 Gweldwch i'n meddwl, oedd yw'r ffeiryddau a'r meddwl fyddai ar y cyfwybr am y cwestiynau Llywodraeth Cymru. Dwyf yn gweithio'r ddechrau i fynd i fynd i'n meddwl y gallwn cyffredinol. Mae nid yw'r canser, Judith Rippith, ac mae nhw'n gweithio'r gweithio. Yn gweithio, cymdeithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio, ac mae wedi'i gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. May I ask please for the committee's affirmation of this? Beith tailnodd yn y chainbwrather bynnag a Caercle Chamber notes that for the fire alarm sound, please leave the chamber by the door, the top table and make your way down the stairs Do not use, then lift The safe assembly point is next to the marketing suite half brown along the business park Whilst in the building and chamber face coverings must be worn y ffordd y mae'r benderfynedol yn gwneud am gweithio. Mae'r cydnod eich LFFP 2 mae'r benderfynedol gyda'i unrhyw y taibl yn y cwmbr. Mae'r cwmbr oes yn gwneud i'r cyfrun a ydych yn gwneud gwneud yn gwneud yn gwneud y benderfynedol. Mae'r bwrsiau yn ei wneud i'w wneud yn y gweithio gyda'i gweithio, byddai'r cyfrun er mwyn i'r bwrsiau yn gwneud, mae'r bwrsiau yn gweithio gyda'i gweithio gyda'i gweithio gyda'i gweithio. Felly, mae'r mawr bair a chrydddoch i gael Lake Settwm yn ymhyngrif yn dweud a ddylch ei jcool яwach gōi'r cwmri. Felly, mwy fyddwch yn gryf i'r cadw. Felly, fyddwch i gael ei ddweud eich ddweud y cwmri o'r cyfalu ond mae'r cwmri yn cael ei ddweud. Felly, roeddwn i'ch gyflym y ddweud eich cadw, ddweud eich ddweud ohon i'r cwmri yma i gael. A chwych hynny boeni'n gwirio i ddweud ac wedi bod yn gallu bod yn ei allan neu'r oedd fanol. If there are any committee members present on Teams, may I ask you to introduce yourselves? Councillor Peter Fane, are you on Teams? I am, Councillor Peter Fane Shelter Award. Thank you. Committee members present in the Chamber, I will now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. Members, after I call your name, please turn on your camera and microphone. Wait two seconds and say your name so that your presence may be noted. As I said earlier, my name is Councillor Judith Rippath, and I am one of the members for Milton and Waterbeach Ward. My Vice-Chair of the meeting is Councillor Sarah John Johnson. Hello, I'm Sarah John Johnson, one of the two members from Longstamps and Ward. And Councillor Anna Brydman. Good evening. I'm Councillor Anna Brydman, one of the three members for Milton and Waterbeach Ward. Councillor Dr Martin Cahn, can't see him present. Yes, Councillor Hunt. Martin Cahn has been taken ill, and he's actually not able to attend. I imagine he hasn't had time to centre for his there. Okay, thank you for that. I'm just, that's noted in democratic services. Councillor Nigel Caffcart. Okay, not here as yet. Councillor Graham Cohn. Okay, so he'll be arriving slightly later. Okay. Councillor Dr Clare Daunton. Yes, thank you, Chair. I'm Clare Daunton, and I'm one of the councillors for the Fended and Foreborn Ward. Councillor Sally Ann Hart. Can you put your microphone on, please? Ron Button. I'm Sally Ann Hart, one of the members for the Melville Ward. Thank you. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Thank you, Chair. I'm Councillor Jeff Harvey, member for Bolsham Ward. Councillor Steve Hunt. Yes, I'm Steve Hunt. I'm one of the members for Histon, Invington and Orchard Park. Councillor Heather Williams. Heather Williams, I represent the Mordans Ward, and I'm substituting for Councillor Grenfell Chamberlain. Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair. I'm Richard Williams. I'm the member for the Whittlesford Ward. Okay, thank you. Are there any other members present? Members of the Cabinet in the room, would you like to introduce yourself, leader? Hello, Councillor Bridget Smith, leader of the Self-Campus District Council. And on screen, Councillor John Batchelor. Yes, I'm Councillor John Batchelor, representative for Linton. I'm here in my capacity as lead member for housing to speak to items 7 and 13. Thank you, Councillor Neil Goff. Good evening, Councillor Neil Goff, deputy leader and member for the Kotlin Ward. Thank you very much. And Councillor John Williams. Okay, maybe Councillor John Williams hasn't yet logged on. Okay. We also have with us several officers, Peter Campbell, Adele Britton, Erwin Clark, Geoff memory and Liz Watts. Are any other officers present? Yes, do you introduce yourself? Thank you, Chair. I'm Adele Britton, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Adele Britton, Head of Economic Development and Commercial Investment. Thank you. Also online, you've got Duncan Vessey. Hello, I'm Duncan Vessey from the Housing Department, Ermisdreat Housing. And also Judy Fletcher. Good evening, I'm Judy Fletcher from the Housing Strategy section. Okay, and we have Rory McKenna. Good evening members, Rory McKenna, monitoring officer for the council. Okay, any others that, when they speak during the meeting, will introduce themselves as and when? Can I confirm that the meeting is court? It is, Chair. It is. Thank you. If at any time a member leaves the meeting, would they please make that fact known to me so it can be recorded in the minutes? And if you can just record that, Councillor Graham Cohn has just arrived. With the committee's consent, I would like to take item 13, Ermisdreat Housing Business Plan, as the first substantive item today. Duncan Vessey, the officer supporting councillors John Batchelor and John Williams, is supposed to be on annual leave this week and I'm sure he would like to resume that leave as soon as possible. Members will have noticed that the appendix to this item is confidential. Therefore, if anyone wishes to refer to the details of that appendix, we will need to take a vote to move to a closed fashion. We would then need to exclude members of the public so they cannot overhear the debate and close in and out of doors to the Chamber. I would prefer this not to happen and I therefore propose that we discuss the report in open session and appendix in very general terms, but reserve any detailed discussion of the appendix such as finance and figures until the end of the meeting, which will be in closed session anyway because of item 14. Duncan Vessey will no longer be here, but the committee's role is to scrutinise executive decision makers. Do I have a seconder for that? Can I finish and declare the interest at the end of the paragraph? Can we agree by, do I have a seconder for that? Thank you councillor Steve Hunt. Can we agree by affirmation? Any abstentions anyone wants to vote against? Finally, before we move on, you should all have received a supplement containing replacement appendices for the item on first homes interim position statement. Please refer to these appendices and not the ones in the main agenda pack. The next item is apologies and then we'll come on to declarations of interest after that. Item 2 on our agenda today is apologies for absence Ian. Are there any apologies for absence today please? We've got three, so we've got councillor Martin Carr, councillor Grenfell Chamberlain and councillor Ian Van Der Wire. As you heard before, councillor Heather Williams is here subbing for councillor Chamberlain. Thank you. Any declarations of interest? Do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point? councillor Heather Williams. Thank you chair, just on item 6 for transparency, that item as a consequence of a request I made councillor Chamberlain. Okay, thank you. councillor Peter Frane. Thank you chair, yes I should declare an interest as a director of Irmings Street Limited and also a director of Shire Homes. Okay, so agenda item 13. Thank you. Okay, next item on the agenda is the minutes. Please can we turn to page 5 on the paper agendas. I'll take them a page at a time. Okay, any comments on page 5? Page 6, page 7, page 8 and page 9. It's a declare those as a correct record of the meeting which took place on Tuesday the 18th of January 2022. Apologies. As I wasn't present at the meeting, I'll have a statement chair. Okay, and so will I, as I wasn't present either. I'm so alive. I think the rest of the members were present in the room at the moment and indeed online. Okay, so at this point we will not be going to agenda item 6, but skipping ahead to agenda item 13. Page 135 in your paper agendas. Okay, as already arranged, I'm going to first of all ask councillor John Bachelor and councillor John Williams if they want to make any comments if councillor John Williams has arrived. But would like to quickly get on to Duncan Vessie. Councillor Bachelor, do you have any comments first or would you like to me to proceed to Duncan Vessie's report? Well, in the interest of speediness. Happy that Duncan introduces. Happy to ask the questions as of when. Yeah, sure. Duncan Vessie, happy I got you online. Okay, would you like to start? Thanks, chair. So the business plan for urban streets is reviewed annually and this current plan was presented to the urban street board on January the 22nd. And it's come to your committee and it's also going to come on the 22nd of March. The councillor's owner and the sole shareholder of the business. And as I said, the plan is renewed annually, gives give us a company opportunity to review trading over the year, the adjusted budgets and reexamine the assumptions and risk registers. The company is seen as seen within the council as a close partner to the housing department rather than just an investment vehicle. Concentrating on a quiet stock for rental within the investment area, which is a greater Cambridge area community area involving Peterborough. We've also acquired large homes in Campbell, which uses houses and multiple occupation to which I'll let to shy homes are other housing company for temporary accommodation. Thus avoiding the need to spend money on benefit accommodation. As mentioned in the business plan, the very important part of it is the relationship we have with administrative fence where we've bought empty homes back into occupation. We have three lease arrangements with the MOD at Water Beach, Bassinbourne and Brampton. All these leases have been extended for another five years and the number of units increased substantially, especially in Brampton where increased by 36. And that brings the total to 190 MOD properties. The current acquisition position today is that we're at 484 properties and the target set in 2015 is 500. We have one blocking hunting done with 14 separate flats within it and that's classes 14 separate titles. We're hoping to complete on that within the next couple of weeks and there are two other properties which will bring the total to the 500. So the target will have been met assuming there's no issues with the conveyance in by the end of March. Any further expansion in the form of additional housing beyond the 500 will be subject to further agreement from the council with an agreement about future loans and terms and rates. The business activity that the company is involved in provides 3.4 million pound in interest payments to the council. It will this year and we'll continue to do that. The business plans also had to take into account the COVID pandemic, which has had an impact on our budget provision void loss assumptions. The mean effectively the rent arrears and void loss over the past two years has increased fortunately in the short term this will not have an adverse effect on the financial performance of the company. Mentioned in the report that's going to cabinet