 Thank you very much, Jeff. Thank you very much. Okay, good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of South Cambridgeshire District Council's Scrutiny and Overview Committee. My name is Councillor Graham Cohn and I am the chair of this committee. Along the top table with me are to my right Councillor Stephen Drew, my vice-chair, and to my left Ian Sr, who is the Scrutiny and Governance Advisor. I will introduce other attendees when I invite them to speak. This meeting is being live streamed by your presence here in the Chamber and via video conference you are deemed to have consented to being filmed and to the use of images and sound recordings for the webcast and archive recordings. When addressing the committee, speakers should not disclose any personal information of any individuals. This might infringe the rights of that individual and breach the Data Protection Act. I can confirm that the committee is core at there being at least four Scrutiny and Overview Committee members here in the Chamber. At any time, if a member leaves the Chamber, would they please make sure that it is known to Ian and myself so we can get this recorded? That applies also to people joining us online as well. I will hand over to Ian for any apologies. We have had apologies from councillors Sally Ann Hart, Tom Bygart, Judith Ruppeth and councillor Paul Bear Park as substitute for councillor Hart. We will move on to decorations of interest. Have any members got any decorations of interest they want to declare? I'm on planning committee and the first description of the north star involves work which will become before planning committee. In order to protect my interest I will withdraw for the first presentation so that I don't get involved in some of the committee decisions on planning committee when the time comes up. Thank you for that. Peter Fane. A similar declaration, Chair, but I had no intention of withdrawing. I just don't intend to participate in the debate on that item if there isn't. Lovely. Councillor Bill Handley. I'm on the planning committee. Can I withdraw? No, Chair, seriously, I am on the planning committee but I won't be sitting in on that particular planning meeting because for obvious reasons. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Lehman. Thank you, Chair. I'm a substitute for the planning committee. I'm not a regular attendee of the planning committee but I should declare that here. Thank you. Thank you for that. Councillor Hannah Bradlin. Thank you, Chair. I'm also a substitute but I had advised the monitoring officer that if I was asked to substitute at that planning committee meeting I wouldn't speak on that item. Thank you for that. Anybody else? No. Okay, so we'll move on now to minutes of the previous meeting pages 7 to 12. Have any councillers got any amendments or any comments on the minutes? Councillor Hannah Bradlin. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask, on the excellent report from the Young People in Task and Finish group, I just wanted to check on the recommendations which are at the bottom of that. The bottom of page 10 and then proceeding on to page 11. The first and the third bullets suggest instructing officers and I just wondered is that appropriate? That may be an appropriate terminology but I wasn't sure whether we might prefer to ask officers to do something rather than instruct them. I don't know, is that a reasonable question? Yeah, and the advice I'm getting from Ian is that it actually was changed at the cabinet meeting to ask from instructs. So this has changed? So what we've got in front of this has since been changed? Yes, agreed. So I think at that point that's okay and it sort of takes into account what you've said, Councillor Bradlin. Thank you. Councillor Cym. I wasn't at the last meeting so I will be staying in front. Anybody else? Anything on the minutes? Okay, in that case I will do them sort of a fair and accurate interpretation of what happened at the last minute. So public questions, item four, I don't think we have any public questions at all. So item five is the North Stoke community facilities update. So we'll start with anyone that's got any questions on that item. Councillor Leeming. Thank you, Chair. I have three questions to do with this paper. The first one is just some background information, please. So I thought it might be helpful to put it in context if we knew how many people currently live in North Stoke and how many houses are occupied at the moment. I wondered whether that could be added to this paper to put things in context because some of the section 106 trigger points are dependent on the number of occupied new dwellings. So I think it would be very good to understand exactly where the North Stoke development is at the moment. I don't know if anyone can update on that, please. Councillor Bill Handley. Yes, Chair, I can give some latest figures, just bear with me while I get them up. We have currently, I think it's about 1400, just over 1400 people now of which I think 35 are in phase two. So phase two is fairly, is very early stages, really. So I'm doing that from memory, but I'm sure that's right. Yes, here we are. Phase one, 1318, phase two, 35, and that was at 20th of September. Thank you, Councillor Handley. Does that mean that there's more than 500 dwellings occupied now? Yes, that's true. Thank you. Great, that was my first question. My second question related to the location of this civic hub. So there's a point in here which is point 39 on page 18. And it says that the exact location of the building has not yet been agreed with Homes England. There's a steering group. And I wondered whether that would be consulted with the local residents as well. And what degree of uncertainty is there about the location of this building? Is it, there's a plot but we don't know where the building is going to sit in the plot or is it that we don't know where it's going to be on the site? My understanding is we don't know exactly where it's going to sit in the plot. We need the red line from Homes England. And this actually very quickly in this meeting underlines the fact that we are working in partnership with Homes England and other partners, often interdependent. We're waiting for them to tell us where it's going to be before we can make real progress. Thank you, Councillor Handley. Will the local community be consulted as part of that? Will the local community be consulted as part of this location? Well, the community is being consulted with continuously. Actually, I was hoping that I might be able to sort of give a very brief rundown of what's going on with when it comes to engagement with the local community because we really have forged very good communications with them. With your permission, Chair, can I just very quickly, there are three very key groups within Northstone, which I'm going to refer to, I would think, from time to time when I'm answering questions. Would you allow me just two minutes just to explain where they are? If it goes to answering the question, then I'm very happy for you to do that. It's relevant because it's to do with communication, which is what Councillor Leamings asked about. There are three main groups which we're working with. The first one is the Town Council, which has actually been central to the success of the delivery of what we have delivered, which is the temporary community building, and very soon the Western Park Pavilion. The chair of the group, Paul Littlemore, provides a very strong link between council officers and the Northstone community. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank them for the amount of engagement and help and advice that they've given us. The Town Council have been fantastic. The second one I would mention is the delivery group. Now, the Northstone delivery group is a small group. It's overseas and assists us to deliver the council's programme. It has representatives from the Town Council, Paul Littlemore is one of them. We have our own ward members, Natalie Warren-Green and Tom Bygot. County councillor, Frews Thompson and South Cam staff led by Ann Ainsworth, Peter Campbell, Claire Gibbons and a number of SEDC officers who come and go to give us the benefit of their experience and knowledge on certain issues. The role of the delivery group is the delivery of the community facilities that we are responsible for and includes a transition of assets because that's what's going to happen in the fullness of time from the council to the Town Council or another group as agreed. Holmes England is a big important partner and they have already started to attend the development group meetings and I foresee that they will play an even greater part. Finally, the community forum and this is where we are communicating at our best really with the community. It's a very well attended, very popular forum. It gives the opportunity for North Star residents to speak with all the share of the stakeholders, not just South Cam staff but Holmes England, Angvi and Water, County Council, whatever. They have the opportunity to hear from them and to quiz them about developments within their village or by their town. Those three groups are key for the chair. That's a really clear answer. Thank you, Councillor Hindley. My third question relates to Point 8 on page 40, which is about the original Section 106 agreement which allowed the developers to pass responsibility for building community buildings onto the district council. I wondered whether we had learned any lessons from this experience and whether it's something that we would repeat again or not. That S106 agreement was signed off under the previous administration several years ago. It won't happen again because it has caused this administration and the council a great deal of trouble. I can say that with every confidence it won't be happening again. Thank you, Councillor Hindley. Thank you. Councillor Anna Bradman. A bit difficult because you're the only one. Councillor Hobre. I had a question which is a bit of a follow-up from Councillor Leemings' question about the Point 43 on page 19, which talks about the land transfer to South Cams for the construction of Pavilion being triggered by 500 occupied new dwellings in Phase 2. I think Councillor Hindley just said that there are only 35. Yes, there are only 35, but the Western Park Pavilion is going to be open probably within, well, by the end of the month, I would think if not very soon after that. So we're ahead of time. OK, so we're well ahead of the 500 trigger in this case. Thank you. I was going to ask how that line... Sorry if there was a misunderstanding there, Councillor Leemings. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor Anna Bradman. In fact my question was also about the trigger at 500 and that's been answered, so thank you very much. Any other speakers? Councillor Stephen Tree. Sorry. Excellent, thank you. I just wanted to, as we were kind of at the end of our questions, I just wanted to consider kind of forward learning in relation to this. One of the things that's been brought up within the committee a few times and that's kind of been mentioned by Councillor Leemings in relation to this as well is the issues related to S106 agreements. And obviously one of the things that has been talked about with North Stowe is the work that the district councillors have to do to overcome issues related to previous agreements. And it's great that extra funding has been put in and it was good recently to see councillor Handley and others from Cabinet opening up the community centre and all really good in that regard. But I know that a number of members, both on the council and in the screen overview committee have talked about concerns about ensuring that with our growing number of new towns, so obviously we have the West Canbourn Development, the Water Beach Development, obviously continuing North Stowe and then the Bourne Airfield Development. And that's wondered if councillor Handley or one of the officers could perhaps give us a sense of what specific points of learning they think have come out of the work that's been done for North Stowe and a sense of how we can be confident that the delivery of Water Beach Newtown and the delivery in Bourne Airfield will clearly have learned from the states that have been made in the past. So I'll come to councillor Bill Handley first and then I'll come over to Anne Ainsworth. We are now in a very good position, we've just delivered what the hot of the press, the interim community book is going to be called The Cabin by local people. So we have The Cabin which is incredibly well used already. The pavilion, I myself and one or two of my cabinet colleagues went to the pavilion last week and it's a truly fantastic facility. Six of them would be changing rooms for example and things like that. It is a very impressive building and you have to commend the officer team that's delivered it because it's been a mammoth task and they've done a fantastic job. And this is when you consider the things that have happened in the last few years not standing COVID which has clearly delayed things. It certainly caused challenges, we had to change our plans, didn't just affect us of course it affected our partners who very often were unable to build. Through lockdown and so on. So things were badly delayed, we know that which is why I'm really proud of what we've done in the last 12 months to bring these two important facilities forward for the people of Norstow. Understand the Norstow residents frustration but I think you'll find now if you go to speak to people that they are actually really optimistic for the future with the new facilities that are coming online now. Councillor Stephen tree. Yes, fine. You're going to go to. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. It was just on the previous point, just a point of clarification. So under section 40 of the report that was about the phase two sports pavilion. So we are just about as Councillor Hanley said to open the phase one sports pavilion. But the phase two sports pavilion will be coming online later and that relates to the number of houses in the phase two development rather than the phase one development which is where the current pavilion is being built. Thank you. No, that's fine. Great. Thank you very much. Lovely. So I've got Councillor Richard Stobart next. Yeah. Councillor Richard Stobart. Thank you chair. So if I could move on to the community centre and plans for the community centre, I think the received wisdom about community facilities is that they're best defined by the residents and of course quite a lot of the residents aren't there yet. This is in terms of trying to hit a moving target. So a question I would like to ask is first of all there's actually quite a good cadre of community workers working in North Stowe. How are the community workers in a sense canvassing local residents and in a sense anticipating some of the expectations. So as the demographic change to go from younger families to older families, as the demographic mix takes shape and so that for example inform the way the spaces are going to be used in the community centre, we'll have different places of worship. You know the Church of England is saying we're not going to build churches, we're going to use community facilities and so on. How is that to put to the chase and express my question? How are the community workers helping to define the shape of the community centre and keep its flexibility so that all those kind of future needs will get anticipated? Councillor Bill Hanley. Thank you for the question. I thank Councillor Stowe for the question. The community workers are absolutely key. Claire Gibbons leads them that we have. Mihael Ysdann. Sorry, I can't remember the second. They speak to the people all the time. They now have an office in the cabin as we are now calling it. So they're speaking to people on a daily basis. Apart from that, we have spoken to people via the community forum and there's been surveys and so on. So the facilities that will be included in the permanent community building will be the facilities that the people of the town have requested. I know you talked on, you briefly mentioned faith buildings. There is faith land available on North Stowe. It's not something that this council is responsible for building but we will be responsible for administering how that land is used. So it will be going through a formal bidding process where all faith we hope will come along with this and hopefully work together. So we've got a multi-faith building and that's what we're hoping for. Councillor Richard Stowe, do you want to come back at all? Well, thank you for that. The community team, if you will, has a certain shape now. What's the plan for the community team with me into the coming months and years? Well, they're going to be there for a while. I don't know what the... Maybe one of the officers can tell me what they're projected, how long they're likely to stay for. I suspect they'll be there for some years because we're under 1400 houses out of 10,000. It's a big project. It's going to go on for a lot of years and the community is going to need a lot of help and