 I'm not looking pleased to go mute. There is a feedback. From Nigel. Is he muted now? It sounds like it. I can't tell because he's just on. I'll investigate, but we're now live. I can't confirm. Thank you very much. In that case, we will get the meeting underway. A very good afternoon members and members of the public if you are watching and welcome to this meeting of the scrutiny and overview committee of South Cambridgeshire District Council. My name is Grenville Chamberlain and I am the chair of the scrutiny and overview committee. Perhaps I could start with a few points of housekeeping if I may. Please make sure that your device is fully charged or is charging and please switch off your microphone unless I invite you to speak. When you've finished speaking, please turn off your microphone immediately. Please speak slowly and clearly and do not talk over or interrupt anyone else. If you wish to speak on an item, please indicate this using the chat function which Vice Chair Judith Rippis will be managing for me. Please don't use the chat for anything else that is public, so just indicate that you wish to speak. Present online with me at the moment are the following members of the scrutiny and overview committee who I will invite to introduce themselves. Members, after I call your name please turn on your microphone and introduce yourself so that we may note your presence. Please remember to turn your microphone off after your introduction. First is Councillor Anna Bradman. Good evening everyone. I'm Councillor Anna Bradman. I'm one of the members for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you, Emma. Next is Councillor Martin Carr. Hello, I'm Councillor Martin Carr and I'm Councillor for the Histon in Bingsa and the Water Park Ward. Thank you, Martin. Councillor Nigel Caffcott. Nigel Caffcott, member for Back and War. Thank you, Nigel. Councillor Sarah Chun Johnson. Sarah Chun Johnson, one of the members for Longstownton Ward. Thanks, Sarah. Councillor Graham Cohn. Councillor Graham Cohn, member for Fenditon and Folbourne. Thank you. Councillor Claire Daunton. Hello, good evening. Councillor Claire Daunton, one of the members for the Fenditon and Folbourne Ward. Thank you. Councillor Douglas Delacy. Douglas Delacy from Gerson and present. Thank you very much. Councillor Peter Fein. Councillor Peter Fein. Councillor Peter Fein. Thank you, Peter. Councillor Joe's hails. Chair, Councillor Hails hasn't joined us yet. He did let us know yesterday that he might be unable to attend the meeting though he had been hoping to. Okay, thank you. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Yeah, present chairman. Thank you, Jeff. Councillor Steve Hunt. Yes, present Steve Hunt from Houston in Pington and Orchard Park. Thank you. Councillor Judith Riffith. Member for Milton and Water Beach Ward and Vice-Chair. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair. I'm Councillor Richard Williams. I'm the member for Wittlesford Treplo Heathfield in Newton. Thank you. I note that we're also joined by Cabinet Members to whom I extend a very warm welcome and also to Gavin Clayton who will be addressing the meeting on behalf of the Labour group later on through the meeting. Item 1 on the agenda is Apologies for Absence. Just perhaps before we just moved to that could I just indicate that for convenience we have designated the main section of the agenda as item section A. So that is the first section that you receive which includes the minutes and other parts of the agenda. The section which includes the Summary General Fund Revenue Budget is section B and the section which includes the Housing Revenue Account Budget is section C. We'll just find it a little easier to refer to those while we were talking in the pre-lead last night. So, reverting back to the agenda, item 1 is Apologies for Absence. Can I ask Democratic Services if there have been any Apologies for Apologies of Absence for the meeting, please. Thank you Chair. I'll note Apologies from Councillor Hayles as he'd let us know that he might be unable to attend the meeting however when it's late, then I'll send those. Thank you very much indeed. Agender item 2 is Declarations of Interest. Do any committee members have any interest that they would like to declare in relation to any of the items on the agenda this evening? No, thank you very much indeed. I see, just as we're coming to the minutes, that Councillor Delacy would like to speak on the minutes. So, Douglas, would you like to speak before I introduce the minutes? To make two small corrections Chairman, Councillor Richard Williams ought to have his doctorate added two points in the minutes. Should indeed. Thank you very much. We will arrange for that to be done prior to the minutes being approved. In actual fact there are also two other amendments which I will read to you. Since the draft minutes of the previous meeting were first issued with the papers for this meeting, officers have made a further amendment to the minute of the shared planning service updates item, which is item 6. 40.10 of the second set of bullet points has been amended to the following. That's the 10th bullet point and it refers to the number of terror quest staff. The minute we will now read the number of terror quest staff have been reduced from six in total in development management and validation to one full-time member of staff working on the processing of applications in development management. There are also amendments to working from the fourth main paragraph after the second set of bullet points under this item. That starts the joint director of planning and economic development informed the committee that the council's use of extensions of time was not unusual compared to other local planning authorities. Stop. We informed the committee that there was a difference between major and minor applications in this regard. For major applications there was a large use of extensions of time whereas with miners the use of extensions of time was more variable. The service had made efforts with local agents to try and reduce the use of extensions of time however. The service had seen an increase in their use over the past 12 months. Further change here the service had been challenged on its approach to the use of extensions of time. The joint director suggested bringing a report regarding a specific issue to a future scrutiny and overview committee meeting. The joint director of planning and economic development informed the committee that a new process for exit interviews had been put in place with a designated officer within the service carrying out all exit interviews for all permanent and agency staff. This provided consistency in the way these interviews were carried out. The joint director informed the committee that there had been a reduction in the number of major planning applications during the COVID-19 pandemic however numbers had since increased. In general these application numbers had gone back to pre-COVID levels and an officer workload would be made high. Before I ask members if they're happy I see that we have two speakers who wish to comment on those amendments on the minutes one on the main minutes I think and one on the amendments. I think Just to say that I will have to abstain because I wasn't at that meeting. That's wrong. Councillor Delais. Thank you Chairman. When you read out that rather lengthy amendment you omitted a statement and I wonder if that was deliberate. I'm trying to find it now. Oh yes the very bottom page three the very last line you read was not unusual compared to other local planning authorities and you omitted and the statement were you deliberately omitting that last statement? Yes I was. Thank you. So may I ask members subject to those amendments and Councillor Hunter do you wish to come in on the minutes? Yes thank you chair. Just to say I actually found that quite challenging to process and understand the complete scope of the changes and I wonder if in future if there are such extensive alterations that could be circulated in writing before the meeting. Yes I'm sure under normal circumstances they could but we only got this about ten to five this afternoon. I see it again. So it is a really very very late amendment which I apologise. So could I ask subject to those changes are members content to approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 17th of December 2020 or are there any other matters of accuracy that members would wish to raise? I agree those minutes with those amendments. Agreed. Thank you very much I shall after that draw breath. If I may chair Councillor Griffith I wasn't at this meeting so I'm not passing an opinion on that. That's fine thank you very much indeed. Item 5 on the agenda is public sorry item 4 on the agenda is public questions and I can confirm that we receive no public questions for this evening's meeting. So we move directly on to agenda item 5 which is the Summary General Fund Revenue Budget and that is included in section B and I will call upon the little cabinet member for finance Councillor John Williams to present his report. John over to you Thank you chair. This proposed General Fund Revenue Budget for 2021-22 has as its art given support to South Cambridges residents and businesses to help them recover from the coronavirus pandemic during the coming financial year. It also has to recognise the government's local government financial settlement for the coming financial year and the words of the local government association is dependent on council's increasing council tax bill. You will see from appendix A on page 17 of the agenda supplement that the net expenditure for 2021-22 to be met from government grants and local taxpayers is estimated at £21.9 million pounds. We are looking at council tax payers meeting £10 million of this net expenditure with a 10 pence a week increase for the average Bandy property bringing its annual tax council bill to £155 and £31 This is explained on page 11 of the agenda supplement. This will only in part offset the estimated reduction in business rates and also the assumed losses in other government grants. Nevertheless the council tax bill from South Cambridgeshire district council will continue to be in the lowest 25% of all district council taxes. We have a local council tax support scheme for those on low incomes and other categories such as carers as well as council tax discretionary powers and I'm proud of our Revs and Bends team efforts which have kept payment defaults lower than expected. So the local council tax collection rate has held up under and we thank council tax payers for maintaining their payments despite uncertainty of the economic situation we expect, given our experiences so far, that this will continue into the new financial year. However we have seen a hit on business rate income and we have concerned that the long term effects