is an additional risk that we've included, which is the MRP, the minimum revenue provision, which is going through consultation now with central government. And that has been addressed in the report. And yeah, that's it. Thank you very much. Take any questions that any members will have. Thank you. Councillor Cohn, and in the first instance, can you tell me, do you want to direct your question to councillor Bachelor or councillor Williams? Thank you, chair. First, my apologies for being late to the meeting and disturbing the meeting there. I'm happy for either to answer. It's just a general question about the risk factors for urban street housing with the current obviously crisis in Ukraine and whether it's been factored into the sort of business model. For this council to be looking at giving some of those houses over for refugees and what implications that might have on the business plan. OK, but as a general answer, obviously at this stage, councillor bachelor, I'll go to you first and then councillor Williams to follow up. Right, thanks very much. Needless to say, the Ukrainian situation is very recent and post dates the writing of this report. So that situation, I mean, how is it going to affect us? I mean, it's very difficult to say. I mean, rising prices for gas and so on is going to be affect us all. No doubt over the near future may it will have an effect on urban streets tenants. But further than that, I'd like to say is perhaps that this is a solid business. The underlying value of it lies in the stock of housing, which is an appreciating asset. And so I think it has a very strong protection built in through through that fact. I don't think it's currently a big issue on the refugee front. As you were probably aware, the government has yet to give any real guidance about what will happen. We're already helping through urban streets, three families from the Afghan situation. But that is very different currently at least from this current crisis because the government is actually funding the Afghans. And there's no question at the moment that the government is offering to funds the Ukrainians. All they're talking about is allowing them in, but there is no current arrangements of getting any benefits or as with the Afghans actually paying the costs involved for local authorities for their housing. Thank you, Jim. John Williams, have you anything to add? Thank you, chair. No, John's dealt with it. Obviously, if there is anything happens between now and cabinet, then obviously we will look at that at cabinet, but at the moment it's far too early to give an answer to that question. Thank you. Councillor Cairn, do you want to come back? I think that answers the question. Essentially, if government makes funding available, we would look to use urban street houses potentially for that. But unless that happens, it probably wouldn't be the case. Is that right? I think I understood that too. Yeah, lovely. Thank you for that. Times. Councillor Hefford Williams. Thank you, chair. It was just around the VAT implications. It says that we're not back registered, but the threshold is quite low. So I'm just wondering if there's an exemption because there has been changes, obviously, to ESC 3.18. This is not going to get too much into the figures. Is it still quite a general question or do you want to reserve it? I'm not talking about the facts. I'm asking about how we are dealing with the VAT implications or not, whether we've got an exemption or not. And if not, how close to the threshold are we? OK, to Councillor John Williams first, I'd say. OK. Councillor John Williams, could you answer that please? Really, it's a matter for urban street, isn't it? I'm sorry, I can't. I'm not going to comment that in that detail on Urban Street's business plan. That's a question. I'm sure that Duncan can pick up and respond in writing to Councillor Williams. I'll ask Duncan Vessey if he can make any sort of general comment at the moment without going into too much detail. Yes, Chair. The general comment I can make with regard to VAT is that it is correct. We're not registered of VAT because our only income is rent and we can't charge VAT on rent. So the company, according to the current HMRC rules, is not able to register for VAT. So we're not that registered. If that's an answer to the question, I'd be happy to take any other questions. Can I? Hang on. If you can follow up without getting too hyper detailed. Without being too hyper detailed, Chair, perhaps if possible I can have more of an explanation because there are some changes coming up in relation to these matters, particularly with management companies. So if I could perhaps have that. Could I ask for that to be a written answer to you from Duncan Vessey, please? Thank you. Next I have Councillor Harvey on the list and Councillor Bradman, where you're wishing to speak. Sorry, I thought I heard you say, Chair. Councillor Harvey. Thank you, Chair. I understand at the time the company was set up, obviously, it was all about very carefully and we had this sort of arms length arrangement with a separate company. I'm just wondering about this problem with the MRP. I'm just wondering, would that be solved if we took the assets into direct ownership of South Cams? Would that overcome the problem? Would you like to direct that specific question to? Sorry, maybe to Duncan. I think we'll let Councillor Williams off that for the moment. Duncan Vessey. Yeah, I'm quite happy to answer that. That might be difficult in as much as the reason the council set up the company in the first place is that it rents the properties it requires, it rents out on the short, short-haul tenancies and the council's not allowed by law to let on the short, short-haul tenancies. It has to offer secure tenancies. That's the reason why arms length is limited currently. Okay, thank you. A follow-up was to answer your question. No, thank you very much. Okay, Councillor Hunt. Well, thank you, Chair. Yeah, on page 139 of the introduction, it mentions climate change and works closely with the climate environment team and so forth. But I didn't receive very much of that in the actual document. I was just wondering whether it should do or maybe I missed it but I couldn't see any sort of targets for improving insulation if we have any minimum baseline of the quality of buildings we will purchase in that regard. And on the sort of related note, if I may, on page 165 and other places, it talks about commutable distances to South Cambridge. I wonder if this is, if we bear in mind things like houses that are in easy public transport or active travel reach of employment centres, or do we just say that's drivable? Okay, and Duncan Vessey? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Yes, with regard to the climate change, most of the houses that we buy and the EPC rating is relatively high. They can be not allowed by law to let a home with an EPC rating of an E. They tend to be reasonably modern houses if not they've been renovated up to a reasonable standard. However, that's not to say that there aren't further improvements that we can make with regard to insulation, etc. And we work closely with the climate change team and in fact we've got a current scheme at the moment whereby there is some funding for insulation measures on those homes that we've required within the district and the MOD properties within the district. It's not mentioned in the business plan per se because, well, possibly it could be a future, but it isn't in the business plan at the moment, but I can assure members that we do work very closely with the climate change team and we'll be making improvements to our additional improvements in our property to bring them up to an even higher standard than they already are. Oh, well, thank you. No, that's nice to know. I would like to see it perhaps in the future version of this document in some form, but perhaps you could comment on the other question about the, what is the commutable distance or does the commuting area mean? Do we consider things like public transport? That's a difficult question. No, we tend to buy, I mean, most of the houses that we have bought within the commutable distance are in the Peterborough district. In our own district, of course there are some, but in Peterborough district, they tend to be central Peterborough or just the outskirts, and the transport links are very good in all those areas. So once it's not something we take into account when considering the purchase of the homes, I think it goes without saying that, I mean, the transport links there are pretty good. That's probably what I can say really on that. OK, thank you. There are no other questions on that part of the item at the moment, so I suggest that we park it there and we'll come back for the confidential session later. So if you could go now on to agenda item six, so back in your documents to page 11, and I'm going to ask Councillor Neil Goff to introduce this for us. Thank you. Thank you, chair. I'll just make a couple of comments, and I'll pass over to Geoff Mambury to introduce the report. So this is a short but very clear report which references the hybrid technology in our experience with the hybrid technology. I think it's just worth pointing out that this technology has brought extraordinary benefits to the council during the COVID times and has established a way in which we run meetings, which has really had a tremendous effect in terms of increasing participation, which we should recognise. But like lots of technology, there are experiences which we've had with the technology, and this report basically sets out some procedures to put in place in such circumstances that problems do arise. I will pass this now over to Geoff Mambury, who may wish to add something further. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Goff. Good evening, members. Good evening, chair. Increasingly, as members know, residents expect councils to broadcast important meetings such as full council and some committee meetings so that those who are unable to attend in person can still see democracy in action. The impact of COVID and the advent of hybrid meetings has added another layer of complexity to the technology needed to ensure that such meetings are not only available to view, but that their workings are transparent. Now, to achieve these ends, we introduced a new system for managing and broadcasting public meetings last year from a provider called VPAV, and the report details are experience of the system so far. Now, as with any technology, there's the potential for problems to occur. In this case, not only with the solution provided by VPAV itself, but with the council's own network, the service from our internet provider, or the home network of anyone who's looking to access the meeting remotely, either as part of a hybrid meeting arrangement or just as an interested resident. However, as the report highlights, although any new solution can have teething problems, this new solution has a success rate of over 90% so far, and in the two cases where there have been more serious issues, solutions have been found and implemented by VPAV normally within days. So, although there's never a 100% guarantee with any technology, the solution we're using here is considered by officers to be reliable and stable and the provider responsive. Now, sadly, due to other commitments, no director of VPAV was available to attend the meeting this evening, so any questions about the technical detail will need to be answered