support as it grows and develops. I have to say the community so far in North Stowe is already quite repalkable actually. If you go to the community building, you see a really thriving community. They've got food hubs which sit outside coffee trucks. Of course, we've got a market now most every month at least. Just a fantastic community feel. There was an opening day a couple of weeks ago which I attended. Just full of people and they were all really happy. You've got the feeling that the community has been there for many years, not just fairly recently. Thanks very much. Thank you. On that point about community engagement, as Councillor Hanley said, it's an incredibly active community at North Stowe which has always been absolutely fantastic to see. Their support and involvement and engagement with us in terms of consultations for the buildings and what kind of activities need to take place there moving forward has been so important in helping us develop the buildings that are already in place such as the Temple Community Centre and then the Pavilion coming online as well. We've actually been able with the Temple Community Centre, we tweaked and changed the internal layout of the building based on the feedback that we received from those groups. We're so grateful to them for the expertise and advice and time that they've given us over the last few months to help us shape the buildings accordingly. What I would say in terms of their community development team, they're going to continue to be extremely busy. There's a lot going on. But if you don't mind, Chair, if I could just pass to Claire just to give a little bit more information about the future of the team. Thank you. Thank you. So currently we have two community development officers. One that is being funded through section 106 funding from phase one and another from phase two. We have secured similar funding from phases three A and three B and would be seeking equivalent funding from any other development associated with Norstow. So indeed that support for community development will be ongoing throughout the life of Norstow. This is one of our key learning points that community development support is vital to enable communities to cohere, to support one another. And just on that point of support, it's not the only revenue that's available to support communities. The very generous phase two section 106 settlement provide an equivalent for phases three A and B provide some additional specialist support funding for youth workers or mental health support etc. So we can really encompass all the needs that are exhibited by communities and build on the learning that we gained from other sites. Councillor Bill Hanley. Thank you. Just following up on what Claire has just said. The question from Councillor Drew earlier, what lessons learned. One of the lessons I think we've learned is that having community officers in a new development as early as possible is absolutely key. And even before people move in correctly. Thanks very much. Okay, so we'll move on to Councillor Paul Bear Park. Thank you Chair. I just wanted to ask a question about the implication section of this report. We talked about financial staffing, risks and opportunities. Now staffing, it says there are no direct implications. Now maybe not arising from this report, but obviously as a result of South Cams District Council having to deliver these buildings, I guess there are staffing and resourcing implications. Now maybe that's been discussed previously at other meetings, but I was just wondering is that having a heavy burden associated with the delivery of this by South Cams rather than the developer? Councillor Bill Hanley. Well I may have to defer to other officers. I mean I would say that yes there's bound to be quite a heavy officer requirement. It's a big project, but it's been budgeted for as Claire Gibbons has already pointed out. Some of the community officers actually funded out of S106 funding, so that's not a financial burden. But yes we do have a new build team working, beavering away, delivering these buildings. I'm doing a really good job in doing it as well. Yes there's bound to be, but I couldn't give you any figures. Thank you, I'm happy to come in on this point. As you say, because it was a progress report it was more about the work that's ongoing in terms of the team. What we did is we set up a cross council team, which we call Team Northstone, and some of my colleagues are here today. And what we all bring is our expertise and our specialisms, so we cover things like community development, new build, etc. So yes there is a staffing resource involved in this and we've already talked earlier about the implications of learning from a section 106 which passes this kind of responsibility for buildings onto the council. And therefore by definition the implications of having to staff and deliver those buildings. What I would say is that the team are absolutely phenomenal in their commitment to Northstone and I hope you can see that from the progress that we've made over the last 12 months. The pace at which the council has moved on these projects. I've had people come along to me and say we've never heard of a council moving that quickly in terms of some of these projects and that's been wonderful to get that feedback. So yes there are implications with staffing. We have broadly used that from staffing that existed. We have added some extra resource into the new building recently, but in terms of the way that Team Northstone works we are officers who are also working on other projects alongside this commitment and dedication to Northstone. So what I will mention again though is we absolutely could not do it without the support of the local community, town council and other partners who are part of the delivery group and that has been so important in giving us the assistance as officers to be able to move forward with projects at pace and again just to say we're extremely grateful for that wider support. Councillor Bill Hanley did you want to come in again? I mean really what I would like to say is you know we are a bit of a milestone of the opening of this pavilion which is as I said earlier quite an impressive structure. You know you might as a committee wish to have a look at it. I mean it really is something of which this council can be proud. Have a look at the cabin as well. It's a port of cabins modular but it serves the purpose very well. You'll be very welcome to come and have a look. I'm sure if you spoke with I think probably Claire Gibbons. She'll make arrangements for you to visit. I think it's well worth one. Thank you very much for that Councillor Bill Hanley. Did you follow up at all? Yeah no that's all very good to hear. Thank you very much. It's good to hear that there's a good team, capable team working on this, doing good work and thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Anna Bratton. Thank you chair. I was fortunate enough to be asked when I was chair of South Council to go and celebrate the first meeting of the Town Council there and in preparation for delivering some words there. You know I went back through the history and at that time which was a couple of years ago things at the time were working quite slowly. They had set up a Town Council but things were moving slowly because there was this bit of the delivery of the community facilities hanging over us. So actually I want to endorse what Anne Ainsworth has said here that actually having now got this decision and undertaken as a district council to make up the shortfall and get funding for the shortfall I'm just so pleased that the core heart of North Stowe is now beginning to be and is now being delivered and being used and every day there are children in there and doing activities and crafts and sports You know it's really giving the community a core to enjoy and be part of so I just wanted to thank all the officers who've worked so hard to bring this round because it was not an easy thing to do and it's all credit to this district council to actually grasp the nettle and find the funding for it because it's been absolutely crucial to this community so I just wanted to celebrate that. Thank you very much for that Councillor Anna Bradlin. Councillor Bill Handley, I would like to thank Councillor Bradlin for those comments and I'm sure they'll be very well received and very welcomed by the team. They have worked exceptionally hard. I'm sure those comments are echoed by the whole committee in terms of the members and officers work that they've put into this project so thank you very much for that