet? Are there any other Councillors? I'm stuck with Councillor Anna Bradlam. Thank you, Leader. Certainly I'm reassured to see and I think I was concerned about this potential for investing in commercial properties for conversion to residential dwellings. And I'm trying to compare the papers that we received on this draft and it looks to me as if the section which referred to that has actually been amended, I'm not sure. The phrase was projects where the intention is to inject further investment, for example purchasing an office building with the intention of converting it to say into residential or other uses. I can't see that now but the papers have been amended quite extensively and I just wanted to check is that still in the policy or has that been removed? It was. It was a section 2, something, something C. I was intending to remove that reference. I'm just having a look to see if I could see. Sorry, 2.2C. Yes, there were several sets of ABC in the original section 2. There was it went through commercial regeneration then preventative category then housing and it was in that third section of text which had ABC and that was where it referred to converting office buildings. 2.2C looks shorter now and I just wanted to see if that wording had been removed or if that was still in there. Certainly, if members would like me to make sure that wording is removed everywhere within the Del Cymru. Thank you, Mr Maddox. Certainly at the combined authority I voted against every application to convert office space into housing for the reasons that Councillor Chamberlain expressed. So I think the answer to that is yes please, Mr Maddox. Certainly. I'm very grateful, Llyda. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Llyda. This is a referral obviously to council so I'm sure more comments will be made when it mergers into its final submission. I'm just wondering the tables that were displayed if it's possible to have those circulated because it was quite difficult to really see the details on the screen so I would appreciate if that could be sent round. I'm just looking at page 109 one point sort of picks up on the actual comments from scrutiny about the waiting for EPC and sustainability. So I'm potentially making the assumption is when we look at this we're looking at it in its current form and not its potential form and whether, because for example if it's a listed building, I know those are the leaders favourites, they're very difficult to make enhancements to or there might be other some limiting factors. So how are we intending to wait that and whether there is potential there to look at its current form and its sustainability potential because actually that's something that we might want to wait higher what it could be in its final entity given that that would then help us actually in reducing the district's carbon footprint. So that's just one thing we could have clarification really meant for finance on and the other was the tenancy strength just something around the rationale of changing the waiting factor in the current current climate. Thank you leader. Sorry because just repeat that last one for me please. So page 109, the tenancy strength there's a reduction in waiting factor from 10 to 8. Got you, thank you very much indeed. I'm going to, so you're speaking my language I'm going to talk about waiting for carbon reduction so that's good news but I'm going to bring in Mr Maddox just to talk about the detail of your questions. Yeah so we felt that we needed to change some of the tenancy strength equally I mean this can be reviewed again as time goes by but that was what we felt that that was the right approach if members have got any comments on any of those before the final version then that again but based on conversations we've had we felt that that was the right the right ratios to include sorry the right weightings to include there I would add that the strategy itself will need the figures updating for the final version for full council so I mean though those are the figures that we feel are correct is there a particular problem you feel with the tenancy? You're welcome to come back Councillor Williams I was just thinking the current climate obviously we want the tenancy strength I would say is probably one of the most important things we want to make sure to that public this is public money tax payers money but it's insecure as a form as possible so that's why I was just wondering why the change really I can understand the location change given the changes to PWLB particular because obviously if it's going to be in a district it's going to be prime and I just wanted to make sure that we are looking for the most secure tenants possible to give some security for that money being invested and then obviously I'm pleased to hear on the same page doesn't always happen leader on sustainability thank you so I mean I think my response to that would be that you know location is the highest has the highest waiting factor and it was 12 and it's now 10 and tenancy is the second highest and it was 10 so it's now 8 so you know in comparative terms actually nothing's changed it's exactly the same so I mean I'm satisfied that a considerable amount of work has gone into this but I'm you know we will of course keep it under review but I thank you for your input there Councillor Williams is there anything you want to add on that? Just to say leader that this has been based on our experience to date I mean when we drew up this table two years ago we had no experience of dealing with investments commercial investments the only investment this council had made was in its own housing company and it didn't have any other investments to talk of and it needed a set of criteria for us to be able to judge schemes coming forward and it was very much done on looking around at what other councils are doing well now we've had two years of our own experience we are better able to judge what better suits our circumstances in South Cairns and that's why we've taken the opportunity to have a look at the weightings and adjust them accordingly however as has been said and as I've said earlier we are now going to review this every six months so there will be opportunity going forward for us to revise these weightings if we feel that there needs to be an adjustment Thank you very much indeed Councillor Williams so you know I congratulate Peter Maddox for the transparency of this report with the track changes which makes it very very easy to follow for all of us so that's excellent and the fact that it's written in plain English which is a