outside of this meeting, but both myself and Aaron Clark, who most frequently operates the system on behalf of the council, are available to answer any general questions that members may have about the system. Thank you. I should add that. Just check that you will receive this supplement to the agenda on item six about VPAV, that you've seen either an emailed copy or there are paper copies available. Has everyone had access to that? Got access to that? Yes, okay. Councillor Bridget Smith, you wanted to add something there? Thank you. That's very kind of you to let me come in before members of your committee. I would just ask, Chair, that members of this committee join me in thanking Aaron Clark in particular for being our front-line firefighter with this technology. He has just gone over and beyond and it's been new equipment, new technology, and I think we wouldn't have achieved the very, very high success rate that we have achieved without him managing it on a day-to-day basis for us. Thank you. Can I add to that? Thanks for such a clear and concise report. It's greatly appreciated. And Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So, yes, the report is very helpful to see what has happened in the past and it's good that we've now got the backup and offline version in place. I think that's an important thing to have. As I declared in my interest earlier, obviously, I asked this to be looked at. There's only one thing that I think in my request that hasn't quite been touched on and that's more the governance. Part of the reason that I asked this was because when you're sat in committee, if it happened right now, because technology will, at some point, you know, it doesn't matter how good it is, we've all had moments where we're watching that. We all go round and round on the screen and can't do anything about it. It's what happens next. I think it's particularly important that we are consistent when these issues arise. So, is it a chair decision? Is it a committee decision to a journal meeting? Almost what in art? This is a new way of working. So, it's not a criticism, but that is something that we need to think about or what are our standing orders in the event of an outage or any issues. So, while we've got the technical side and that's great, I do think as councillors we need to think around the governance and the protocols that we do so that we're clear it's the chair that makes the decision, it's committee, do we adjourn and give it half an hour, you know, just to ensure that we're being consistent across meetings. So, you're asking for a matter of consistency. I will send that back to Rory McKenna wants to come in. Thank you, chair. Maybe I can assist in trying to tackle Councillor Williams' question. Certainly any change to the council's standing orders would require a constitutional change and if members felt that that was necessary and appropriate, then my advice would be that the matter should be referred on to the Civic Affairs Committee in the first instance as they are the proper committee to look at any constitutional changes which would then get referred on to full council. In terms of answering the specific question, I think that obviously the particular facts of the circumstances would be relevant so I'm not sure that it's necessarily a one-size-fits-all decision. You would obviously have to look in and work out what's happened in the particular circumstances to understand what might need to happen. If it's a simple outage, then of course the chair can adjourn the meeting for a short period of time whilst the connection is re-established. That's kind of all I had to say at the moment, but happy to answer any further questions of being of assistance. Can I also ask the same from a not-so-legal perspective maybe of Councillor Gough? Would you like me to place that as Councillor Gough? I think Rory's just outlined really what the structure is. I think that if we want an approach, I think it's probably best to place that around the chair and the adjournment of any meeting responsible to the chair. But I think Mr McKenna was suggesting that if we wanted to formalise that more, we should do it through the Civic Affairs Committee, which I think is a good idea. Follow-up or answer? Thank you, Chair. I was just going to say that I think it would be something worth looking at from Civic Affairs if we were able to make a recommendation for them to look into it. We ensure some consistency and also to support the chair, so everybody knows what to do. It's just us adapting to the new world, really. We have standing orders for everything else, I think. I think it's time that we brought the technology into it, Chair. Yes, consistency and yet flexibility. Next question is from Councillor Bradman. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for a succinct report and a very thorough analysis. Thinking about this as a report of what has happened, I applaud the team for taking apart what happened at each of these meetings and dealing with it at the time. What that reflects is that these issues reflected a new system that unexpectedly had a bug in a certain part of the system, which even the deliverers of the system were unaware of until it happened. Since that time that that bug has been sorted out, the number of problems have dropped dramatically. My feeling is that that was symptomatic of a new system, and I wanted also to thank our webcasting officer, Aaron Clarke, for handling those difficult situations so professionally. In terms of looking forward, anyone who listens to radio 4 and listens to news will see that things drop out all the time. So I'm absolutely astonished that we haven't had any more, and I'm very glad. It speaks to the resilience of the system. Sorry, you have a question? No, I'm making a statement if that's okay. I just wanted to point out that going forward, as regards to the issue about civic affairs, very happy for it to come to civic affairs, but I think we should also leave in the options the fact that it might be appropriate to simply leave it to the chair as our monitoring officer has suggested, because A, I think these situations are happening less frequently now, now that the system is more embedded and we understand it better, and its bugs have been removed. But secondly, it's very much dependent, as we saw at the time, on the actual circumstances pertaining at the time and the actual nature of what's happened. So I think it's possible that policy might be slightly more complex than what we need, and I'd refer that back to our monitoring officer, but I'd just like to make that point now that we don't prejudge what the Civic Affairs Committee might come to as a recommendation. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Thank you very much, chair. I've got a few points to make. First point I'll say is that, as an occasional viewer of proceedings via our feed, it is a great system. I think it's a real addition to democracy and openness of the councils. I think it is great that. I certainly would thank the officers who put a lot of work into the system. I've got a few points to make on the substance of this. On the report that's actually before us, or the report that was first tabled, I think absolutely we do need Civic Affairs to look into this. It is a complicated picture. In planning we don't really have a choice. If we've told people they can participate online and the online goes down, they might have an intimate expectation. They might have even though they may be in the system rather than watching it. I think planning probably is slightly different. What happened in audit was very unfortunate because that was a very important meeting. It is a shame that there is no record of that meeting apart from 10 minutes. I personally would have watched that meeting myself if it had been available. Of course me and the rest of the residents in South Campton don't. I think we do need a consistent approach to this. Are we going to stop if we're not broadcasting and recording or are we not? I do note in the report that we'll now record on the computer in here so we can upload it afterwards. That might make a difference but I do think we should have a sort of firmly established set of rules on this. I would support a referral to Civic Affairs. I'm also going to say on the... Do you have a question or are you just commenting? I'm commenting that I support referral to... Yeah, I've answered that. Question. I'm a bit perplexed about the supplement documents and really why they're there because they relate to a rather different thing. Part of them relates to a legal dispute and I'm not at all clear why that's been tabled for this meeting. I think that might be something for Rory McKenna. I have a follow-up question. Rwy, a Cynslauwch, Dr Wysiwylwylwm. Do you mind if we just go to Rory McKenna for the moment? So hold your thoughts. Rory McKenna. Thank you, Chair. Sorry, I was just getting a wee bit of feedback there. So the request to put those documents before members did come by the company itself. I think as it was said at the start it was hopeful that the company would have been here today to answer questions. Unfortunately they weren't able and I think it was thought that this would be an appropriate way through that. So that's the background as to why the documents are before members. Okay. I presume at the moment you are happy for us to continue it's not got too technical. I'm certainly happy, yes, but I suppose it's within the gift of members. And back to you, Councillor Dr Wysiwylwylwylm. Okay. That does provide a bit of an extra explanation because as I say, the reason I ask that question is because we seem to be dealing with two different things. The officers report is covering the general issue. This is covering a very specific issue. Indeed. It's a shame if they've asked for them to be tabled that they're not here because I've seen as they are now on the agenda I did actually have some questions about it particularly the report that's dated 2nd of March paragraph 2.2.2.3 talks about the primary audio issue being caused by this firmware update. Is the primary audio issue what happened on the 7th or does that apply to the 8th as well because actually having read this I'm now not clear why it failed on the 8th. Okay. I think at this point I'll take advice that came from Rory McKenna but since it's quite a technical question and the company not here to actually answer it I might suggest that we adjourn this item to a later date. Rory McKenna, would you be able to confirm your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that certainly any questions on the letter that's been submitted by the company it would be more appropriate to respond. That easiest way to deal with that there would be by way of a written answer and I would be happy with that there if Councillor Williams would be. I think a written answer is fine, I'm happy to have written correspondence on that. Okay, next I've got Councillor Bridget Smith. Thank you very much Chair. I think we're just in danger of turning a molehill into a mountain here. So it's quite clearly says on page page 12.8 that 97% of hybrid meetings have been successfully run between last September and this February and prior to that when all the technology was new and we're all getting used to it it was 91.4%. So this is an improving picture we're talking about some, you know, the explanation of what caused the very very few problems we had are quite clearly made. We've obviously got on top of that. So, you know, I