Councillor Bradlin. So if we've got no other speakers on this we will move to the recommendation which is set out on page 13, item 5. We have been asked to note this report essentially so are we happy to note this report as it goes? Agreed. So we will move on to item 7 on the agenda, sorry item 6 on the agenda, cost of living support update. This report is presented to the committee as a draft cabinet report and the scrutiny and overview committee is requested to comment and provide feedback on the projects that are set out within it. So I will open it up to questions from the committee. Councillor Leaming. Thank you Chair. I wanted to ask a question about point 9 which is on page 30 of the agenda which is to do with people being provided with electric blankets, slow cookers or sometimes both. And it says that they were prioritised using council data to identify those most likely in need. What was that data? What was the criteria that was used to make that assessment? Councillor Bill Handley. We decided at an early stage that we would target those people who just about managing. These are people that often miss out on other benefits because they are in work but they still struggle. And also incurring additional costs such as having to travel to work and so on. We decided for the fresh round this coming winter to actually target those with reduced mobility because they are more at risk. There is data to show that they are more at risk from cold conditions than others. And of course they can often put more pressure on the health service. So that is what we decided to do and data from our own data we used and we are also going to extend it to some other disabled people. It is basically we looked at those on council tax benefits and those on certain other mobility benefits. I will not give you the full, I think it is actually in the paper but that is the criteria that we used. Any surplus equipment which is not distributed as a result of the initial troll will then go to our housing officers. So if they come across anyone who is clearly going to benefit from an electric blanket they are able to help. Thank you councillor. This year, this coming future year, do we know how many people we anticipate giving this sort of support to? This report is reporting on the previous year, the 400 people that were given these useful items. Do we know how many we anticipate to give out this year for these? Yes, we think, we estimate that there will be just over 500 people in the district that would probably potentially meet the criteria. We have a budget to cover 500 so we should just about cover it I think. Okay. Thank you. I just have a very general comment about the whole report actually. It's a huge piece of work and I just wanted to thank everybody that had been involved with the warm hubs which are now the community hubs. All the volunteers that have been involved in this across the whole district and our officers and everybody who's and our partners. People like Hope who've worked closely with a number of these projects and I just wanted to acknowledge the significant work that's been undertaken over the last year. Thanks very much, Councillor Neumann. Councillor James Hobro. Thank you Chair. So this is a question about the same part of the report but first of all I just wanted to say that I feel we all should be tremendously grateful to the team that has rolled these measures out last winter and are putting it together for this winter. I feel very proud to be part of the council that's doing this kind of work. So my question was also about Section 9 but really about how these measures are evolving between last year and this year. So I noticed that we already have a programme of giving out electric blankets which is a kind of evolution of the programme last year that's described in Section 9 there. So I wondered if we could have some detail on really what the feedback was like from last year's programme of this kind of support and how we've decided to evolve it as we roll out a slightly different version of it this year. Thank you, Councillor Hobro. I will comment but I also, if I could point out that we have Chris Richards, the officer who's responsible for this report and responsible for the day-to-day running of this. I think you've done a fantastic job, I think you'll agree. He may be able to chip in and add information. The main difference is one that I've already covered and that is that this year we are targeting those with mobility needs. We're taking great care not that we don't go back over old ground really. We just assumed that the people who had benefited from the slow cookers and electric blankets last year are not in the pool this year. They don't need it. So we're being very careful about that and I can reassure people that we're putting quite a lot of effort in to ensure that they do go to the right people and there's no sort of fraudulent eBay activity or things like that. We are taking those steps to protect the council in that way. I don't know if there's anything more you can say, Chris? I'll just say on a difference between last year and this year with last year deciding to target those just about managing. But this year we've had the opportunity to see more longer term data on the cost of living and who it's affecting most. Some of the data that came out about that we've seen from citizens advice came from local data showing the disproportionate effect that the cost of living crisis is having upon disabled people specifically. That went to part of the decision to target that cohort this time around. I think that's a great answer and I'm really pleased to see that so much attention has been paid to analysing the effects of last year's programme and renewing it. So thank you. Okay. Councillor Fane. Thank you chair. My question sort of follows that from Councillor Leaming earlier on in relation to warm hubs. Forgive me I wasn't able to find the right reference to it. I'll just quickly find warm hubs but I find there are 489 references to warm hubs in this report which perhaps is something about work that's been done. Only 17 about community hubs so that was easier. Now my question relates to learning experience from last year partly because the weather was fairly climate for a lot of the time. I certainly visited warm hubs on days when there were more volunteers than there were people who didn't see themselves as volunteers. That's no bad thing. I think the experience was probably quite varied depending on the choice of buildings, the way they were run. I wonder how we're learning from that experience to help parishes and others bearing in mind that the contract is with ACA rather than with individual parish councils as I understand it, to run successful community hubs now to learn the lessons from the warm hubs and make sure that effectively we're getting the best value for the money put into it and not missing out to many people who might otherwise be there. One little point was I noticed and this may not be universal but for instance dogs were not allowed in most warm hubs and a number of people said that they wouldn't go there without their dogs. I don't know whether that's a variable issue or one that could be addressed. I have to declare an interest as a dog owner. But little things like that, trying to identify who can best benefit and who may have felt excluded from warm hubs last year and might be more included in the community hubs programme. Thanks very much for that. I'll go over to Bill Handley. Yes, thank you chair. We thought last year warm hubs was a term that had been used not just here but in other parts of the country. I think we came to the conclusion it was a bit of a misnomer really because it was a place where people could go and keep warm but it was more than that, it was social, it was and hence the reason for changing the name and also by putting more resources into helping people whilst they're there, whilst they're having a chat and a cup of tea. They can also learn about where they can go to get further help if they need it. And of course, problem shared, problem halved and all of that, so it's very important. On the dog issue, I wasn't aware of that. It may be that the venue is setting the rule rather than, I don't think it would be us, but I just wasn't aware of that, I don't know if Chris is aware of it. I'm not aware of that while there certainly hasn't been an instruction from south camps to stop any dogs going into community hubs but that is something I can pick up definitely. But in terms of learning from last time, so as Councillor Handley has mentioned already, the