thing of joy for papers that are basically financial papers and as Councillor John Williams has said you know we have learned an awful lot last few years on investments and you know the council has been extremely successful and the financial stability and strength of this council is in part due to its investment strategy and the investments it's made which allows us to keep on giving grants out to communities as well as employing people to do the work that so badly needs to be done so my thanks to all of Peter Maddox's team for all the work that's gone into this so the recommendations are set out in paragraph 3 and the cabinet's recommended to subject to the amendments we've talked about today recommend to full council the updated investment strategy attached to Appendix A which includes a range of investment indicators to comply with the statutory guidance on local government investments and the governance arrangements to enable the council to seek approval for priority investments in a timely manner in response to market conditions do members agree with the proposals? Okay that's unanimous so cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation and item number 10 is more money stuff the capital programme update and new bids Lady sorry to interrupt I just wanted to check whether that report will go to full council in its current form in other words showing the amendments or will it be in its consolidated form I'd actually think I'd prefer with the amendments but I just wanted to ask Mr Maddox Yeah that was the intention councillor So that was the intention for it to go with the track changes Great that's lovely thank you Yeah it's really useful having track changes it's quite irritating when you don't help them actually Thank you okay so back to the capital programme update and new bids at 10 page 111 to 134 John Williams is presenting this and I believe that councillor Handley is going to second it Yes I am Thank you very much indeed so councillor John Williams Thank you leader Changes to the capital programme and the new bids are outlined in paragraphs 2.3 and 2.5 for the revised programmes in those tables I'm happy to take any questions on that There is one amendment to be had and that is under human resources system it's shown against Susan Gardner Craig Actually that should be Jeff memory Okay that's it John Good thank you very much indeed Any cabinet members like to comment on item 10 the capital programme update and new bids councillor Chamberlain have you anything to contribute to this My bold sorry leader No we did not consider this report Okay thank you very much indeed and any questions or comments from other councillors Thank you leader I'm just looking at page 132 on the external funding There's quite a few variances I'm assuming that's Cambridge City Council There seems to be quite a few variances between the budget and the revised figures so just wondering if we've got any explanation around that Right I haven't got my page numbers on this online That's in one of the appendices is it I'm on the online version It's page 132 on the line The bookmarks if you actually go to number 11 and go up a couple of pages that helps Okay fine, Mr Caputimadex Is there a particular one you're looking at councillor Williams The external funding from CTC for waste vehicle, external funding for waste IT system and CCC for electric charging infrastructure The budget and the revised All three of them are quite varied So I'm just wondering if there's a reason for that this year I mean other than the fact that we will have reprofiled the cabinet programme significantly So on the table for example we don't actually show the original for 20 it doesn't doesn't compare on appendix C Are you looking at specifically appendix C Doesn't tell us on the online version does it Yeah appendix C page 132 Yeah so all it is it will be a delay in purchasing vehicles or does any changes within the cabinet programme So when we change the cabinet programme I'm just to make sure it's in line with what the new expenditure profile is Please come back, yes Thank you, so to confirm it's not a case of the expense has been made and we're waiting for funds to come in Oh no, no it's just it would just be me profiling So it's just in relation to the profiling, yep, okay jolly good Alright, thank you very much councillor Claire Daunton I saw your name pop up there Well if I might just then if it would be possible for Peter Maddock to move the microphone closer it was difficult to hear him that's what I put in the chat, thank you That's alright Councillor Bradman Thank you leader, I just wanted to make the observation on the same place that Councillor Heather Williams has referred to in Appendix C on page 132 CCC is a very ambiguous statement particularly with regard to waste because of course Cambridge County Council is the disposal authority So can I just ask for those of us who work across both city and south Cams and county could you just use city and county so city CC and county CC rather than just CCC, otherwise it's not clear Thank you Thank you very much Councillor Bradman Moving to the recommendations set out at three of the report, I'm not going to read it all out because it's quite long So do members agree with the proposal Great, so that's unanimous Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation So item 11 now is the revenue and capital budget monitoring for quarter two and that's going to be presented by Councillor John Williams and I will second it So over to you again Councillor John Williams Thank you leader, I've got nothing to add on this actually it's very little difference from the quarter one and it shows that we are on track to achieve the out turn, the revised out turn of the revised budget that we introduced following Covid Thank you, so that's a good result if we're all on track, marvellous Any Councillor Chamberlain, do you want to contribute to this? Thank you for the opportunity leader but no we scotally did not consider this report I'll keep on asking you, thank you It's very kind, thank you You're welcome Members of the Cabinet, anybody wish to contribute? No, and any members wish to discuss this? Nope Okay fine, so moving on to the Cabinet's recommended to A note the forecast 2021-22 revenue position against the approved revenue budget shown in Appendix B, project a major variances with reasons for these variances, Appendix C1 and C2 and the action being taken to address the underlying issues and B note the latest capital programme 2021-22 position and variances if any as shown at Appendix D So, catch