think taking this to another committee and I'm really, I really question whether that's a good use of committee time when actually this is a greatly improving picture and I think our officers have dealt admirably with it in the most challenging of circumstances. I imagine it's up to the chair the Civic Affairs Committee whether he or she accepts that as an item. But I would say it wasn't necessary. Thank you. I think what I'll do now and this is a fresh point to be made was whether it goes to the Civic Affairs Committee if it's going to be a difference in opinion as a recommendation that we need to take a vote on that. However, I'll just check with Councillor Heather Williams if you've got a fresh point to be made. Yes, just and it does touch on what Councillor Bridget Smith just said and actually agrees with Anna that we're not saying here that we need to reinvent any wheels. It's just a case if it is going to be the chair let's give the chair or the official power to do it and it's so not making any extra sense. It's just formalising what is currently an informal to actually give the chair the powers to do what they need to do and to be more open about things. Okay, I think in this case that some of us genuinely believe that. Councillor Smith. I will double check again with Rory McKenna. Would it be a good idea to put that recommendation to a vote to include it? I think that it's within the gift to the committee to do that there is what sounds like you might need a vote on the matter chair. So that's just to add it as a recommendation. To add it as a recommendation, yes, correct? Yeah, okay. So if we look at the recommendation on page 11 on this item, it is recommended that the scrutiny no-view committee consider and comment on the contents of the report which we have done on page 13. Options about noting the report which again has been done. Consider bringing this issue back to the next appropriate meeting of the scrutiny no-view committee in the event of further performance concerns, although it's sorry. Apologies, Councillor Hunt. Thank you chair. Well just on this page 13 of the options. Is it something that we could add as a KPI that we track so that we get one of those little graphs as we've currently got for many other things? It would seem to be a good way of keeping tabs on further issues. So it could be tracked in the report of four performance report for example. Sounds like a good idea. And the next one which would link in with what Councillor Hunts has just said is a question of viewing the performance of the hybrid system which could come in the form of a report on a quarterly basis. Councillor Dr Clare Daunton. Yes, chair. I want to ask a practical question please. I'm not sure if it's in the documents if it is excused me, but is it the case that there's always an external technical backup when the meetings are happening? It's really a question for Erin Clark I suspect. Erin Clark isn't here though to answer the questions on this. I get the impression he does want to take that question though. Can you use your microphone? Yeah, thanks chair. It just depends on one or two things. So yes there's an offline recording that will now be done for every single meeting so there's a backup of the recording and a technical support. The contract would need to be contacted if there is an issue so if we were to experience a problem we would ring their support lines. Okay hence why it's a shame they're not here to answer. Councillor Goff or Councillor Anne or Geoff memory have you got anything to add? Councillor Goff. I would just like make sure we just don't lose sight of the big picture here that this technology is absolutely fantastic and you know it will actually stand the council in very good stead in years to come for improving the participation and the transparency of the processes and I think it's to be really warmly welcomed and what we're dealing with here is some of the things around the edges what is otherwise a absolutely fantastic advance. I have nothing to add chair. Right then back to the recommendation it's recommended that the scripting overview committee can sit down and comment on the contents of the report so it's been noted we would like to see kind of progress on this and could that be added into the next quarterly report and ongoing taking we noted that the system is principally working well however for in the interests of consistency slash flexibility within that recommend that possibly civic affairs would like to take a look at this. Okay thank you can we move on to Councillor Bradman. Thank you. Had we taken a vote on that I was going to understand I understood for advice from Roy McKenna that we were able to add that as a bullet point without actually having to take a vote on it maybe I was incorrect Roy McKenna. I think if it's agreed by affirmation then that's fine if it's not then obviously I would suggest that you go to your vote. Okay is that, well the first thing is that agreed by affirmation please put your mic on. Sorry that's what I was trying to say was that I'll abstain from the affirmation because as chair of civic affairs I don't want to prejudge my decision in any way. Okay everybody else has agreed with that or does that mean now that we do have to vote or are we okay with that? Sorry to have to ask you so many legal questions That's fine chair Yep that's fine it sounds like that was taken forward by affirmation. Okay thanks. Agenda item 7 on page 15 Okay for this item we have Councillor John Batra would you like to add anything and then I'll go to Councillor Peter Campbell to add anything further. Right thanks very much chair so this is First Homes which is the latest in the long line of government right ideas for getting first time buyers on the property ladder this one is a discount market housing project which means that developers sell these houses directly to first time buyers with a discount of something between 30% and 50% against market values our role in this at least initially is to check that the buyers meet the requirements of the 106 arrangements we don't have any further role at this stage we do have a role when it comes to selling these on where you have to maintain the discount rate and the discount is obliged to manage that process A big concern for us was that the government was demanding that of our 106 affordable housing allocation 25% of it had to be first homes this would undermine our main priority which is to deliver affordable rental properties I'm glad to say that in the last couple of weeks the government has changed its view on the world and I'm now saying that first homes are not a requirement it's up to the developer to decide whether he wants to go forward with a first homes project it's very unlikely that developers will have an interest in this in that they have to bear all the burden of the discount involved so that's good news but we still have to have a process in place to manage should anybody wish to go forward with first homes and that's what the document before you is so we still need that process but fortunately the threat to our rental properties has largely gone away but that's my contribution chair Julie Fretcher is actually the author of the the report I don't know if he fears with us this evening Before we take the questions directed in the first instance to Councillor Bantula we will have the agenda item 7 correct appendices not the one in the main agenda but as a supplement either on paper or on the screen first to speak is Councillor Peter Fane I'm very reassured by what John Batchelor says that this need not disrupt too much our affordable homes policy particularly on new sites clearly has limited application in South Camershire because of the cost of houses and I wouldn't like to see too many more one bedroom houses don't necessarily meet the need here there is a section on page 8 referring to first homes exception sites policy and that goes on to deal under local criteria on page 7 with rural exception sites clearly first homes exception sites would presumably also not be relevant in South Camers I'd be interested in Councillor Batchelor's comments on that they couldn't of course come forward in areas in the green belt and they may not be a very good way of meeting the affordable housing needs but I'm just wondering whether we need to be whether the cabinet plan to be proactive in encouraging rural exception sites which can meet those criteria and where in my view there is considerable scope to encourage more sites to come forward Yes there are possible that is a but of course it all comes back to the developer they're the ones which need who will need to actually make the proposal and bear the discount as far as we can see at the moment that there isn't a great deal of enthusiasm from developers for this project but certainly in exception sites there may well be some attraction I know there are some technical issues involved in this and I think perhaps if Julie would like to comment on that I think she has a deeper understanding of the situation than I do Yes permitted Julie Fletcher please add Yes in terms of first homes exception sites I think that is one of our concerns to be honest it can be developer led whereas rural exception site is usually led by a housing provider because they will keep a state within the properties so I think for a developer there may see this as a quick win for them on exception sites in terms of land values or less but they are likely to achieve more the traditional affordable rented and shared ownership that's on a rural exception site so we are quite concerned I think that developers will come forward with first homes exception sites we've tried to put in as much criteria that we feel that we can within the interim position statement to say that somehow they have to show and identify that we are not meeting that need elsewhere in terms of first homes and hopefully when we can talk to developers who come forward we will always try and push them towards rural exception sites being proactive I completely agree with you Councillor Fane in terms of being much more proactive in rural exception sites and we are currently looking at a programme of where we should target a promotion and work with parish councils where there's not a lot of development going on in the village and there's not a lot of there's quite high housing need I think with sort of the to the officer's answer thank you continue please I was just going to say in terms of rural exception sites coming forward we've worked with the local plan and the issues and options for land to come available I think that's perhaps stalled our rural exception sites coming forward but now that's been done I think we can start to pick that up and hopefully see some more delivery coming forward Thank you Can I ask Councillor Peter Fane do you have a follow up? No I'm very reassured by what Julie Fletcher says there Thank you Thank you chair just a couple of points I'm a bit confused actually after what we've just heard because on the one hand I was hearing Councillor Baxter saying developers aren't interested in these things but then I'm sort of hearing that maybe they are interested and that's a problem too so I'm a bit confused now I would say I do have a slight concern for the report which says from officer discussions with housing providers it does not seem to be an appetite it's a bit subjective I'm a bit uncomfortable with us sort of relying on subjective points like that I think we should try and stick to sort of facts rather