of the pandemic in terms of business failures and property may impact on the business rate growth as we've seen to date. As you can see from paragraph 37 on page 10 of the agenda supplement we are however continuing with the business rates retention scheme and estimate that it will deliver an additional £1 million for us which is very welcome in the current circumstances. Against this background of less income from business rates and grants the council is just not relying on more money from council tax payers. To do our bit we have embarked on an ambitious four year plan to transform council service quality better align our financial resources to business plan priorities and improve customer service and as you can see this has achieved a reduction in net expenditure compared to this financial year. The financial impact of this can be found on page 8 of the agenda supplement. Part of this has been to reappraise our relationship with our shared service partnership arrangements. At this year we introduced a recharge model to ensure we receive value for money and are not subsiding services in other council areas. This was a longstanding concern of mine when in opposition in the previous administration. So as you can see the estimated general fund net revenue expenditure of the council has also fallen compared to this financial year. However not to have increased council tax by a modest amount would have still meant a funding gap causing cuts to front line services which we are not prepared to do such as our new business support and development team which has been a lifeline to local entrepreneurs. It is anticipated that councils will be able to keep less will be able to keep less than now in the years ahead. Other grants to council currently receive such as new homes bonus and rural services grant are expected to be phased out. Due to the continuing financial pressure on the council this budget should be seen within the medium term financial strategy and its requirement to include around five million pounds worth of savings during the next four years on top of the 2.2 million pounds in savings already identified for that four year period. To be honest the recent changes to the criteria for a public works loan board loan which now rules out commercial investment substantially for yield does mean we will see lower returns but such are the capabilities of our officers opportunities for us and the financial strength of this council we believe this can be dealt with in our stride. As to helping our communities and businesses fight back the pandemic we estimate that the cost of dealing with the pandemic so far has been approximately 2.35 million pounds. This is mainly due to increased spending on PPE, additional staff numbers to help in certain areas such as community response processing business grants and council tax support and new software for administering grants. To date the council has received 9 million pounds in government grants to help it deal with increased spending due to coronavirus. If needed this work will continue into the next financial year and possibly thereafter so we have set aside a revenue contingency of a quarter of a million pounds. The government is also making good most of the loss of income from fees such as planning and licensing charges. It has also promised to make good up to 70% of council tax loss due to the pandemic although we have yet to be told the formula for this. So the direct impact of COVID-19 on our costs in this financial year should be broadly neutral and should not be problematic for next year. As I've reported before South Cambridgeshire is in a sound financial position and this budget gives us confidence to proceed into the next financial year to support a dynamic council with a positive agenda. Thank you. Grenfill, you're muted. Thank you so much. My apologies. Councillor Williams, thank you so much for your presentation. I am aware that there are a number of questions which will be coming to you but could I start off with a fairly simple one under recommendation A and it relates to the final line we talk about an estimated gross sorry gross operating expenditure for £21.22 £70.7 million a gross operating income of £49.1 should we therefore be talking about a net operating deficit of £21.6 million as opposed to an operating expenditure? Are you referred to appendix A? Which an appendix A gives the net expenditure as £21.879 million and Before then, under the recommendations £.3 on page 1 of a gender item 5 under 3A we have an estimated general fund net operating expenditure of £70.727 million gross operating income of £49.1 million and an estimated general fund net operating expenditure of £21.6 My question is should that read general fund net deficit of £21.6 million? Well it's not exactly a deficit because it would be made up from taxation from local taxation and government grants so it is the operating expenditure of the council given that the council has to balance its books. You're happy to leave it as... I'm happy to leave that as it is. That's fine thank you I now see that Councillor Delacy would like to come in. Thank you Chairman I'm not very good at numbers but I have three questions if I may. On page 19 of the paper on item 5 at the bottom it says commercial development and investment it has been necessary to review the size and composition of the investment team when we were given the various figures for our investments we were told how much money we were going to get out of these various investments we're now spending more on the team which I suppose on one level is a good thing because it indicates there's a lot of work to be done but I wonder how much that £76,000 per annum eats into the income that our investments were supposed to accrue. That's my first question My second question is on page 20 It's not page I can't read my own writing I beg your pardon 29 That's not right either I'll leave my second question until I can find it My third question on page 30 though reserves number two you have two figures of pounds star star dot star and I wonder if we could have those figures filled in please while I desperately search for my second question On your last question I know Peter Maddock is here I don't know if we've got those figures we now have those figures we certainly didn't have those figures earlier but which is why they're not there but Peter might be able to supply them On your first question that's £76,000 additional will be obviously spread across our investments the cost of our investments and actually in the scheme of things represents quite a a small amount of money so it's not going to have an impact on our anticipated yield going forward I mean one of the reasons for this is as you know we are we've agreed to have partnerships and as a result of that things are much more complicated and we require that additional expertise to enable us to help us with those partnership schemes but I don't know if Peter Maddock has those figures Sorry they weren't available when our budget was put together but we will have the figures now so I will get hold of those figures and I will send them on You certainly have them when it comes to cabinet The cabinet agenda will have those numbers in off the top of my head I think certainly the reserves the earmark reserve balance I believe is about 29 million so the general fund will make up the remaining what is it 12, 13 million there's about 13 and a half general fund and about 29 in my reserves I believe that's what the numbers are that's what a ballpark Thank you Peter Thank you Chairman if I may ask my third question Yes It's page 23 managing demand better I'm slightly surprised that our wonderful new electric waste vehicle doesn't figure I assume part of buying it is that it is actually value for money as well as being a wonderful investment for both the staff and for our ecology generally I understand on revenue terms it's cost neutral isn't it Peter Yes so the actual expenditure shows within the capital programme on the revenue budget so I won't appear in those tables it will appear in the distant table within the capital programme So the vehicles operating costs are broadly similar to conventionally conventionally part of the vehicle We believe so Thank you Chairman Thank you councillor Delacey I'm Pat I'm Pat Annabadnon Next chair Thank you Chairman My question also is on page 19 and that page is entitled New Revenue Budget Bids Staff Related I'm assuming that because this is simply my understanding of it I'm assuming that given that these bids have been made to the revenue budget there's no question that they won't be I mean we're recommending that they are agreed presumably that these posts are necessary and proper appropriate for the work that's being described Yes I mean I'm happy that they are needed and happy that they go forward to cabinet for their approval but the approval rests with it Thank you very much Thanks councillor Granco next Thank you Thanks very much Chairman I just wanted to ask a couple of questions One was on page 7 I weren't sure in the chart under paragraph 25 whether the millions should still be at the top of the chart I think that's just an typo I think Absolutely That's fine Obviously we seem to be getting a lot less investment income from investment this year Could you just sort of explain the reasons behind that obviously there's some very obvious ones I would have thought in terms of Covid and everything else but if you could just expand on that a little bit and then on page 20 of the document I was going to ask about the commercial development and investment operational costs I didn't really know what that 50,000 was paying for there so if you could have a look at that as well for that big brilliant Thanks If I can pick up on that last point clearly before we look at any properties we have to do a due diligence and we have to get our agents to give us their opinions on whether or not it's commercially worthwhile and will give us the yield and we have to pay in advance for that it cannot be attributed to the cost of purchasing the eventual purchasing of that property whether or not we go ahead with it so there are operational costs involved in us considering properties for purchasing for commercial purchase On your first question about reduced spending on investment income clearly we haven't invested as much as we thought we were going to invest this financial year because of that so there is therefore a reduction on what we expect to be spending on investment income clearly down to the down to the the cost of down to the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in this year and just that the properties have not been there for us to for us to purchase Thank you Thank you Councillor Cain, did you wish to come back on that or are you content? No, very content, thank you Thank you very much indeed I'm sure Peter Maddock had his