change of the name to community hubs because a lot of people saw the warm hubs name as a barrier because they didn't want to be seen as needing help. Is that something that we've taken forward? And also with the new community hubs programme, we're going to be, or Cambridge Aco, going to be employing three village agents who will be people that are based in the community and part of their job role will be to be promoting the community hub within the community. So, for example, if there is an individual that feels like they can't go to community hub for whatever reason, the village agent can work with them, work through that. And when you speak about the weather as well, that's something that came up and one of the Cambridge Aco outlined some roles that each community hub volunteer groups can fill and one of the ones going forward is going to be a transport role to give people lifts into community hubs. Yes. The other thing I'll just very quickly say, I shouldn't underestimate the importance of people, intelligence coming back from the community hubs. In other words, people will say, well, Mrs Bloggs is struggling, she won't come in here, but she needs help, information that can go via Aco and we can follow up on. So that's another important aspect to this, which we perhaps don't talk about very much. Agreed. And I think it's really important how we pick bits out that really work and then allow those to emerge into things for socialisation like we talked about a previous committee in how those war hubs will develop, whether it's a change of name or picking the bits out that really worked. But Councillor Peter Fein, did you want to come back on that at all? No. Okay. Councillor Cairn. Councillor Fein has covered lots of points actually that I was planning to ask about. But in my ward, Orchard Park had a war hub, which then was not very successful and closed down. And I just wondered if you can think of some indication of the reasons why some of the ones which were less successful didn't succeed and whether you had planned to re-approach some of these to try the community hub formula and just see whether that was successful. I mean, I can think of reasons why Orchard Park might have been less successful in terms of the demographic of living it, even though it's at a high level of deprivation. The demographic is rather different from many of the other areas which are considered. But I just wondered if you could give me feedback on that, Councillor Bill Hanley. Yes, thank you, Chair. I think Orchard Park is a bit of an unusual demographic. I mean, there are elements of deprivation. There are also people there who are probably very well paid too. But, yeah, I mean, Chris touched on this. I think there's a stigma attached to the war hubs. Some people were just too proud to attend. This is why the name change has occurred. And I think that also because we're really making much of the additional information, the social side of it, you know, the hot drink and the biscuit. All of those things reduces the risk of stigma and people feeling they don't want to attend for that reason. Thanks very much, Councillor Khan. Yeah, Councillor Anna Bratton. I've just found the name, which I was hunting, but I'm going to have to go back to the page on which I made my notes. I was looking for the name Rose Regeneration, who were the people who produced the report. Because what struck me was that... Hang on, that wasn't the right page at all. I'll have to do it from memory. I think it was 104, the numbers wrong, was it? Yeah, it was where I put my notes. But basically what it was was that from this early idea of war hubs, what we saw was that actually the reason they worked was because they grew organically in communities. I know in Milton, my own community, they had already started to do it when it was suggested that we should do it. And good for Cambridgeshire Acre for coming up with some money for it as well. But what that showed was, yes, the slight uneasiness that people felt not wanting to admit that they were feeling cold, and in fact some people in my area said, well, actually, it's not during the day that I need that. If it was really cold, it's in the evening that I need somewhere to warm to go. But actually what came out of it was that when people did go, what they enjoyed was just being somewhere with other people, and for a lot of people it was the social interaction that they valued enormously. And what I think Rose Regeneration have done really cleverly and it's a lot of work to gather and analyse narrative data. So I just wanted to give them the credit for doing this because it is not easy to gather narrative textual information. What it's recognised is that there's so much involved in this. It's the perception people have of why they might go. It's simply the location of the building that people have said a central location is more likely to work. It depends on the building. Some people may not want particularly to go to a building associated with a church, but some others are happy with that and sometimes that's the only building that's available. So there's so many things that play in individual communities as to whether this continues or not. So I'm very glad that we're continuing to support communities to do this and to find out what works for them because clearly it's actually quite an individual thing as to whether the hub in the village works or not and if we can be flexible enough to support people in the way that their community needs to be supported then that's great and well done to all the officers who supported that. And well done to all the volunteers who gave up their time to make teas and coffees and do the training and learn how to be careful of safeguarding and GDPR when they were doing it and all the time that volunteers gave up and I'm pleased that we're continuing to support that. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Bradman. Did you want to come in on that, Bill? Chair, it's good to hear those words. I agree with them wholeheartedly. I think one of the things that Rose Regeneration sought to do was to actually put a financial figure on the benefits of the scheme which for some people is going to be very important. It certainly gives us the information to back up the grounds we have for continuing the scheme. Thanks very much. Did you want to come back at all? Well, it made me think I ought to dig my own slope. Cook her out and use it again. Okay. Did you want to come in on that? Thanks, Chair. It was just a minor point in regard to the funding. Obviously it was a package of measures that the council agreed for last winter and obviously you've agreed another package of funding for the extended programme and also funding from the integrated care board as well. So ACA was a very, very important partner but the funding was the council and health partners. Okay. Councillor Richard Stobart. Thank you, Chair. There's been talk of success and warm-hubs successfully launched and run and some that have had mixed fortunes. In Gertin, and if you'll forgive the anecdotal setting of this, in Gertin we had discussions frequently. In fact it became the topic of conversation in our informal forums as well as in the parish council. How were we going to get a warm-hub together? And there was quite a lot of talk about the locations, about the volunteers but always we would spiral in on one very important topic which was how do we really reach the people who have a need? One of the parish councillors was particularly keen on this and would quiz us about what was available from the district council who would just help us to identify those little pockets of need for one to a better term. We did raise it from time to time but it resulted in us never actually converging on a plan or a proposal for warm-hubs even though there are three very good locations in Gertin geographically separated which would have been a great place. I think partly it was volunteer deficit. There weren't the volunteers stepping forward and it's not as if for example at the Baptist Chapel Thursday mornings they would do something who would recognise as a warm-hub. In other villages we're aware of lunch clubs and things that do the kind of functions that warm-hubs we began to recognise could deliver. So I wonder what it is about the villages that didn't step forward with a good warm-hub proposal. They're going through the same kind of cycle and I was interested in suggestions or how we might move forward as a district council just helping those villages where they're having nap debate and then coming back to the question that we kept