than impressions in terms of this going forward obviously there's flexibility in this to set different thresholds so you can raise the discount from 40 to 50 you can lower the cap price if you want now we're not proposing to do any of those things and I just want to know what work is likely to go on into that in the future as to whether we want to take advantage of any of the flexibility because again reading the report it on the one hand seems to be saying well 30% is not going to make any difference but then say we're not going to go 40 or 50 so again I was confused and particularly on page 14 I've only got my agenda pack now on page 14 of the second appendix we had I think it was B the analysis of raising the discount to 40-50% option to issues and risks there's no detail there it just basically says we're not going to do it so I would like to know what we're going to do going forward in terms of looking at this in a detailed way to make sure that we've got the right policy maybe it's part of the next local plan but I would like to have some idea of what we're going to do OK, Councillor Batchelor Right, thank you well I see Julie is rather keen to respond to that as a technical element so I think I'll probably even do that Thank you Councillor Batchelor I think there's two separate things here so when we talk about a section 106 site which is a private lead site which has to provide the affordable housing the requirement that's in the national policy is that 25% of the affordable contribution will be first homes now for a developer they use to the traditional housing provider coming in and taking the 40% affordable housing now that helps with their cash flow going forward in terms of having that money up front it's a job lot that they sell the whole affordable housing package whereas they will have to sell each individual property as a first home so there's a lot of administrative burdens on the developer I don't think they quite understand the implications of that and I think there's a more risk element for them in terms of having to deliver it that way so on private section 106 sites developers don't appear from conversations we have to be interested in bringing that forward now a first homes exception site is different because that's not part of a section 106 site that will be all the first homes the land values are much less so therefore the sort of value basis is more profitable for them so that's where I think we will see developers coming forward on a first homes exception site then if I come to your other point about the discounts and I completely agree with you in terms of at the moment we don't really know the through impact of first homes we do need to do some further work on that and we need to test the viability much more we try to test the viability as much as we can at the moment but there's a lot of unknowns I think and the viability models don't seem to be able to cater for the new model of first homes so that is definitely something we need to look at as a local plan coming forward to understand that my feeling is if we do increase the percentages in terms of discount it is going to affect viability and I think we will then see our viability challenges on each application but we do need to do further work on that can I just make a point of clarification as well in terms of the local plan when it stands at the moment developing a new local plan we will need to have that requirement of first homes within it however we feel there's a shift in government thinking of first homes so we're watching hoping that they may have a change of heart in terms of this requirement so at the moment our local plan is sound and we don't have to require it but when we develop the next one and less things change we will have to put that in there just to say thank you for that I'm reassured by that answer I'm glad that we'll be looking at this in more detail going forward there was just one final point I just want to ask as a follower I think if I'm right in reading this we're proposing the same policy for South Cams and Cams it's not really an issue for us but reading the report I thought maybe Cams really needs a different policy City, yes, Cambridge City not really concerned for us in a sense I wondered if there was a reason why we seem to be going in lockstep Who would like to take that one? Julie Fletcher I'm happy to take that yes the reason why we've done that is because we have a joint housing strategy with Cambridge City Council and so a lot of our strategy work is joint and because we've also got we're working towards the next joint local plan joint planning services etc so it just felt that it was the right thing to do to have a joint intro and statement we have been working very closely obviously with our lead members but the city have also with their except councillors and it's going through their own decision process at the moment and that you know it's something that they've had long discussions about Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair, just on the response there so I understand the concept of doing it together and as things go forward there will be more and more joint working obviously but just to make sure that South Cams could go a different way in its current time if they wanted to couldn't they just making sure that's got the case so city wants to go a different way to us they can That's nodded yes I think I presume there's no follow-up to that You got your answer Councillor Bradman I have two questions one starts on paragraph 9 of the officer report at page 16 which refers to the fact where first homes can't be sold within six months of marketing they can be sold on the open market free from restrictions and I wanted to be clear whether the revisions in the supplement the revised supplement at 3.9 on page 4 of the supplement whether that reassured us that we wouldn't lose our properties through sale if we didn't whether we will maintain ownership or part ownership of those properties so basically can I have some reassurance around being able to resist the sale of rental properties in other words the loss to our stock and the second question is under option 2 you go through the options on paragraphs 19 to 21 on page 18 of the agenda and then they're exercised more fully in the supplement and particularly option 2 is at 16.12 and sorry 6.12 and 6.13 and I just wanted to ask the question given that there do seem to be still nevertheless quite a lot of reservations about option 2 I just wanted to ask why is that still the preferred option because there still seem to be so many reservations about it so I hope you understand the question put that to councillor bachelor first although I feel there might be a request if I could just take the second part none of these options are what we want to do basically first homes would not be our choice if we had a choice at all so I mean there are disadvantages in all of this because it is first homes and it disadvantages the 106 arrangements for rental affordable rents so there is minuses but we have to have a process in place so that we can should this go forward then we can actually manage it I mean one is very reluctant actually to spend an awful lot of time on something like this because the government almost certainly will change its mind very soon we have already seen this in the past remember the last similar idea was starter homes and starter homes just suddenly nobody mentioned it anymore but they disappeared I mean we have no option but to make the plans to deal with this but in all probability the government will come up with some other idea in the near future as soon as they have a change of minister and so this is a holding position that we need we have to do so we are getting on with it I think to add probably just to add to councillor Batchelor the question was around the sale after six months unfortunately I can't give that comfort because that is what's written into the national policy and I think that has been done to ensure that the properties are mortgageable in terms of if they can't sell them on then that will fall away the council will get the capital receipt for that discount but the first homes will be lost to the open market councillor Brannan do you want to come back or is your question answered so you're confirming that the unfortunate outcome would be that if these had been built as first homes by this council or built as homes by this council and sold under the first homes principle we could lose them under this we don't build them councillor this is all down to developers choice these are not our properties but we are being given some responsibility for managing the transitions thank you very much thank you and councillor Cone thanks very much chair I've just got a quick point on page six of the supplementary under key worker housing essentially I just wanted to agree with the policy on this I think it's a very good idea not to sort of distinguish too much between professions Ie distinguishing between teachers, nurses cleaners you know and exactly what is a key worker and I know the government essentially leaves that to us locally to decide and sort of as a local authority area decide what is essentially a key worker and what we've done is link that to the sort of local need essentially I was just going to sort of see if you want to expand any more on the key worker housing in terms of is there any sort of really pockets of employment either in the public or private sector that really are struggling at the minute that the council might look at in the future to include current policy locally or is it that we just don't want to get onto that slippery slope of distinguishing at all or are we actually looking at the figures in terms of need in terms of teachers or cleaners or whatever it might be thank you councillor bachelor yes I mean this is a bit of a theory given our situation locally we're talking about is a 250,000 pound house you still got to find something like 25,000 pounds upfront for your mortgage so this this isn't a giveaway or anything in any terms and in our own area it's still going to be an issue for everybody not just key workers and almost certainly you've got to get out looking at things like Adam Brooks you're at Haverhill and beyond to get a price on a house that is actually really affordable so it's very difficult to see what you can do here as the point has already been made at the cap price what we're looking at in our area is a one bedroom flat an expensive one of that so I'm sorry not to be more encouraging but I definitely wanted to add anything on that point Julie Thatcher in terms of I think this policy I'm glad to hear Councillor Cohn that you think that is the right approach to take and I think that's more on the location of where any development may be as to local workers having some sort of priority but within housing strategy we are very aware of some of the pressure points in terms of key worker type housing so we know that Adam Brooks struggle in terms of recruitment and in terms of people being able to live near their place of work we also know that social care is quite a big issue as well for people sort of in the district operating who do care there's also an issue there so I think we're always open to look at initiatives and schemes that may come along and how they best fit the needs of the district but I don't think first homes as Councillor Thatcher has said is the answer to this one and Councillor Cohn do you want to come back? No just to thank you John