hands up I don't know if he wants to butt in and step in I was just going to add a bit of context there because most of the reduction is due to delays with Ermint Street when we had the first lockdown in particular a lot of the activity with Ermint Street dried up for a period of time and whilst we were hoping to get to the 500 property mark this financial year that's now going to be next financial year so the interest on Ermint Street is down to the original expectation so that's the main reason That's helpful, thank you very much indeed Councillor Richard Williams is next chair Thank you Councillor Richard Williams Thank you very much chair I've got a question relating to page 23 and this relates to the increase in the charge for the green bin so in the green box on page 22 it looks like we're kind of assuming that the increase in the charge won't actually affect demand for that because we've got 19,000 for the three years so I was just wondering if any work had been done as to whether we think the increase in the charge which would be about 40% I think just over 40% over the three years is likely to affect demand for that I mean either up or down really but it just looks like we've assumed demand won't change Our colleagues in waste are pretty certain that we won't see a fall-off in demand for these green bins even with this increase it is a modest increase set across the year it reflects what other councils are charging and all the evidence suggests to us that we won't see a lessening in demand for additional green bins as a result of this increase in charge Thank you Councillor Williams are you content or do you wish to have a follow-up? Well I was just wondering if we've got any figures about previous increases and whether indeed when the charge was introduced what impact that had You might not have the figures now Well introducing the charge actually increased the number of green bins we actually saw demand go up for green bins when we increased the charge because a lot of people weren't aware that they could get a second green bin so even with the charge more people came to us and wanted a second green bin even though we were charging for that So I think that shows that it's pretty inelastic demand at the moment for green bins I think you either have the garden rubbish or you don't and you need to get rid of it so you get an extra bin Thank you My point was only that we'd sort of looked into this and we thought about the likely impact rather than just assumed it would stay We have looked at it Richard Thank you Thank you very much indeed Councillor Claire Dalton Thank you Chairman It's just a point of clarification please on page 10 section 38 the Rural Services Grant It's been confirmed that it was going to continue into 21-22 before being phased out Is the phasing out directly related to the fair funding review? No it's not but I understand from the LGA that the government is going to go out to consult on it on whether or not it should continue so it may not be phased out but we have obviously always have to make the worst case scenario assumption on these things and that's why we've assumed it will be phased out I read in the last very latest magazine from the LGA that actually the government are consulting on the future of the grant Thank you Chairman Thank you Councillor Councillor Anna Bregman Thank you Chairman and thank you for letting me come back a second time and it just reminded me on page 20 in the summary of new funding bids I'm very glad to see that we've allocated £50,000 for land drainage and it refers to that as the allocation of additional funding for land drainage including gullys, watercourse and flood defence works which I'm sure everyone's extremely glad to see is in there but I just wanted to check is that work on award drains only or indeed where South Council is the land owner or are we finding ourselves having to do work on drains that are not our responsibility I'll have to come back to you on that Councillor I've assumed it's on awarding watercourses but I don't know, I don't know if Peter knows but we'll have to come back to you on that I think Thank you very much that would be fine Thank you And finally in chair we've got Councillor Harvey Councillor Jeff Harvey Thank you chair I would just if I may refer back to I think it's an interesting point Councillor Delacy made that obviously there are overhead costs involved in running a investment operation and I suppose I wish I'd saved all the previous scrutiny papers because I'd be able to look back and see if when we looked at potential acquisitions last year whether the yield was including an allowance for a pro-rata art of the cost of running the whole operation and if not whether now we've got a bit more experience in this whether in future we could sort of see the point that it's kind of small beer compared with the the size of the investment and its return but nevertheless it's it's still something and I suppose one really should be seeing what the sort of returns are net of those costs in order to be able to compare for example what Irmin Street is generating versus commercial investment versus you know green whatever would be quite interesting and apologies if you're not going to tell me that that we were told that information before I don't think we were but as you say the amount of money involved and given that it has to be spread over it's a very difficult thing to account for or because it will totally depend on the number of commercial transactions that you undertake and obviously the more for the first commercial transaction all the cost will be put on that but obviously as you go on and make more commercial the cost is full so it's really difficult at any point in time to associate a cost to your purchase and probably the better way of doing it is to have this cost in the budget on the balance sheet but not actually against the yield itself you see where I'm coming from because otherwise what figure can you attribute it depends on how many schemes you end up managing at the time of a particular scheme you don't know how many more schemes are going to be managed so it's not very easy to approach it clearly once we have bought a property and we need work doing on it then the cost of that is attributed to the cost of the scheme for example 270 Cambridge Science Park the cost of the project to renovate that and repurpose it is included in the cost of doing it but the actual cost of administering the rents for example isn't for the very reason I've just explained it would be extremely difficult to do that did you wish to follow up Councillor Harvey no thank you chair no I agree with Councillor Williams that it would be very difficult to track but you might have one acquisition during the year or you might have one yes that is the problem so how do you really apportion it okay thank you very much thank you and I think I see Councillor Kafka with his hand yeah thank you I've got trouble with my computer bit just a couple of things on specific cost items and I think Kevin Clay has already been discussing his epitomatic that I think it would be helpful really in the context of giving as much help to our constituents as possible during this crisis I'm going whether some sort of support officer could be considered to provide advice and help financial and otherwise on the grants and everything and what might be available not just from this council but throughout the whole spectrum because a lot of people especially those who are badly affected by personal circumstances have great difficulty accessing what's actually available and it might in effect in a sense save money if we actually consider having such an officer to actually provide support for those who need it from our district clearly such support would need to be targeted and it would have to be clearly accessible there's no good having an officer to actually bear so it's something that we could also consider I think as a sort of constructive humane and sort of realistic possibility the other one might consider is the 0 carbon grants last year the money ran out at 100,000 and I'm wondering whether there's some scope for actually increasing it this year it may well be there very deep into figures I don't know but it's a relatively modest amount and it's something that's consistent with our policies so I think that's something that we can actually look at constructively and the third one being on this council as long as I have I remember years ago we used to get conservation grants for a whole range of activities that was highly effective and actually provide a lot of help as well as ensuring high levels of profits for a whole range of things and it may well be possible to consider that degree of support because it's been apparent to me that conservation as an issue has actually not as high a profile as it used to be now I fully recognise that there are priorities but I think conservation could be considered somewhere along the line sort of few possibilities I think the urgent one is the one I mentioned first about actually having a support officer in fact so anyway Peter may have any comments on that or whatever Just before anyone does come in can I just ask I had an indication that Councillor Clayton was actually going to present an amendment of the present amendment along those lines Can I check with Councillor Clayton whether that is the case and if so perhaps he'd like to introduce his amendment to the budget Councillor Clayton Thank you chair Yes that is the case I do have an amendment Do you have a copy of it to the scrutiny committee members have a copy of it or do you want me to read I was going to ask democratic services if it's possible to put a copy of the proposed amendment up on the screen please Yes Sure chairman Jess bear with me a second I shall share my screen There you have it Councillor Clayton over to you Okay so I wanted to first of all thank you for giving me the space of scrutiny to raise this amendment and thank you to Peter for the budget briefing which in fact raised this as a possibility in my I just wanted to say I think this adds to the intent expressed by Councillor Williams in terms of supporting Southcams residents during the recovery from Covid It comes directly from a piece of case work that I did here in Campbell one and I think it represents a very modest addition to the budget which I'll come on to and it also helps us fulfil Southcams District in terms of the values expressed within the mission statement on the website and within all our corporate documents I think it also plans a proactive approach to mitigation of impact, recession and depression that's going to emerge over the coming financial year So it came out of some case work where residents in Campbell were issued orders which compounded the debt that they were trying to deal with and also health, mental health addiction issues