up catch up with myself So, do members agree with the proposal? That's unanimous, so Cabinet approve the agree the proposals by affirmation and on the last leg, two to go item 12 is bids and savings page 161-180 and Councillor John Williams is going to present this and Councillor Bill Handley, you're going to second it thank you and over to you again Councillor Williams Thank you leader, well this is the the start of the putting our budget together for next year for 22-23 and it's very exciting because as you can see we are proposing a number of increases in services to our residents, we're also intending to make the council more robust and can I first of all thank the leadership team and in particular the finance team for all the work that they've done in sifting through the various bids and putting this together in front of us today the extra costs in doing this are more than offset by savings and particularly things like the transformation of the council such as the introduction of the golden telephone number and additional investment income which as you said earlier is enabling us to improve our services employ more staff and increase the quality of the offer to our tenants and to our residents for example if you look you'll see that there are new posts some of these new posts are permanent some are for a specific period of time to enable us to see whether or not they should be made permanent or to meet a particular need at this moment in time for example we are proposing an empty homes officer which we discussed earlier we're looking at three money advice posts for housing we're looking at another fraud prevention officer for our highly successful fraud team we're looking at external funding officer in finance another contract management officer and IT support for members and in addition to that we are also looking at introducing a post to help with antisocial behaviour which is not actually in this proposal but will be in the budget that's put to full counselling in February also we're making some temporary posts permanent the business support officer for waste the housing advice and the accommodation officer for shy homes the HMO post in housing and the facilities and compliance officer all these temporary posts we intend to make permanent apart from staff we're going to provide more funding for the commercial development and investments team where the housing visiting support scheme to make up for the county council cutting its contribution to this service a new staff engagement and development budget more money for apprenticeships and a grow our own talent project in planning and a supplement for our HDV drivers and we're also intending to bring back in-house the cleaning of our offices and vehicles which we'll actually make a saving so as you can see this is quite an exciting budget for next year one which we can well afford because of the transformation of the council together with the additional income that we're getting from our investments enables us to do this and I think I say this many many times despite mischief made by others we are in a very very strong financial situation we are very you know we are extremely healthy financially and I look forward to us further developing this council to meet the needs of our residents going forward Thank you very much indeed councillor William so it is indeed a good new story and you know as it gives me huge pleasure that we are investing in people there's nothing better to spend money on and I think the confidence we have in our executive management team means that we absolutely know that these investments are going to deliver huge benefits for our residents so my thanks to all of our executive management team as well as to the finance team who have already referenced who again put massive effort into this work along with everybody else of course it is a team of the whole council so councillor Handley do you want to speak at this point? Just to say what a great report I think we're one of the few councils aren't we that are in a particularly good financial position I gather Yeah can I say that I think we've all seen a unison report on which councils are going to be cutting their budgets next year and we are one of the very few councils in the country that will not be cutting our budget next year That's great news, thank you Thank you, right any questions or comments from Members of Cabinet? Councillor Chamberlain have you anything to contribute on this? No thank you leader but we will be looking of course at the budget in due course Thank you very much indeed any questions from councillors, councillor Heather Williams Thank you leader I've just got one thing that I think could do with a bit of further explanation in the chart on page 171 about the countywide partnership project and then the description is the countywide partnership project I'm just thinking for transparency reasons it may help to have a little bit more than just the repeated sentence So stress somebody that sits on the Audit and Corporate Governance committee about please do take very seriously the needs of the finance department in the budget process going forward along with as a member of the staff employment committee we know that we have a high dependency in planning on agencies and I imagine that's got something to do with the overspends there so if that can be looked at in great detail while the budget is being prepared and I hope that doesn't get the accusation of mischief making although Councillor John Williams and his former role was I think Loki himself when it come to mischief and so yes and I do hope given that comment chair that the leader does agree that it is important about holding the cabinet to account and that that can actually be genuinely motivated I'm interested in your views on that later Well thank you Councillor Williams The welcome that I've given Councillor Chamberlain on every item I hope affirms that we do welcome that scrutiny and we are all better the very fact that Councillor Chamberlain chairs scrutiny for us shows that we do welcome that external review of everything we're doing and it does add value there are new jobs identified in this paper which have come about because of the scrutiny that you and your colleagues have been heavily involved with and we've listened to because you like me represent your residents and we all want what's best for our residents and little bits of mischief creeping every now and then as long as we're fair that everybody's allowed a bit of mischief at times we shall move on but I'm going to ask our chief executive Liz Watts to