and Julie for that answer and finally Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair I just wanted to seek some reassurance because we've got the report and I think we're all going to agree 100% is always going to be what we want to see or anything else but it's probably one of the only councillors that doesn't own a home and probably will inherit before I can afford to buy one myself I'd say we are looking to get the best out of this aren't we whatever hand is dealt because if I'm honest it's been such a doom and gloom position I just want some reassurance that whatever does come our way we have a responsibility to make the best of it for our residents Councillor Thatcher Yes I take the point entirely obviously we have to work with government and you know if government makes the rules then we have to make the best of them just expand a bit on that I mean the real thing that this undermines still will be the shared ownership arrangements you know that is a real way for people to get into home ownership you know you can start at 25% of the value of the house and so on and why on earth the government wants to force us down on some other road which clearly doesn't actually meet the requirements is a mystery to me but you're quite right Councillor of course we have to make the best and do the best we can with the materials given to us Thank you Anymore? Okay I want to round that item up there it looks like a watching and waiting situation and trying to keep up to date with initiatives as they come Can I point you to the recommendations on page 16 for the recommendation Without an interim insight, without an interim position statement first homes will revert to the national policy with no local context there is currently ambiguity in terms of the requirement for first homes and the interim position statement sets out clearly the council's current direction so the recommendation is it is recommended that the scrutiny and overview committee are proposed a flexible approach to first homes and to recommend to cabinet the approval of the first homes interim position statement Are we agreed on that by affirmation? Agreed, thank you Thank you very much, just before we move on Can I clarify if I'm required any further Is the ermine street coming back again? Will it be? Near the end of the meeting I'm afraid No dinner yet Have a snack Okay, agenda item 8 quarter 3 performance reports on page 57 of the paper copies Okay, councillor Neil Goff Would you like to lead on this? Yes, thank you chair I'll just keep my comments very short in the interest of uniting councillor bachelor with his dinner So this is the usual report again Thank you to the officers particularly Kevin Ledger for pulling this report together Just a couple of things I'll just pull out I'm really pleased to see the progress in some areas particularly the call centre where we've had a lot of effort in that area and we're now seeing the fruits of that and we are entering a sort of what looks to be a sort of virtuous period where we've got improving numbers of calls which are handled and also reduced waiting times This is the period to December Hopefully that will be maintained Also coming out of the Covid we'll see on the average days to re-lect housing stock which has also been an area of concern in the past but that's beginning to return to an acceptable level So some good things to pick up on Some areas still concerned particularly around complaints and working through the backlog of those complaints is something which I know Jack member is very focused on in terms of improving those processes but I'll just let the committee ask any questions Thank you On page 64 the paragraph about the number of days to re-lect rather housing stock we're still experiencing higher refusal rates than was the case pre-COVID Could somebody comment on that and whether any analysis has been done of why the reasons for that? Councillor Gough in the first instance Yeah, I think if Councillor Batchelor would like to comment on that point Not gone for a cup of tea Councillor Batchelor No, I'm still here standing by I'm sorry, I think quite catch the particular section that was Councillor Daunton Page 64, Councillor Batchelor the higher refusal rates for letting housing stock Yes, indeed there's a lot of discussion going on about this I think the underlying issue is that there's perhaps not sufficient information given in the material that goes out where people do their booking A lot of people are coming in from the city and then they're surprised that quite a number of our properties are actually in rural areas with very little infrastructure i shops or pubs and so on So we are now working on making sure that the reports about exactly where the property is and what sort of local facilities there are, we're going to make much more of that I think that was one of the primary underlying reasons for people not accepting properties And Councillor Daunton, do you have a follow up? Thank you Councillor Jim Johnson Hi, my questions are on appendix B, items B5 on north's day A couple of them are probably clarification questions So item B5II or 11 which marks complete the local engagement to understand what the community wants from a new community centre Can I clarify, is this the community centre built in phase 1 or the community centre that's part of the civic hub? Okay, Councillor Gough My understanding is that that is the community centre in phase 1 but that was got some Can you add? It's really heated Yes, I can add to that if it's helpful Yes, so the community centre is the phase 1 community centre Okay, so and I've consulted with my ward partner here, neither her or I consider that the item undertaken a great deal of community engagement has been completed I don't think that would be a statement recognised by North Do Town Council either so I would question whether this has been correctly marked as complete here because there has been to my own view relatively minimal community engagement on the community centre and certainly not an extensive amount so that it can be marked complete So that's item 1, my next one would be questions on B5III which is the planning permission for the new civic hub to be marked amber So my understanding here again, so the bullet points here we have that civic have undertaken extensive stakeholder and community engagement to inform a blueprint whilst there has been stakeholder engagement I do not believe there has been extensive community engagement and actually that was a deliberate decision informing the blueprint that it would not go to an extensive community engagement So again, could we clarify the specific detail on that and then also the second bullet is that we have appointed project management consultants to drive the project through the next phases I don't believe that has happened either so therefore it puts the third bullet which is the submission of planning application to Q3 I'm wondering whether or not amber is really a correct reflection of the status of this item and that perhaps it should actually be read Thank you. Okay, councillor Goss Yeah, so I will let Peter Campbell hopefully sort of pick up on the details but I think this is an area where we have this is a sort of priority for us we recognise the difficulties which we've had historically in progressing this because the specific hub has a number of different elements to it and is a very, very complicated and complex project so I think we are moving forward and I will let sort of Peter Campbell pick up councillor John Johnson on the specifics but in terms of, for example, getting the consultants to drive the project forward, my understanding is that those are in place and they are working to make this project as quickly as possible but to Campbell you may have some comments on that too Peter Campbell Go for those comments one by one for the first bullet point, the extent of consultation except entirely the consultation to date has been focused on the main stack or the main organisation who have been working in the area and will be occupying the hub such as the counter council and the CCG secondly, the second bullet point, we have a point of project management consultants to do that there is a number of project management roles within the new build team to deliver the community facilities within north still but we have a point of the main consultants for the build and we are confident that we will get a planning application within that time scale Would you like to come back on that councillor John Johnson? Thank you for confirming that community engagement was not done yet so I am just concerned that obviously this is a public document I would not want residents or the town council to read this and think, hang on, the council is saying that they have done an engagement that I do not recall being able to feedback on either the community centre in phase 1 or phase 2 so perhaps we just might want to reword that to reflect what you have just updated I am very heartened to hear that we have got project management consultants in place and that you are confident that we are in a place to seek planning commission in Q3 so I would ask that those plans and those deadlines and timelines are shared with the local members as well as with the north still town council and that we do get on with extensive community engagement for both phase 1 and phase 2 community buildings Thank you Okay, that could be noted about colour coding and its correctness or otherwise and also rewording to reflect really accurate spot on rewording to reflect situations Thank you Councillor Dr Richard Williams Thank you chair I've got a few points, I don't know if you want me to take them all in one How many? I don't know, four or five probably, I'll keep them brief Just on the appendix A key performance data I just wondered if we could have a few responses I was thinking of AH204 Tenants satisfied with responsive repairs the measures are both in red and way below our targets and intervention so I wonder if we could just say a little bit more maybe about that The other one I slightly jumped out at me is staff turnover which has gone red so again if we could have a little bit of explanation of that formal complaints resolved within timescale again going down unsignificantly below targets I know there's some text there but I think some verbal explanation will be helpful on those two and then finally just on appendix B I wanted to make a similar point actually but Councillor Johnston has actually made this point brilliantly although in a slightly different form I do worry that some of the measures that we have in this are basically striving towards something that's qualitative but the measure seems to be entirely quantitative so for example B2 work with local people to set out where and how new homes and communities will be built B2 little 2 complete and publish the North East Cambridge Action Plan completed. I'm not sure the residents of Horningsea would think that we'd been working with local people but that's a very qualitative thing to say but the measure is entirely quantitative, i.e. we've done a report I think Councillor Johnston has actually brilliantly brought up as a local member would how you see the same sort of disjoint in her ward as well so I do slightly worry about some I'm not going to give all the examples but I think it's a general point Can we take your first few points then which were more specific as Councillor Johnston has mentioned the final one what she said Well yeah although I would