that that particular family had at the time and through actually a really brief intervention from myself a couple of emails and a couple of phone calls actually the court orders were lifted the situation was clarified actually just prior to Christmas the pressure that was on that family and the stress and discomfort mental health impacts that were affecting them were lifted completely just prior to Christmas and it was a relatively simple intervention at that point I thought well if there was an officer who could do that job obviously case work is part of what we do as councillors I get that but if there was an officer in post complex cases and meet with people and discuss their situation it would be like a say a good move and I think that's borne out by reports from the citizens advice bureau that talked about the compounding of debt that's brought about through the sometimes quite punitive impact of late payments producing a demand for the full amount within a matter of weeks which again as I say it ramps up the pressure and the stress on those families I think as we express a modern and a caring council that no other residents should go through what that family went through just prior to Christmas it was it felt very cruel actually bottom line from my perspective it felt like a very cruel situation and I think a high quality service in this area requires somebody who is mobile and can actually approach people very directly proactively and again address these very complex situations that families can find themselves in and when they're under that sort of stress they can't respond through the normal channels and maybe the letters pile up on the sideboard in the hall rather than being responded to and if there was a role there to respond to that it could help and I think a proposal of a modest amount around about 35,000 a year hopefully for a couple of years so actually the evaluation and the evidence of the impact of that role can be collected over a reasonable length of time and perhaps show that not only does it have a human impact as Councillor Cathcart suggested but it's a humane intervention and a humane role but actually it could end up saving the council money stop people getting into the sorts of debt that I think is going to become more apparent with the end of furlough in March because it's spiking redundancies business closures and we need to plan and be as responsive as we possibly can so I'll just briefly absolutely I'm right on my last sentence Mr Chairman so in the same way that we provide a lifeline to local entrepreneurs through business support teams I think it would be really well advised if we can also construct a lifeline for our most vulnerable citizens in the year ahead, thank you thank you very much well I think we should discuss this proposal prior to deciding on the general revenue budget over I can I cut short maybe the debate and say that I am happy to accept this amendment I think I mentioned earlier that we have set up a quarter of a million contingency fund this particular new post will be is certainly linked to our as I said earlier our efforts to support our residents and businesses with the pandemic and the aftermath of the pandemic so I am very happy to accept Councillor Clayton's amendment and to proceed with this as Councillor Clayton has said on a limited basis and then we can assess to see whether or not there is a need for this post following the the effects of the pandemic so I hope that might shorten the debate on this that's very helpful thank you very much indeed can I ask are there in the view of the fact that that proposal has been accepted can I ask are there any other proposed amendments to the budget please see that Councillor Heather Williams wishes to speak removing the Conservative amendment an appropriate point Councillor Heather Williams thank you chairman and can I with your discretion just say that I'm very pleased that Councillor Clayton's amendment is being supported by the administration I think what he's highlighted is important and I'm pleased to hear that's gone through I have supplied a copy of then good start my amendment by Peter made its way to Victoria I'm looking at Peter's I have got a copy I received it just before the meeting so I can share it on the screen if you give me a few seconds thank you very much Victoria so by way of introduction those of us that sit on planning planning committee will see that in our enforcement report that we've received recently it's been clear that something that we wouldn't normally see is occurring our completion rates and enforcement rates are lower and that signals to me that a team that has normally performed historically extremely well could do with some more support so with that in mind the conservative group would like to propose that we establish an extra planning enforcement officer under a permanent contracts that be permanent support and that this could be funded by reducing the South Camershire magazine to two copies a year rather than four and by the removal of the second responsibility allowance you'll recall members I'm sure that we used to have only one SRA we now have two where applicable and that is the tune of £13,500 I would propose that we remove that second SRA reduce the magazine and fund extra planning enforcement support I hope that the figures are all there and members can see that it's been pretty frosted and happy to take any questions from yourself Chairman or committee members Thank you, do you have a seconder for that proposal? My understanding Chairman is that scrutiny will are to look through we will then actually move the amendment at the budget meeting in February Thank you very much Chair, there are two people lined up to speak we've got Councillor Hawkins as planning lead and Councillor Anna Bradnam who might want to speak on the previous amendment My apologies Councillor Bradnam if I missed you out on the previous one Thank you Chairman You are next in line, did you wish to speak on this? Yes, well I wanted to speak on the motion proposed by Councillor Clayton The first thing was did you actually need a seconder for his motion given that Councillor Williams has accepted it so that's one thing No I don't think I do in view of the fact that Councillor Williams has accepted it I don't think there's any need for it Okay fine, thank you and the second thing was I'm glad that that's been accepted but can I just point out to members don't forget that the County Council provides community navigators who do very much this sort of work through the care network community and I can provide a telephone number for people meeting that service in South Cams if people wish it so just to remember that there is a county community navigator for all of the areas that we cover I have to say chair that doesn't they don't perform the same role that's intended for this post My understanding is that they do sorry through you Chairman that they offer direction towards sources of advice including financials so I take your point Councillor Williams just so that members remember that there is a county service too Yeah it's very helpful thank you very much indeed thank you Councillor Williams can I come to Councillor Tumihawkins please Good evening Chairman thank you very much and good evening members if I may through your chair to speak to the proposal from Councillor Heather Williams I would like to thank her very much for the thought that went into her proposal but I think what I'd like to say is that the proposal actually at this point in time is not necessary because as of today we have actually gone out to recruitment this was something that we couldn't do before but we are now able to do and we will be recruiting for two positions one of which is to backfill the position that became vacant when we lost Mr Trotter and the other one for the long standing position that we had when the reorganisation of the planning service took place so I can assure her that as of today we are already out for recruitment and therefore I'd like to thank her for this but to say that it will not be required thank you Thank you very much indeed Councillor Williams it sounds as though you get your wish without having to cut back any on the particular funding measures you proposed Chairman if I may respond please do thank you so this is extra planning support so I mean fantastic news that we're backfilling for the posts that are empty but the idea of this was to provide more support and more robust not just get us up to the standards that we've normally expect and we've been backfilling from I'd also just like to have clarification that I think even if even if we have these two positions filled I would like to see the expanded more and further because we do have big issues and my ward in particular has a lot of important issues and the residents feel that these matters they struggle to resolve these and I can understand with the resources that we have had I'd also like clarification though I appreciate that the proposal is myself going forward ahead of full council that the extra position is a permanent longstanding because my understanding is it would only be for a year contract whereas what we want to see is permanent reinforcement of the planning support with long term funding thank you councillor beta fame has asked to speak so councillor fame thank you chair I think like a lot of members I have been concerned about the pressure on the enforcement team so while I support the principle of this I'm very much reassured that the filling of the vacancies should meet that I would have thought we should see how that goes before coming back to the question perhaps at a later date of whether an additional important officer is taken on Chairman I would have concerns about reducing the frequency of the magazine it's a useful source of information to to all parishioners to all our council tax payers and the danger is that if it becomes twice a year it loses that continuity people no longer rely on it as something that is sufficiently up to date to tell them about council services I think that would be a loss I don't I'm not an expert on the SRAs I won't comment on that aspect of it but I think the two elements can be separated of this motion because it looks as though the planning enforcement team will be reinforced or brought back to its previous strength anyway without this amendment Sure we have two more speakers I think Peter Maddock on the Labour amendment and Councillor Timmy Hawkins back on the Conservative amendment Thank you So can I come to Peter Maddock first to walk please Peter Just to say that assuming everyone is happy with the Labour amendment if our offices work with Councillor Clayton and Councillor John Williams to bring forward a proposal to put in the budget will members be happy with that Yes I'm sure they will Thank you Councillor Hawkins Thank you chair to come