coming back to which is how do we really relate to the people in need when they don't want to talk about it? I mean there was a reference that council had made about the stigma that might be attached to turning up at a warm-hub and saying I actually can't afford to heat my house I don't want to project that to the neighbourhood. So I think there are probably things that we haven't touched and I think the whole thing is brilliantly done and I think the report is fantastic and the data that's been accumulated is also highly useful and I was wondering if there was more we could do with it but do we always come back to this question of how do we really reach the people in need and that's such a general question. I'll leave it hanging in the air but if anybody could comment on that I'd really appreciate it. Councillor Bill Hanley. If only we had the head of communications here. No, no, seriously. Obviously there are people who are not online at the start who may well need help and we do have the South Cams magazine which is actually very well read. It's not something that goes straight in the recycling on the whole. It's a good publication that people actually read and we have had some of it. I'll just ask Gareth to comment on what we've done Chris to tell us what we have been doing. Yes, so that is a really difficult challenge in South Cams, especially as a rural district to try and reach those people in need but with the community hubs going forward I mentioned the village agent role before these are hopefully going to be they're still recruiting in the minutes of the night in post but they're hopefully going to be people that are based in the communities community hubs are. So they'll be able to work with the local communities and try and identify areas where it might be in there. We think there are people that could benefit from going to community hub and they might not be going. And another thing that will be happening going forward is the putting on events at community hubs. So if there was an event to do specifically with the cost of living or called cost of living someone that was actually struggling with the cost of living might not want to go there as we discussed the stigma attached for it but if it's a completely different event on some activity for example these people might show up as well to start speaking to people and that costs a net wider for the number of people that are attending in these villages. And also sorry on the point about the volunteer deficit that's something that we've seen is that the hubs that are most successful are the ones that have this really strong volunteer base behind them. So especially certain individuals that can be pushing and recruiting volunteers to keep that going forward as well. Did you want to come back on that Councillor's stand up? Perhaps Councillor Handley would like to ask to make a follow-up comment. Okay Councillor Handley. Just a follow-up that we do still have some capacity I mean if people identify a need and a means of introducing a community hub in their parish I would just ask them to speak to Chicken Touch with Chris. Yeah come back Councillor Handley. Yeah thank you. So there was a connection. We talked about community workers in the strategic sites and new developments and so on. The village agents I think represent a really excellent way forward. People can specialise and make connections and helping organise those special events where they can facilitate that where are the needs to have the conversations and reflect on what's actually said. So I think the village agent notion is great and we'd really like to know how that's going on in due course. I know it's funded by Camber Jacob but do we have the possibility to report back perhaps in the spring time when we've accumulated some experience? Councillor Bill Handley. Councillor Stovart makes a good point. I'm sure we can do that. Yeah absolutely. Okay so we'll come on to Councillor Earl. I was thinking to ask about the community vegetable gardens at point 20 with H33 and how that was envisaged to work perhaps how it's going to link with the provision of allotments in the villages. Councillor Bill Handley. I'm a passionate allotment holder myself and we are working on it. I'm not sure that I've got anything really concrete to report today but it is something that we are taking really seriously. I would love to see more allotments, better equipped allotments because a lot of the allotments I know of don't have water for example which is hopeless if you haven't got water you just can't grow plants. I'm passionate about it and we're going to bring it on. We've also got the, we've mentioned in the report the vegetable gardens which we're hoping to promote and that I think are slightly different from allotments in what we're trying to do but I know that Chris is working up arrangements to get those launched next spring just as the growing period starts because it's pointless doing it over the winter but March time hopefully is something to report then. It would be good to see how that links up because quite often on television the gardens world particularly you see people very happily living around in the summer on the vegetable garden actually it's not like that it's as you know as an allotment holder it's all the way around it's jolly hard work and it needs some expert mentoring so I'm just keen to see how that might link so you have got such expertise that can keep people going in the community vegetable garden. Councillor Bill Hanley I absolutely agree it is a year round thing but the idea of launching it in the spring I think is pretty obvious you may as well do it at the time when people are about to you know, sow their seeds. Yeah I think allotments during the lockdown it was legal for allotment holders to go on their allotment you could stand on your allotment and speak to your neighbour it was absolute mental wellbeing was fantastic for allotment holders. I've got a huge amount of a huge amount of time for allotments but they need to be properly equipped with water, rabbit fencing and so on and dare I say lose because a lot of people put off allotments you know, if they're out in the sticks it's alright for a, you know, if you jump over the fence and if you need to lose and I think all of those things we need to consider if we're going to improve allotments or indeed to initiate new ones. So very much. Councillor James Hoveray So thank you chair so I had two questions if that's okay and the first is very much a follow up to Councillor Earl's question about vegetable gardens so I'm very pleased to hear that allotments and vegetable gardens are being considered together because clearly whether or not allotments then there's an opportunity for something that's a little bit similar like a community vegetable garden but I wondered and it might be too early to know anything about this given that the planning hasn't really begun on this in full but I wondered if there's any idea at this stage of who will manage the vegetable gardens so for example will they be linked in any way to the community hubs or will there be plenty of gardening clubs in the villages and the district is there any indication at this stage of how how they'll be organised and managed Chris who's sitting behind me is the guy who's going to be organising this obviously he's at the moment pretty hard on the cost of living work but yeah I mean I think this is all about local enthusiasm really communities wanting to do it if they don't it won't happen so you know I hope that we can maybe we as members can actually encourage people to get involved and parish councils can and any suggestions anyone has as to why how we might make this a success I'll be very welcome by by Chris and myself thank you so I suppose the first suggestion that immediately sprang to mind was the gardening clubs so in my ward there were two gardening clubs that were quite vibrant and I imagine that that contacting, identifying and contacting those clubs might be a very good way to start it would be good if you could let Chris have those details if he hasn't got them already he may have them already but can I ask another question of course so the other question is about the sustainable food network so this is item 17 on page 32 so from what's written here then I can see that this has initially been aimed at sharing food between the food hubs and making sure that there's as little waste as possible in that respect but there's a tantalising sentence right at the end or at least the last couple of sentences which talk about combating food waste to help achieve our climate