respond to you on your two points there Thank you and I was going to respond on the first point if I may chair so on the county wide partnership project you're right it does sound a bit vague at the moment Councillor Williams the leaders of all of the public sector organisations got together in October and in the process of drafting a vision and a strategy for county wide working so that's not the county council that's working across across the county and so we have put in a sort of fits a hold really just so that at the point when we come to the leaders all agreeing a single project that they want to deliver together the idea being that there are some things that we do well on our own there are some things that we do better together we will have a funding stream from next April for that project so I hope by the time of council we may have some more information on that Thank you and I couldn't I couldn't tell you what it looks like at the moment because I don't know we had a workshop and we shall see I think the point is that actually Covid has really shown how working together delivers huge fantastic results really we couldn't have done what we did without the support of the county council public health, police, fire everybody else so I think you know it will be a shape what we don't want to do is lose all that lose the good partnership working which wasn't there before so you know there are opportunities particularly as we remove hopefully one of these days into proper recovery from Covid I'm going to ask Geoff memory to comment on how reliant we are on agency staff and whether some of these new posts will actually reduce our reliance on having agency staff in to fill gaps Thank you leader certainly the service review that's currently under being undertaken of the planning service is very conscious of the fact that we're very reliant on agency staff at various times what we're looking to do is to change the processes and the way that we work to reduce that reliance I don't know whether it directly relates specifically to any of the posts mentioned in this report but it's certainly an area that we're focusing on very carefully So sorting out the system so that the people we have are able to do the jobs do the jobs differently better and hopefully less stressfully for them stressfully, not sure that's a word Moving on to other members Anna Bradman Thank you leader I am looking at Appendix B the general fund revenue bids one off and I was really pleased to hear that list that Councillor John Williams gave us of the new initiatives and I'm particularly pleased to see reference on page 172 under housing advice and the title is money advice service three advisors will be employed to advise on money management income maximisation and advice on heating and insulation because I know that in one of my parishes a request to provide such a service was requested of me so I'm really pleased to hear that that is being put in place and I just wanted to check whether this would be a service not only for our own tenants but also tenants in private housing and you know I just wondered whether it would offer a service to them as well rather than just our own tenants Thank you very much indeed Peter Campbell would you like to respond to that? Yes the idea is very much this is for available to everybody particularly for people who are in all sorts of financial difficulties living in their own homes so we can sort them out by either increasing their income to their home or reducing their expenditure they have more chance of avoiding homelessness and that's what we're aiming for so yes it will be available If I may come back, Canida? Thank you very much that's so good I really really want to thank you for putting that in place because we have so many vulnerable people in housing and it would be so easy for them to slip into homelessness if we didn't give them this sort of support so thank you very much indeed and I know the particular parish will be absolutely delighted to hear that this is in place so thank you Thank you so I think that's a call to make sure that we publicise this really really well so that we have a very good uptake of it it's good to hear that there's an identified demand Councillor Bradlin and your own wards welcome this report so the recommendations set out at paragraph 3 A, note the growth bids forward both one off and ongoing and detailed dependencies A and B and consider whether those for 2022 to 2023 should be included in the budget to be proposed in February 22 B, note the proposed range of service efficiencies saving stroke policy options detailed in appendix 6 C sorry that these will undergo further refinement and consultation with stakeholders prior to forming part of the budget setting report in February 22 so do members agree with proposal agreed that's unanimous so the so the cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation and on to the last one now which is fees and charges and that's Councillor John Williams again seconded by me thank you leader I'm not going to dwell on this I think we all want to finish the meeting and I'll just take any questions and charges okay thank you very much indeed are there any questions from anybody on it thank you so are there any questions from any member of cabinet any questions from any other members that's a nice that's a nice quickie really good so let me just find where I am oh sorry I should I should just have asked prior to this I do apologise I should have asked if anybody wanted to discuss information which was commercially sensitive in the in the pink appendices but I'm taking everyone's silences that they don't so we can continue on so the recommendation is at paragraph 3 on page 181 recommended that cabinet consider the report and if satisfied to A approve the fees and charges as detailed in appendix A of the report to take effect from the 1st of April 22 unless otherwise stated all the earliest feasible date thereafter and be proposed variations to fees and charges in comparison to the prevailing inflation rate detailed in the report so do members agree with proposal agree thank you very much the cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation so we've now reached the end of the agenda thank you very much everyone for joining us today both in person and remotely and thank you to our officer colleagues I note the next meeting of the cabinet scheduled to take place on Monday 10th January at 10 o'clock and I do hope that you all have a very good break at the end of this month and come back refreshed in the new year so if we could stop