back to Councillor Heather Williams when the planning service was reorganised the service was reorganised in a way that the workload that we expected each group was sized accordingly and the fact that we were not able to fill the positions that were available as we know we do have issues with planning and enforcement officer recruitment it is a national issue but we have come a long way and we will be doing that and the size of the team as it is is what was dim sufficient to be able to do the work now I think when it comes to deciding the requirement of planning teams it will be helpful perhaps if Councillor Williams had actually discussed this with us beforehand and as I said while I appreciate the concerns that have been expressed it would be as you've heard Councillor Fynne said it would be best for us to actually get what we have planned for work with that and if we do find we need more then we will go out to get more Thank you Thank you very much I think in actual fact you will have time to discuss this matter with Councillor Williams between now and the budget meeting of full cuts or when I presume it will be and this motion will be tabled and debated in full Am I right Councillor Williams? Assuming you've made myself chairman as there are three of us on the call Yes I'm sorry Councillor Heather Williams gets very confused around here these days Yes the constitution requires that any budget proposal comes through scrutiny which is what we are doing the budget amendment will then be moved and debated at full council agreed the budget going forward so I welcome the opportunity to discuss it with Councillor Hawkins if she so wishes and wants to organise a meeting but there is no requirement for me to do so the opportunity here is for members ahead of scrutiny this is the opportunity for scrutiny members to make comments on the quality of the information ahead of full council so the chairman and I look forward to any further conversations that the cabinet wish to have with me that would be great Thank you I see we have another speaker for Martin Kahn Martin Yes I just simply wanted to reinforce what Councillor Fain was saying it seems since we are filling the two posts not perhaps the best time to make an assessment to whether the additional enforcement officers may well be needed but I would have thought that this is something after the experience of the year what we found first of all whether we can actually appoint to the recruitment officers the difficulties of recruiting officers and when we see how it happens in practice that will be the time to debate whether we actually need a permanent change on this basis that's what I would recommend Thank you Thank you Councillor Kahn and I think we can actually remove the screen share now if you would please Victoria we can go back to actually seeing everyone Councillor Richard Williams who wishes to speak Thank you very much chair just to say well actually I've got a procedural question and substantive comments I'll start with the comments I mean just to say I actually support for myself both of the amendments I think the Labour amendment is a very good amendment I also support the Conservative amendment I think the funding difference between the two is fine the Conservative proposal has got some costings in it the Labour one hasn't but that I think is quite right given the context given what the lead member of finance has said about how that can be authorised I mean for my part just to give the counter view I don't think great harm would be done by cutting the magazine to twice a year there are lots and lots and lots of ways that we have of giving information to residents the website being one of them so to my mind it seems a reasonable and proportionate way of funding given the problems that I think is Councillor Fain has acknowledged we all see with enforcement and the lack of enforcement action for various reasons but it can be very frustrating to residents so I do support both amendments just on the procedural question chair I'm just a little bit confused on what the process is dating back to the question whether we needed seconders for motions given that we're not actually mending the budget here I just welcome a bit of clarity as to what how we actually deal with these amendments whether we have to vote on them or whether we just what will we actually do with these amendments I think the full discussion in the debate always will come in full council in a few weeks time if you look at the recommendations on page 1 of agenda item 5 is annex B we are requested to consider and comment on the report that invites cabinet on its at its meeting on the 3rd of February 2021 to consider points A to K I think we've probably fulfilled our responsibility in that respect we've asked a number of questions we've clarified a number of points in respect of the labour proposal Councillor Williams has accepted that I presume Councillor Williams in respect in relation to the second amendment the conservative one you are not accepting that at this stage in view of councillor Hawkins response no I'm not accepting it I understand so that therefore will have to go forward for debate at full council taking into account the questions and the comments that have been made here in the scrutiny committee and with that I think that draws the discussion on the general fund revenue to a conclusion Can I just say chair I'm conscious that there were two points from Councillor Kafka that I didn't respond to we went off into the officer into the officer post and didn't cover the two other questions Councillor Kafka put to me one was to do with the zero carbon fund and that's funded from the renewables fund and you'll see that we actually are moving money into the renewables fund but it is up to the climate committee to decide which it wants to spend on the zero carbon fund going forward and clearly they would make a recommendation to me to see whether or not it was reasonable to increase the size of that fund for next year but the assumption has been that for next financial year the amount of money available for the zero carbon fund would be as it is this year on to conservation grants I have to say this must go back a long way because I don't really remember these grants I've been on the council for over over 10 years but never mind it's worth looking at but again this is another committee to look at and to make a recommendation maybe for the 21-22 so can I just speak very briefly there there was a grant for listed buildings buildings and conservation areas or for maintaining good standards of traditional workmanship in our villages and it was highly successful because a relatively small amount of money we did actually encourage an awful lot of good building tradesmen to actually do a much better standard of work than otherwise have been the case it's just something to be born in mind because it disappeared it must have been 15 years ago now so we need to look so we need to look and to see and to bring it back at some stage to see whether there's some scope to having a look at that again because our villages are under considerable threat from developers so we need to maintain good standards of craft for the chip and workmanship in our villages that's what I'm saying, thank you thank you very much indeed with that members I'd like to move on if we may to agenda item 6 which is the housing, revenue account, revenue and capital budget which for those of you who have separated your payments section C and I will once again call upon Councillor John Williams, the lead cabinet member for finance to introduce the report Councillor Williams over to you thank you Chairman, firstly I should remind you that the housing revenue account has to ring thanks from the general fund of the council in other words, fully speaking we cannot subsidise council housing from local taxation and the resource available for investing in our housing is dependent upon the income streams available to the HRA the HRA budget continues to be set in the context of a 30 year business plan we must also remember that the HRA has to support a housing debt of 205 million pounds which are loans from the public works loan board to enable us to retain all of our council rents from the government we estimate the HRA balance and this financial year will be just over 2.5 million pounds and while this is adequate for HRA purposes it would not be prudent to let it fall much below that figure. Appendix 3 on page 25 of the agenda supplement shows how we are addressing this going forward there is therefore no alternative to increasing council rent levels if we are to maintain our drive to improve the council's service to our tenants and grow our social housing stock rents will increase by 1.5% and this means that the average social rent will increase to 106 pounds and 2 pence per week and in line with rent legislation our affordable rents will continue to be no more than 80% of the market rent. We are purely aware that some of our tenants are having financial problems. Paragraph 21 on page 5 of the agenda supplement explains that because of the pandemic current council rent arrears have increased significantly in percentage terms. However the introduction of the new orchard housing management system should allow for targeted review of tenants arrears and collections and we anticipate that this position will improve as we emerge from the pandemic. The HRA budget also includes support for tenants some of whom even universal credit. As to the council house building programme we have external funding from section 106 community sums retained right to buy receipts and how we utilise these funds is identified in the housing capital investment plan. I'm sure council leader for housing who is with us can elaborate further on this. I will therefore ask you to support this HRA budget which deliver us to financial base to support our ambitious building programme and a service to our tenants with his fit for purpose. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you council Williams. First to speak is councillor Taylor Orton. Thank you chairman. It's a question about which relates to paragraph 56 on page 10 and that concerns the work that needs to be done as a result of the Grenfell fire and so I'm just wondering if those separate monies set aside for that or whether the work described in paragraph 56 is shown amalgamated into the table at Appendix C page 27 because I know that in some cases those are quite major changes to buildings. Okay on this one I'll have to ask Mr Maddox if he can respond to that. Peter can you help on that one please. Yes so with regard to our repairs and maintenance programme and our capital programme all of the costs, additional costs in relation to Grenfell and that will be within the programme as it currently stands so we haven't got anything specially set aside. So we will fund it from our ongoing reserve so we have a major repairs reserve that can fund things like this but we haven't got anything specifically set aside it with just a couple of of our local HII and our major repairs balancing. Okay I suppose I'm particularly thinking about the areas where we have blocks of flats and whether the refurbishments there are related to Grenfell but I'm happy with that reply. I just didn't see a separate entry mark to Grenfell on the list in Appendix C but I understand why. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilor Cohn Councilor Graham Gallan. Thanks very much Chairman I've just got a few points on page six of the document at the top of page six where we talk about the sort of properties the 89 properties that are sitting void. I just wondered if we had a KPI on how long properties are sitting void for. I accept that the figure in here is a reasonable one given you know crossover between people moving in and out of properties but I just wondered if we had a KPI on that and the other one was on page seven paragraph 35 and the freed up space that we get from a demonstration of garages owned and rented out by the council is it possible for us to stipulate that it must be social housing that goes on to those plots of land and that the last one that I had was on page four it was my not understanding it as well as I should do really and the table under paragraph 16 alludes to the fact that we've so like the first line at the top there we've gone up by 31 33 houses and so I just wondered how they've been funded so 30% would have come from the right to buy receipts I would have thought and the other 70% how are we funding that is that from rents or is that from other sources of income? Councillor Williams over to you I don't know if Councillor Hazel Smith wants to come in here on some of these points Cancell is good if the wall welcome to you first of all would you wish to address Councillor Mutey? Thank you Councillor Chamberlain yes the the KPI there is the KPI for length of void and we know that that is in the red because properties were taking a long time earlier in the year we are catching up we have been catching up but there are quite a lot of properties that are still in the process of the work that Mirs does on empty properties and in fact we had previously put some of these out with a different contractor and we're going to do a bit more of that to try and get these numbers down so that's what I can report on the paragraph 25 on the redevelopment of garage sites you talked about whether they could be social housing I think if we're talking about doing those they are quite difficult to develop because there is a reason why they were garage sites in the first place they've usually got something quite difficult underneath the ground and so they are not easy to develop as we've discovered when we looked at the garage sites that we have so if they were easy to develop we could possibly do that but it isn't our policy to do so we will be looking to make them very fuel efficient because obviously they will be our own design from the start of the section 106 properties that we have been adding to our council house stock up until now so there will be opportunities there sorry what was the third question just on paragraph 16 I'll just appoint a clarification because the housing numbers have gone up on most of those lines on the first one there up by 33 I just wondered how would pay in for those obviously 30% will be coming from the receipt side guess but the other 70% where Right to buy receipts goes into that and the capital funding that we have carried forward so some of that is funded by the sector on the rent account but we have other capital monies that we can put into it as well so thank you sorry thank you I have no other speakers on this report can I take it therefore that we have fulfilled our request that we consider and comment on the report that invites cabinet meeting on third of February to consider recommendations A through to G is everyone content agreed thank you very much indeed so can we move on then to item 7 on the agenda which is the treasury management strategy and that takes us back to the main section A and pages 11 to 54 and once again I'm going to invite councillor John Williams the lead member for finance to introduce the report Thank you chair, well we're nearly there Every year we now review a suite of documents in accordance with best practice to ensure we keep up to date with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy rules. This year's update is especially important because it takes into account the changes around the borrowing rules for the public works loan board which came into effect from the 26th of November to enable you to see the changes that we are making these are marked in red ink although this is an opportunity to review the whole document I will focus on the changes in red. You will see that as well as changes to the PWLB borrowing rules we also should have regard as a responsible investor to the set for take account of environmental, social and governance considerations as well I spread your main concern will be the changes to the public works loan board borrowing rules. These are explained in paragraph 8 point 12 on page 27 of the agenda pack basically if we are to borrow from the PWLB our 151 officer has to give assurance that not only is the commercial asset we are using the money for being bought for reasons other than primarily for yield but also no other commercial asset is being bought for this reason by whatever means including our reserves for the following three years. Fortunately the investment strategy we introduced with an eye to the possibility that government would restrict in some way commercial purchases which breaks investments into three streams of investment types enables us to meet the new PWLB rules and to be confident that we will take on board these new new rules. The new rules are not retrospective and do not affect existing loans such as that to Herman Street but new loans to it will be. Of course this administration has repurposed Herman Street so that it is now part of our housing strategy helping us to deliver decent homes that are affordable to those who live and work in the area. As I mentioned in my introduction to the previous item on the general fund budget a medium term financial strategy requires us to find £5 million over the coming four years and some of this is to be found from new commercial investments. For the reasons I've given this continues to be achievable as we now focus solely on stream 2 investments. We are in the process of amending our investment strategy accordingly and this will come to you in due course. You will see from paragraph 10.3 on page 29 of the agenda pack that we also have to consider negative interest rates. Before we come to the final agenda on the final item on the agenda I should like to take these opportunities to thank the head of finance and his team for producing this and indeed all the good documents for this meeting in exception on the difficult circumstances brought about by the pandemic but that thank you and I'll be happy to answer questions on this now thanks. Thank you very much and I would also comment and confirm the view that you have just expressed this is these are excellent reports and I think Peter Hand is team and indeed you for your presentations but now I come to questions and the first is from councillor Brad. Thank you chairman and I too would like to thank Peter Maddick and his team for a really easy to understand reports so thank you very much for that. I wanted to understand if I can ask my question to councillor Williams on page 64 we have commitment towards investing in commercial assets to deliver positive financial return and I wanted to ask there's a reference down at the bottom about existing housing and the fact that energy conservation programmes are reduced but will continue but I just wondered how in this investment plan we hope to deliver our aspirations for green improvement and green recovery going forward as we come out of the pandemic thank you. I'm not quite sure I understand that I I mean it does say under existing housing as you quite rightly point out that we will continue with our energy conservation programmes and you know obviously everything we do is dependent on the income that we receive but I don't quite understand as you know green to our core is one of the fundamental pillars of our business plan so we will continue to be doing that and so as all I can say on it is that we will continue with our energy programme and to yeah I can't see what more I can say on that. Chairman would it help if I clarified? I think it might yes please. Okay so really I suppose this is about this paragraph at 3.8 is about existing housing but I wondered whether we were planning to do more work on other buildings that we own that are not housing. Yes I mean if it is possible to do that we will I think I mentioned that the PWLB the new rules are not retrospective so work on existing buildings if it's to improve their energy efficiency will come within the new rules so that won't prevent us from continuing to do that and as I say it's one of our core policies to wherever possible improve the energy efficiency of our buildings. Thank you that's good to hear. Thank you very much. Chair can I speak before the last speaker? Was that okay? Yes. Just one question really for your point of view Councillor Williams on page 16 of the report power bath 19 it refers to preventative action and it says it does however anticipate that cases of preventative action will be relatively rare this is in response to the Covid recovery I would have thought that maybe the opposite could be true I mean what are your thoughts or where do you think the direction of that will be going? I'm sorry Councillor but I'm what page are you referring to? Sorry I've got the agenda pack in front of me there's got different page numbers Page 16 Page 16 Second power graph near the top my pages are in the sorry my pages are in the 60s Okay shall I read the brief power graph out? Yes please yeah The government has chosen to issue guidance rather than strict definitions because of the challenges of developing strict definitions that reliably give the intended categorisation when applied to something as diverse as local government it does however anticipate that cases of preventative action will be relatively rare Right So in regards to the public works loan boards you know when you can apply for loan and under what circumstances? Okay I'm still struggling to find it actually Do you want to come back to it later? I think Peter can help on this one Thank you Peter Yeah I must admit to Councillor Llypeth when I saw this I was slightly surprised they thought that because I tend to agree I'm not sure that it will be rare but I am intending