goals and also encouraging businesses to donate excess food now I often hear the kind of figures for food waste nationally and globally quoted as between a quarter and a half of all the food so between a quarter and a third of all the food that we produce goes to waste which sounds like an awful lot I also hear about businesses which survive entirely on making something out of food which would otherwise go to waste for example taking fresh vegetables that would be used in businesses that need to prepare fresh sandwiches or whatever and then using things that can't be used in that context but making preserves out of them that's the kind of thing that allows you to make a business out of something that would otherwise be would otherwise completely go to waste so I wondered whether and this is clearly an area where a lot of our goals intersect we wish to to combat the cost of living crisis through the food banks we wish to reduce the carbon footprint of what is I suspect a very large amount of food waste given that we're quite a wealthy district and city and we wish to reduce waste overall so all of these things might come together so I wondered if what thoughts there are at the moment that relate to that last sentence which when I read this is left hanging so I wondered where we're likely to go with that because I see quite a few potential opportunities there I think I don't know if Chris has got anything to add on this but I think certainly making the connections that the council could do and do very well we do know who are running food banks for example if people have got a surplus of vegetables that they might I'm sure they will be warmly welcomed by those it's just a matter of making that connection so it's a very good point and it's one that we will take away I was going to mention on the last sentence about encouraging businesses to donate we were or when this was written we were looking for a mechanism to do this through so there are a lot of different apps or websites that businesses can share that they have access to food and then a local food bank goes and says that they can pick it up and we were just investigating which one would be best for South Cam to try and keep it all on the same platform so that's to not confuse since then I've met with representatives from Fair Share Go which is an app that does exactly as I was explaining and there is a meeting between all the food banks taking place at the end of this month where if it's something that they would like to partake in then it's something that we'll be encouraging businesses to sign up to through our links in the business support team and there's already been some work that's been done on this as well so we've created a donations toolkit for all of our food banks and that's been distributed to them which explains and gives tips on for example how to approach a business a local food business and ask for their access food and there's also been extra support offered if they wish to have council support to approach any businesses as well Just to say that things move really quickly in the world of South Cam across from living support and that's news to me If I might just comment briefly, that sounds very exciting I'll watch with interest and thank you very much for paying attention to this It's great, thank you Councillor Fane did you want to come back? Thank you chair It's a question that arises out of something Councillor Handley said earlier about the importance of coffee and biscuits and so on Just a thought in relation to alignment with council priority areas of growing local businesses there is a potential problem of competition with local businesses so if I take for example the warm hub as it was then run in the community room at the back of the free church in Great Shelford Well, about a year and a half ago the free church working with Romsey Mills set up a cafe in a spare building around the corner about 25 metres from there called Cara cafe run in conjunction with a charity largely by volunteers and you know coffee and cake there is about five pounds but people were going around to the community rooms at the back of the free church and coffee and biscuits was free and I think we need to just bear in mind the potential impact of these efforts it could well be that the warm hub was being used by people who couldn't afford five pounds but not necessarily, quite a few people who were going there could perfectly well have gone to the charity cafe around the corner as well I'm not saying we shouldn't do it in any way or offer free coffee just that we need to bear in mind the impact on newly established businesses that this could potentially have It's a good point it's not one size fits all as you say there's going to be some places where it might be critical and many other places it won't be but it's a point well made and I'm sure that Chris has made a made a note of it Lovely, councillor Hannah Brandon Very brief one just going back on the point that people may not want to be identified as people who need help in one of my local churches have a very successful food cupboard which is actually the entire church porch and it's often very well supplied with all sorts of goodies but the church warden advised me that often people were visiting after dark because they didn't want to be identified as people who needed help so this is just a a point to bear in mind and it's Chris has understood that I'm sure but I'm actually being mindful that councillor Ellington was called away but just before the meeting she advised me that she wanted to point out she didn't ask me to raise this on her behalf but I would do so just in the spirit of sharing she pointed out that she was concerned about the reference on page 89 I think it's page 89 she was referring to the fact that Cambridgeshire Acre talked for the future about setting up community agents or village agents and she was concerned that there might be a risk of duplication of existing services I'm not quite sure in what way she meant but I'm aware in my village we have a community care warden but also we have community navigators who are trained and kept up to date by the county council and also of course there's advice available from the parish council so I just wondered if we need to be care and also that there seemed to be an implication that there might be funding made available for these new posts and they have misunderstood that but I think the concern was that that might not be money well spent if that role and advice route is already being delivered by existing services that's how I understood her point that the other things you've got social prescribers and things in GP services and so forth to add to that as well Councillor Bill Hanley it's a related point that is a little off the subject all I can suggest is that Councillor Arington writes to me with their concerns and I will pass them on to the relevant officers I'm hoping that things will the joined up approach will improve not seeing it quite yet with the county council in particular but I'm hoping that it will happen because it really should whether you're talking about day centres clubs whatever it's something you know we need to make sure that there's no duplication because that at the end of the day we're all chasing the same resources thank you Gareth thanks chair it was just to briefly add that I think these roles are complementary not looking to duplicate the other roles I think we talked about lessons learned from the worn hubs and Cameshire Acres certainly felt that the additional role of a village agent I almost called them a community navigator there was a really important one to make the hubs a real success for this winter so I can absolutely see that it's a really valid point around not duplicating but I think I can provide members with reasonable reassurance that this is not a duplication this is really trying to make sure that the community hubs that are provided this winter really flourish and provide the whole community with the best the best service possible thanks very much councillor Richard Stobart if you might allow this stage chair over a general question one of the things that appears in the Cameshire Acres report which is Appendix B to this section is social value and it's not a term we've often used but it seems to be in a sense quite compelling in terms of where have the games really been made in social terms now I think relating social benefit to pounds I suppose reduces it to a currency that we understand and we would need to be careful about that evaluating effort which is directed at building social capital