like somebody to just address the qualitative point Yeah okay sure Councillor Goff Yeah so let me deal with that last one first as well because this has been Excuse me Okay I'm sorry Need to adjourn for a few minutes Okay There's a problem with the live feed Okay thank you So to recap Councillor Dr Richard Williams had just asked a few questions to Councillor Goff Yeah okay so let me just address the issue which Councillor Williams raised in terms of the appendix B because this is an area I am sympathetic to and over the course of the preparation of this report we have really tried very hard to increase the specificity of these measures so that they have a characteristic which enables them to really assess whether they've been done or not done I think personally we've come a long way there is still further improvements which we can make which I'm very open to specific ideas as to how to improve the particular measures in this area but it is an area which is really difficult when you're dealing with sort of business plan objectives many of which are sort of ongoing in their nature to create measures which have a specificity associated with them so I take the point it's not perfect I think we've come a long way certainly open to any further ideas on that front but in terms of the appendix A I'll make just a couple of comments on the items which Councillor Williams has raised and I'll see if any of the officers wish to add to it in terms of the staff turnover I think that the actual comments address that data very neatly look at the period running up to the last number it was all below intervention you have to look at those things over a longer period of time and I think the comment references the fact that maybe the numbers in the last period represent a sort of pent up effect of the Covid period which has caused leavers to concentrate in that last period similarly with respect to the satisfaction with the repairs again I think the commentary highlights some of the issues associated with that this is an area where there's been a change in the process where the response rates are less than satisfactory and there's a process that has been identified to work with me as to clarify what the situation is on those responses again I'll ask Mr Campbell if he wishes to comment further on that but one area where I will ask particularly Mr memory to comment on is the work which has been going on in the complaints area as I highlighted in my comments before there is a backlog here and I'll just ask Mr memory to comment on what's being done to address that backlog and improve the general processes in terms of handling complaints okay Geoff memory thank you very much Geoff I'm sorry about the horns being sounded outside of my house sorry if you can hear that in the chamber the complaints stem from two areas really the problems have been in both housing and planning in housing there was a one-off problem which resulted in a backlog of complaints which has been cleared now but in the clearing of the complaints obviously what you're doing in that quarter is you're dealing with a lot of out of time complaints which push the numbers up and we're in a very similar position with planning planning has had a challenging time because they have high workloads we bought in an additional resource to help clear complaints and those complaints have been significantly reduced now but what they're doing is clearing some out of time responses so it has a negative effect on the performance for this quarter at the same time we're also looking at the reasons why the backlog developed in the first place and what we found particularly in planning is that people use the complaints process actually to continue disputes about planning applications so if they're unhappy with the result of a planning application rather than taking it to appeal they tend to make a complaint about it and what the planners were doing was almost rehearsing and rehashing a planning application so some of the complaint responses in planning were sort of six, seven sites long whereas actually what they needed to do was do a review of the process, confirm that the process had been dealt with correctly and put quite a timely and short response to the applicant so we're providing further guidance for the planners to enable them to have the confidence to do that going forward so we're confident that we're going to be in a position where performance will continue to improve around complaints but while you're clearing a backlog sadly it does mean that there's an impact on that quarter's performance Doctor Richard Williams, would you like to come back? No, just to say thank you actually particularly on that last point I think that sounds like a very good intervention Thank you Next, Chancellor Graham Cohn Thanks very much chair My point was also on something very similar actually it was on the complaints just to say that obviously I raised this last time that backlog is still being cleared but it's almost half not within timescale and it's across the board it's across different departments and when people do complain it's generally because they're upset about something or they're stuck or there's something that they can't get out to in terms of services so I just want to stress how important it is to address complaints because some of our residents can be in very vulnerable positions and these figures are still not very good so the other point I just wanted to make was just above that on staff sickness days and it was just a very quick question about the muscular skeletal absences and whether we're seeing an increase in any particular department or area within the council is it in relation to loaders or is it in relation to home working or office setups or anything like that it just seems that if we've seen a spike in that what can we relate that to Thank you Councillor Godf I feel that that last statistic is for the shared and the second bits of question am I right Councillor Cohn okay so there's one about the muscular skeletal that specific is for the shared waste service so the answer Councillor Cohn is yes that is the shared waste service and obviously that is why it is being monitored in this way and it is an area which we are obviously concerned by which is why we have a specific KPI on it in terms of your question on the complaints I think Mr Memory sort of addressed some of those comments yes the numbers in raw terms are below the target in intervention levels but there are stories which underlie those specific items and actually if you look at the backlog of complaints in the planning service in the notes as you see those are currently down at the end of the period from 18 from 42 at the beginning so there is progress that we need in that area okay thank you does that answer your question it does indeed so thank you very much for that we're just on the point about the shared waste services obviously there's lots of roles within shared waste drivers, loaders, admin staff et cetera so that's more the point I was making but I think Councillor Gough has answered my point thank you Councillor Hever-Williams I've got three things I think mainly one is just on page 59 from an accessible point of view so I realise we've got the charts and we've got then the key which says the colours that are being used but it probably would be helpful to have in there what those colours represent rather than a graph that just says purple, green, amber, red, grey because if we look at the keys we've got one for appendix A and one for appendix B this doesn't fall in there now we make a natural assumption but that might be an oversight or an error and it might not be so I'm not too sure on page 59 a clear labelling yes I think very much so needed there in relation to the tenants on page 63 with satisfied and responsive repairs one thing that worries me in the text is about the text messaging service I have a very high proportion of our council stock in my ward and that's mainly bungalows and they are of people of a certain age that aren't very aren't very comfortable using mobile technology shall we say so I do worry if that's all that's been done on the text message surveying and really would while we do need to modernise and go paper free we do also need to make sure that those aren't able to cope with those platforms have an option as well to just want to check that's in hand in relation to what's been said about the complaints on page 69 we've had an explanation as to why that is what we don't get from these KPIs is the ability to know how what scale of the problem it is and I'm wondering about whether just having the figures of the complaints resolved is enough because then you actually only know about them once they're resolved and that can be obscured as you say with backlog clearing and like and whether it would be actually more beneficial for Scruti to see how many are outstanding we know that this amount has gone and it's below intervention they've gone beyond their dates but there can be reasons for those there can be extremities do we have ten complaints currently outstanding that are waiting or have we got a thousand so I think actually that while that KPI is important it's not the only thing that's needed to get a true picture of what's happening there on outstanding complaints as well and also the text messaging service which I kind of guess you might pass that one on to Peter Campbell anyway Councillor Goff go ahead yeah I'm not sure that necessarily having a number of complaints is that helpful either seems to me that the important thing is the number of complaints which get resolved so I think that once we get to a situation where these numbers are not being affected by the backlog it will become a lot clearer in terms of the flow of dealing with the complaints but we'll sort of think about as I said I'm happy to take ideas as to how to make these KPIs more effective but I'm not sure the number of complaints is necessarily getting to it in terms of the text message I will ask Peter Campbell to update you on what area what progress is being made in this area because as you can tell from the comments trying to get this right in terms of getting good data on the satisfaction of this area but Peter maybe you could talk about some of the options and how we're dealing with them yeah happy to do that so traditionally the repair satisfaction data has been collected on a PDA so the operative would do the work pass the PDA over to the tenant who would enter some information that during Covid they'd cut back on and also there was also a typically concern that people feel compelled to write something nice to a six foot six joiner who hands on the PDA so there was a shift and the immediate shift was to text messaging we recognise everything that's been said is that text messaging can be quick and easy it can also be easily ignored and it's not suitable for all our customers since our new repairs manager Eddie started and this has become apparent I've tasked him to work with me to offer a range of options to collect information and feedback from tenants and to move away for the sole reliance just on the text service and that may for example include a ringing up and taking random service from tenants afterwards I hope that's answered the question Councillor Williams thank you on the text messaging but just in response to about complaints I do think it would be very useful because it gives us an idea of the scale of the situation and also it would evidence any backlog clearance because