to try and speak to the PWLB to get a bit more clarity around some of the things that they're saying because whilst they've issued their guidance it's still still open to interpretation I spoke to a number of commentators who have expressed views on what this actually means I still don't think it's clear I think it'll still develop over time so I'm certainly intending to speak to the PWLB but I think I agree with you Councillor Llypeth I'm just not convinced that it will be that rare to be honest given the situation we're in at the moment particularly Yeah thank you I just thought the fact that they'd put it in there in the first place surely would suggest that some people are thinking it's not going to be that rare and it's likely to be quite frequent Yeah Thank you very much I think we now come to Councillor Graham Cunn Thank you chair my mind's just a quick question on the page 43 in the table there where we talk about treasury investments we've got 32.3 million in the bank effectively or in banks and building societies I just wanted to know how quickly the council could draw down on that money how liquid it is if we really needed it you know or is it tied up I understand that the tortoise load is three months but Peter might very confirm that Sorry Councillor Cunn which paragraph are we looking at? We're on page 43 Alex B Which is the 43 Let's have a look Under treasury investments banks and building societies Yeah so that's good Yeah so most of our liquid cash is held within money market funds That's got that's got nil in it Yeah I need to check that because I don't think it is nil I'll do the video part and that looks like it might be a mistake Okay We certainly have got money within our money market funds Even with the banks and building societies we do have fairly short term investments with some banks and building societies sometimes a week sometimes up to three weeks fairly short term but our real liquid cash is held within our money market funds so I do need to I do need to check on that because I don't believe it's nil so that looks like an error Thanks for raising that Thanks very much Just given the current crisis that we've had it's a good example of where we need to draw down on money quickly so that's why I asked the question there Thanks Peter can I very quickly follow up on that and just ask that are we comfortable that the banks and building societies that we are using are high grade and unlikely to fail So So we do speak on a fairly regular basis with our Treasury advisors and they provide information to us on credit rating so we would only invest in banks and building societies that are sort of AA rated and for institutions that they would be comfortable with so I'm confident that we wouldn't be investing with them banks and building societies at the lower than than A or possibly B plus based on them advice that we received from our from our Treasury advisors on a regular basis Thank you very much Can I come now to councillor Delosie Thank you very much Chairman Page 29 of the main agenda pack Halfway down the page there is a diagram which I simply don't understand I don't understand why it's there and I don't understand what it's saying I would be grateful for some clarification please I don't know why it's there I assumed it just a graphic to run happy to remove it if it's not adding anything Chairman what's it intended to add please can you help me that I have to confess I think this has been here for the last couple of years and may even predate me Yes It's certainly not something that we've done this year probably it goes back a few years and no one's really taken my attention to it It probably I presume is intended to show that the income from investments is increasing but in view of the revised circumstances that we face that may not be the case in the future so I would suggest probably one of the far best things to do is to take it out Let's review that paragraph completely and see how relevant it is but pardon me we can take that if it's not relevant we obviously need that Thank you very much Two more speakers one of whom is Councillor Hazel Smith I don't know if you want to take her first Councillor Richard Williams Thank you Chairman I just wanted to come back on Councillor Bradman's question which is an interesting one In paragraph 3.8 page 64 of the agenda pack the fact that we were talking about reduced energy conservation programmes with the investment level lower due to reductions in rental income I was just checking where that had come from This refers to the four years of reduction in rental income which is no longer happening so I think that sentence probably needs to be amended It's historical and we will in fact have greater rental income going forward because we've come to the end of the four years of reducing council house rents by 1% per year So that I think does need changing Thank you for raising that Thank you very much that's helpful Councillor Richard Williams Richard Thank you very much Chair I've got a few points that relate to both the Treasury Strategy and the Capital Strategy if I may The first question is a general question so I appreciate it may well solicit a general answer but just on the environmental statement that we've added I was just wondering if we could get a bit more of an idea of what that's intended or what effect that's intended to have I mean are we talking a kind of did divestment sort of strategy not investing in things that could be related to fossil fuels or would it be more general than that so I just welcome a little bit of clarity on that Sorry I should have said Chair sorry my fault Well I'm putting on page 23 it appears in a few points in the document Page 23 of the Treasury Management Strategy but it's a few other places as well but as I say I appreciate it's a general question so a general answer will be fine I'm still sticking with the Treasury Strategy I appreciate the paragraphs on the PWLB I think they are fine 812 I had a more general point there when this applies to both policies is that we acknowledge the change in the public works loan board but then at various points both policies actually then sort of refer to us having a programme of investment in commercial property which slightly made me think are we just paying lip service to the PWLB so for example page 28 910 it says the council continues to pursue a programme of investment in commercial property so I guess I'm just interested in how the changes of the public works loan board relate to that given that we keep restating quite a few times actually so we're going to continue to invest in commercial property next question sticking with paragraph 910 on page 28 I just wondered if we could get an idea of what the significance of the addition of the word ordinarily there is in relation to the MRP MRP will ordinarily be provided for revised MHCLG guidance so why was the word ordinarily added what significance does that have when would we imagine not of using MRP because the implication there seems to be that sometimes it won't be used and then just moving on sorry I appreciate there are quite a few points moving on to the capital strategy page 64 paragraph 3.2 it's just a grammatical point and I apologise for being a pedant can we come to that under agenda item 8 please oh yeah sure sorry I wasn't sure if we were taking both let's just deal with the treasury management strategy first and then we'll come to the capital strategy later I wasn't sure if it was referred to both so that's fine Councillor John Williams over to you okay I'll leave the MRP point to Mr Maddox but on the what on your sorry I've forgotten your first point actually Rich shouldn't you it was a long time it was the environmental statement and what's the significance of that are we imagining adopting a kind of divestment approach of not touching fossil related industries as you'll see most of our investments we don't have any direct investments with fossil fuel companies or companies that are directly involved with fossil fuel our most of our money is tied up in banks, building societies and local other local authorities obviously those banks and building societies may have interests in fossil fuel companies but to be honest with you the amount of effort it would take for us to identify every single piece of interest by a bank or building society it would just not be practical clearly we would not directly we would not directly invest in a fossil fuel company or anything to do that goes against our aim of zero carbon by 2050 so clearly that policy is carried throughout everything the council does and that would include investing investing in our funds there is obviously an issue with regard to the pension fund and indeed that's something that we're currently looking at and there may well become something coming to full council on that but so far as our investments then the guide for that is our commitment to zero carbon for the district by 2050 and clearly that will be taken into account whenever we invest in an organisation or a business but as I say if you look at the where we do invest at the moment then which is given on page page 46 I think is one of the 40 40 43 you'll see that our investments we do not directly invest in any fossil fuel company thank you very much what was that they were two other points I think Mr Malik was going to take this Peter is going to respond to them thanks Peter right I know the third point was the use of the word ordinarily wasn't it so the way the guidance is written is that there's an expectation on local authorities that they will provide minimum revenue and setting aside money for the repayment of debt so ordinarily yes we would provide minimum revenue where we've purchased an asset or built an asset that we've borrowed money for so we set aside money to repay that debt however scope to in some circumstances not to provide minimum revenue provision if we believe that the asset in particular we're not perhaps going to hold for a particularly long time and we're going to sell it in the future so there would possibly be situations where you wouldn't necessarily provide minimum revenue provision I would generally guard against that as it's not necessarily particularly prudent but if there was a case where we felt that MRP wasn't appropriate we would probably seek advice from our treasury advisors just to take their view to see whether they would agree with that and we would also speak to our external auditors and see whether they would also it's not an approach that we will ordinarily take as it's suggested but it's possible there might be a situation where we would be over prudent the other issue of course is that MRP does affect the revenue budget that is a charge to our revenue budget so we don't want to overcharge to our revenue budget particularly in times when financial particularly now with the issues we face in