in communities it looks like an evaluation procedure would be very beneficial so the question and perhaps councillor Henry through you would be able to comment on this is that as we evaluate schemes and expend it on things a tentative social value calculations to illustrate the benefit and compare it with other efforts and other things that we might be doing so general question about social value. Thank you councillor Stobart I have to say I was going to ask a similar question on social value I think it's quite difficult sometimes to equate that into sort of four pounds and 19 pence I know the figures are set out later in the document on page 103 or something I think but it's quite difficult to work out I think how you arrive at that figure really I've found that quite complicated to understand really so just to add to your point councillor Bill Henry I'm not sure I can add very much to be honest I think like you it's something nice to have whether we can do it or not it's a point well made and that will take it away and I will undertake to come back to you if I think there's any significant progress on that then it's a good point OK any other speakers I've just got one quick question on page 33 where we talk about the vision of food parcels I think I know the answer to this because when residents have asked me about having food parcels delivered to them I've always gone through offices but I just wondered if we could clarify in that paragraph where it talks about the route or the referral process if you like via offices or volunteers could it be added that councillors can be a referer if you like because currently the process is so when I've done it before I would approach an officer and they would then put that forward in the document it sort of implies that officers or volunteers are almost doing the referrals and if that's the case councillors should be included in that essentially the administration issue around that that officers we still need to go through officers essentially thanks very much councillor I suspect that the answer is that members should speak with officers really but yeah whatever way we can make it simple screen mind is possible yeah Chris I think it would be possible to have members referring directly as well so that could be added in to that paragraph lovely I don't have any other questions does anybody else have any other questions that they wanted to ask on this if not we will go to the recommendation which I think is on page 29 and I think we've done what the report recommends which is to sort of ask questions of this and make recommendations to cabinet and is everybody happy that we've done that agreed lovely okay so we'll move on now go on to item 7 which is the work program so we've got the work program set out in the document there and councillor Stephen Drew Ian and lead members and officers will be meeting to discuss what's coming up on that agenda does anybody have anything that they wanted to contribute to the work program things they'd like to see on it or things they wanted to see coming up councillor Anna Bradman thank you chair I know that the work program doesn't give us the detail of the actual papers we've brought to the committee but I just wondered when might we anticipate seeing analysis of the key performance indicators thank you for that so we've got the November meeting where the quarter to performance indicators would be coming forward there is quite a lot on that agenda and we're going to discuss what is on that agenda next Wednesday but I know members have spoke to me that they're quite keen to see the performance indicators quarterly rather than sort of six monthly we had I have put forward a suggestion that maybe we see the quarter performance indicators every other so every six months essentially so you get more a time scale to see changes over rather than just the sort of three months but you know I'm happy to bring forward what committee members want in terms of performance indicators if you'd rather still see those quarterly we can take that into account when looking at the work program Councillor Bratton thank you it was it was a question you know when might we see them and I understand you may have discussed that I was just it's it's not clear to me I mean we've got as the second bullet in 16 November revenue and capital budget monitoring but that's not I mean yes that's important and that's important we've got it on there but it's not obvious to me it was a question when are they coming so if it's an additional item for November then that's fine yes in answer to your question but we'll discuss it because obviously if that comes on we'll have to take shift something off so it's not to make the agenda too long but we'll have a look at that with senior officers and we will have a discussion going forward as to whether we as I say continue to see them every quarter or every other quarter chair that's very happy that you decide that I'm just conscious that the longer you leave it the more out of date they are so it's just so I think after they would come to the November one at that point Councillor Lennon thank you chair I see the KPIs as a critical part of our overview and scrutiny function and I'm keen to see them quarter me and I would reject the suggestion to move to them being twice a year thank you very much Councillor Stobart chair this time maybe it was this time last year but some time ago and we started off in the new term of this committee talking about items that members would break that weren't going to come externally and we would have to manage we would bring them and we had several and then the momentum seemed to go out of the initiative and chair I would like to encourage members of this committee to kind of get back to thinking of things that we should be scrutinising and they can be off the wall I mean we get advice on this kind of thing but we should be doing that again and if you have members have lists please go back to them and let's have some fresh ideas come through I agree with Councillor Stobart and I think you know me more than most are guilty for not bringing things forward but you know if we can bring things forward that's brilliant and Councillor Aidan Benderwyr Councillor Aidan Benderwyr yes thank you very much I'm looking at the forward plan reminding me that one of the most important functions that this council does is in their realm of housing in multiple ways of intervening and we've got our own housing and supporting housing in other ways and there were a couple of things on the forward plan I mean the housing strategy coming forward next year and then some purchases of council homes I think they're probably set for things but I don't think we've since we've sort of increased the number of council houses that we've been buying or building I don't think we've had a sort of overview of that on the housing programme because it's now getting quite substantial so sort of how it's going might be an interesting thing for I mean later on maybe spring summer and could be combined with some discussion of the housing strategy not wanting to cut across what obviously the cabinet will be doing and also we've got the homelessness strategy separately but maybe reflecting again on how the last housing strategy how it's been implemented how it's successful it's been that would then support potentially the work on new housing strategy the provide is yeah unfortunately Peter I think I can pick up now it's a pleasure to mention it as a future thing so thank you very much for that that's Councillor James Hope so thank you chair just one comment about the examination of key performance indicators my feeling on this is that it is valuable to examine them quarterly and that perhaps we would spend the same amount of time on them if we examine them either quarterly or half-yearly but that if we continue to do it quarterly then some of that time might allow earlier intervention than it otherwise would so those are my immediate thoughts on that and I suppose also if we're looking at these quarterly then it does spread the load out of the examination between meetings more and also I'd like to second Councillor Stobart's comments about the external you know our possibility for in people from the outside to the discretionary committee I'd love to see a few more examples if we can fit those in thank you thank you very much Councillor Hope lovely anyone else lovely okay so I think we've noted what's on the work programme there so we will move on to the date of the next meeting which is the 16th November at 5.30pm and that brings the meeting to a close