you would see a complete shift from one graph to the other whereas at the moment obviously we're concerned it's not within time scale there can be individual reasons for that but what we don't know is how many other complaints are there open unanswered because if you only know the complaints sat there for 2 or 3 years you're not going to know until 2 or 3 years later that it's been completed so almost having a KPI that showed the outstanding is it just long standing issues or actually the majority going through so I think there's a lot more detail that could really help the committee in scrutinising that area so reflecting some sort of time scale yeah like you do on your accounts if you've not paid your bill it's 60 days overdue 30 days 120 plus do you see what I mean obviously we all pay our bills on time chair but you know okay we'll take it away think about it thank you and we've got the following speakers on this site and I'm going to draw it to a close because it will be a very very long night we have Councillor Jeff Harvey Councillor Sarah-Chung Johnson Councillor Anna Brugnum and Councillor Steve Hunt so if somebody has already made your point please make it very sharp and concise okay Councillor Jeff Harvey yeah I'll withdraw my question because it's already been answered okay thank you and Councillor Sarah-Chung Johnson hi my question was on Appendix Bd5 so it's council on committee meetings to be run on paper 3 wherever possible I just wanted to understand what the blockers were to more of my councillor colleagues being able to be paper free I have heard obviously in the chamber we've discussed this many times and there seems to be a great enthusiasm for going paper 3 but it seems that only cabinet and approximately 5 other councils which I think if my maths is right is much less than half of us going paper 3 and that we are now looking to fund a new resource to enable us as councillors to access this I just wanted to understand what the blockers were that we need to actually fund resource to support councillors to go paper 3 okay I'm going to ask the chief executive maybe to talk about what our plans are in this area oh hi there and good evening members I mean all members use IT or the vast majority use IT we know that but in order to be able to get members to use some of the software that we think will be helpful for them particularly things like modern.gov we want to be able to provide kits to members so that we can both support them in using the software and support their hardware so that's one of the issues we also want to be able to move members on to the teams what's the word network that's not the word constituency so that it's easier for members to be able to communicate with officers through teams and make the member experience of using IT smoother for them so in my experience in doing this in other councils a good time to do it is at an election so that you can start with a new set of members provide everybody with kit if they want kit and by that I mean a laptop and make sure that they have the IT support available to them so that they can use IT rather than having to continue to rely on paper some of it is cultural as well chair, some members are just used to getting paper and some members prefer to be able to read their reports from paper but we are really trying very hard to move away from paper because it is, as you all well know very resource intensive and environmentally unfriendly Councillor Jim Johnson thank you for clarifying this it's broader remit than this it's connecting us as councillors to more of the internal infrastructure to allow us to work more seamlessly rather than particularly just on paper free however perhaps something we could pick up with the leader I'm not sure that so many of our colleagues realise that this is here in place and that we're actually having to expend resource to get our councillors on paper free but we all agreed as a council that we would want to achieve this I don't know that we realise that so few use it and I'm one of the five sorry and I use it very well I really like it so I'm confused why others find it difficult leader so I think I'm just trying to remember I think when we had our initial discussions about being a paperless council one of the barriers was that we couldn't actually edit access to papers and edit papers and we couldn't have access to pink papers and so on easily so I think it emerged initially out of our move to being a paperless council and then it's become more and more apparent than not having access to all the kit and opportunities and software that officers has actually limits our ability to function fully as members I mean I would far rather we didn't have to spend money on kit but we have to enable councillors to play a full role in the council and currently they're not able to do that also security is a big issue and I get messages most weeks about major hacks on public bodies and councils and there's been some really serious hacks on some councils which are catastrophic as well as incredibly expensive and this just I think makes our whole system more secure if councillors are on the same system as officers as well you have all people understand that Okay so you're probably talking about council anywhere and being able to access that safely this works would you like to come back? Just to say that we have sent out a survey to members to a very short survey to ask for their feedback and if you could possibly return that as soon as possible that would be great because that will inform how we take the whole project forward Councillor Bradman Thank you Chair I wasn't going to speak on the previous comment the previous item but I will now if I may and that is please take account of members who might find it extremely difficult to interact through only electronic means for various reasons they might be dyslexic or have difficulty with vision or all sorts of things I know our papers are formatted to make them accessible but please make the option of paper copies available to those who really need it but the question I wanted to point come up with was the format of the appendix A I thought in the past we used to have axes on these little mini graphs and indeed if you remember first of all Councillor Douglas Delacy used to ask for standard deviation bars so that we could actually see how big a variation was and without the axes as well we don't know whether we're talking about numbers or percentages I mean they're referred to in the text as percentages but we don't know where nought is and so I would actually like a bit more detail on these graphs just to make them a little bit more meaningful please. Thank you. Councillor Gough, do you want to come back? We'll take that on board too as well and see if we can make this as user friendly as we possibly can. Thank you and finally Councillor Hunt Yes thank you Chair I was going to say something very similar to Councillor Bradman in particular if you look at the bottom two graphs on page 69 they don't match the green boxes that are alongside them at all I mean average call answer time has a huge spike why above the intervention line and yet October, November, December are all green so what does that mean does that mean that October and November December are all up on the right hand symptomata and the rest of its previous months without the axes we're lost to interpret it Okay I think that's again a comment Councillor Gough Thank you Let's draw this item to a close Can I redirect you to page 57 under recommendations It is recommended that scrutiny and overview committee review the KPI results and comments at Appendix A and progress against business plan actions at Appendix B recommending where appropriate any actions required to address issues identified and approving on with submission to cabinet note the reduction in target in relation to land charges search response days as part of a phased return to pre-COVID target level by the new financial year as detailed within the comments section at SX025 at Appendix A Are you happy to recommend this? Agreed Agenda item 9 which can be found on page 85 to 114 of your paper copies Okay the draft annual equality scheme review We have Councillor Gough on this and I think also Councillor Bridget Smith also wanted to comment I'll go to Councillor Gough initially Yeah just very briefly again Kevin Ledger particular for his work on this report So just by way of explanation reports in two parts Appendix A which is the equality scheme which is the means by which this sort of council embeds equality within the council services and fulfills our sort of general duty on equality and then Appendix B which is a progress report which is in the same format as we've just seen in terms of the progress on the business plan with respect to elements of the action plan and how we're progressing on that Okay Councillor Bridget Smith I don't think actually I have anything to add but it's just planetary so it's something we do annually and as the report says this is about best practice rather than us being mandated to do it and we are keen on best practice I asked for this to come so we had sight of it and we could see what's been done and indeed whether we think it is the best practice and that it is something that potentially impacts the district and certainly anyone who works for the council I don't know if there's any comments or questions or if you are happy to go to the recommendations Okay Right so on page 85 it has recommended that scrutiny and overview committee review the draft equality scheme at Appendix A and provide feedback in relation to areas that require further consideration or detail prior to onwards submission to cabinet for approval review the equality scheme action plan progress report at Appendix B and provide feedback in relation to areas that require further consideration or detail prior to onwards submission to cabinet for approval Are you happy to recommend that? Okay I just wanted to say that it was a very good clear report clearly set out and so I wanted to thank the officers who put it together That's all Indeed yes likewise Okay agenda item 10 is the committee work programme you'll see from page 127 is where we're actually looking forward the rest is past events to some extent so if you could just note that and glance through potential items that will come forward and the next if we're happy with that agenda item 11 is to note the date of the next meeting which was going to be the 12th of April but I'd like to propose that we bring that meeting forward by one week and meet instead on Tuesday the 5th of April 2022 at 5.20pm If I propose that do I have a seconder for that thank you councillor Dr Clare Daunton Can I take that by affirmation thank you Okay agenda item 12 Your item 12 is on the second page of our agenda Yes sorry and the notice of the exclusion of press and public I propose that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of item number 14 and the appendix to item 13 in accordance with section 100 brackets A brackets 4 of the local government act 1972 on the grounds that if present there would be disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of part 1 of schedule 12a of the act That paragraph relates to information about the financial or business affairs of any person including the authority holding that information Can I take that, do I have a seconder for that councillor Bradman, thank you and can I take that by affirmation Thank you Okay we move now on to agenda 13 along as the live stream