local government finance and sorry what was the second point my second point was a more general point but it was just about the fact that we acknowledged the change to the PWLB but at various points in the let's see we continue to say we're going to have a programme investment in commercial property so I mean the PWLB rules do not prevent us from continuing to invest in commercial property we just it should not be primarily for yield and so it is quite possible for us to invest in a commercial property that needs renovation that needs repurposing like 270 Cambridge Science Park so it doesn't prevent us from investing in commercial property we just have to demonstrate that we are not doing it just purely for commercial yield or for gain Councillor Williams could I just follow up on that and if we were to invest in commercial property purely for yield are you suggesting therefore that we would have to go to the money markets and borrow at commercial rates if we didn't want to use the public works loan for three years yes the problem we've got is that if the public works loan ball new rules prevent us from invest even using our own reserves to invest in a property purely for commercial yield in those three years when we take out a public works loan ball so that would prevent us from doing that we have you know Mr Maddox and his team has been looking at the market and seeing whether or not it would be advantageous for us to do that but to be honest it looks as though we are better off staying with the public works loan ball and therefore we will have to accept these new rules but as I said earlier we believe that we will be able to work with these new rules it will prevent us maybe from purchasing a supermarket or something outside our area but to be honest with you we believe this there are plenty of opportunities to keep within those rules and therefore it will not prevent us from continuing to invest in commercial property but for circumstances that will meet the new criteria thank you chair with one speaker lab to councillor Hunt councillor Steve Hunt thank you chair just going back to these unsecured investments which on page 43 says 32 ish million and on page 31 we have section 10.19 investment limits where it notes that there are 18 million of revenue reserves available to cover such losses and then it goes on to say that in order that available reserves will not be put at risk for unsecured investments in the case of a single default the maximum of anyone such investment will be 10 million that seems like quite a lot and if there were two of them then we'd have blown our 18 million reserve and so my question really is do we really have single investments that big or is this 32.3 million typically split up into rather smaller investments how are we exposed like that and how do we protect against such a big here is 10 million so we wouldn't have one amount of 10 million there it is split over a number of banks and building societies typically amounts range from 2 to possibly 5 but mostly 2 to 3 million each individual investment is that sort of level I see thank you do you wish to come back or are you content I'm reasonably content with that as long as we do you know I can see the 10 million is there as a maximum it's good to know we're not actually approaching that any one investment okay thank you thank you very much and good point I think ladies and gentlemen that brings us to the end of the discussion on that particular report on the Treasury management strategy we are recommended to consider and comment which we have do we done and with your approval we will move on to item 8 it's everyone content yes thank you very much item 8 on the agenda is the capital strategy and this is Councillor Williams your final act this evening yes thank you very much I'll be very brief on this last one this is the final last item and like previous one this is an annual review again the changes are in red ink and again the main change has been to accommodate the new PWL being rules but I should also draw your attention to paragraph 9.3 on page 71 this is a new paragraph which ties the capital strategy into the investment strategy and its role in delivering the medium term financial strategy so on that that's my final my final note for tonight thank you very much indeed do we have any questions or at least Councillor Daunton yes thank you gentlemen it's a question page 65 the bullet point on efficiency through technology I just wanted some reassurance that the investment in technology to deliver digital solutions the transformation work that Geoff memory is heading up that's independent of what's going on with our part in the ICT service or is it dependent on ICT the ICT service thank you both really isn't it because it's got to run on the ICT service but it's been it's been it's it's been delivered by us it's been dependent of the three ICT service but it's got to obviously be compatible with the ICT service okay I understand that so actually you have answered my question that is that's our own independent programme of work transformation work obviously in terms of the hardware it would be dependent on ICT but the project itself the programme it's our project being led by us okay good thank you that's good to know thank you very much councillor Richard Williams thank you chair I'm sorry this is a real pedants point but this is paragraph 3.2 it's just the first sentence that I thought might be phrased a little bit better it says against the background of limited government support the capital programme identifies the total investment needed to support the achievement of the council's aims and objectives such as housing, economic development and climate emergency that climate emergency on the end didn't really make sense to me as to what are we seeking to achieve in relation to the climate emergency so I wonder if we might slightly rephrase that because it didn't quite make sense to me so that's a tiny point really just a point of drafting there was just one point it does relate back to my other point chair if I may it was just on this public works loan board point and the reference to investment in commercial assets I take what councillor John Williams said at the start that of course the changes don't prevent all investments in commercial assets I mean I assume given the way it's written we don't want to close it down we don't want to say in both policies actually in accordance with the PWLB rules we will continue to invest in commercial assets because we want to keep open the possibility of going to the money markets is that right that's deliberate absolutely right yes thank you councillor Hallibraith thank you chairman rather like councillor Delacy's observation that there was a graphic I just do wonder what the relevance of the graphic on the bottom of our page 72 and item 12 reference documents and relevant documents is there's a graphic on a black background which is quite hard to read because it's quite small and I'm not sure it adds to our understanding of reference documents and relevant documents I suppose it's a sort of summary in pictorial terms is it is that what it's supposed to represent I have to say I thought that was quite helpful because it showed the four strategies at the bottom building up into the corporate plan which is allied to the west belbyn plan and overall to our capital ambition okay well if you as chairman feel it's an okay graphic then I'm okay with it thank you could we make the graphic a little bigger please chairman so that those of us with the old papers going home can read it if I could find it councillor hails I'm going to have it to hand somewhere I could load my magnifying glass to you councillor River thank you and this is probably the million dollar question on page 69 of our papers paragraph 8.1 discussion about cash and short-term cash my question is how do we make sure we have enough of cash in the short-term you know considering the situation we're in at the moment well first of all we don't necessarily need to draw on our reserves to deal with short-term deficit and in fact you wouldn't want to do that because the cost of borrowing is so cheap at the moment that it will be it will be better to keep our funds and borrow money to cover short-term deficits so it's not necessarily the case that you need to have money on that short-term call down to deal with deficits first of all if you're managing the budget properly you will know when you're going to go into deficit and normally we go into deficit towards the end of the financial year because of the way the council tax comes in but you don't then use money after your reserves to cover that you tend to borrow to take you into the next financial year because otherwise it would actually cost you money if you took money out of your reserves to do that more than it would cost you to borrow the money so it's not necessarily true that you should always need to have at very short notice the ability to get hold of money because if you do that then you're not managing your council finances very well thank you that answers my question thank you thank you very much and I have no more speakers and I note that we are asking the council once again to consider and comment on the report which we have continually done so having done that I propose that we move on to item nine if everyone is content agreed thank you very much indeed and just before we do start move to item nine could I thank Councillor Williams and Peter Maddiff for their contributions this week it's been a bit of a marathon but I thank you both very much for your frank answers to our questions and your very helpful answers as well thank you agenda item nine ladies and gentlemen is the scrutiny and overview committee work programme and you'll see that February is looking fairly busy at the moment there may well be items come in and maybe items which will drop out I am expecting that we will have reports from two task and finish groups one looking at one which has been looking at the equality and diversity which is led by Councillor Sarah John Johnson and the COVID-19 update both of which I hope will report next month and we have the other items listed but prior to the next meeting the vice chairman and I will speak with democratic services and we will agree a final agenda but so that is really to keep you aware that dinner might be late and if everyone is happy with that can I ask you to take note that the next meeting will take place on Thursday the 25th of February 2021 at 5.20pm and with that I thank you all very much for your attendance for your contributions I wish you a very pleasant evening and I look forward to seeing you all very soon in fact some of you I will see at the JDCC tomorrow which looks like being a bit of a marathon was but for now good evening and thank you all very much thank you thank you thank you goodnight thank you