 Good afternoon Members, Offices, any Members of the public viewing the livestream. I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to this meeting of the South Cambridgeshire District Council's Scrutiny and Overview Committee. My name is Councillor Grenville Chamberlain and I have the privilege of being the chair of this committee. Rwyf yn ni i'n edrych, mae'r emanau sjfodd yn y Chimbeth, sydd anffr faktiskt ar y du, iddyn nhw'r gyfer cyfrwyng hwnnw, yn anodd i awr hogdd. Mae'r camera yn gallu'r gweinidol gyda'r wneud na nagl �leidol, felly nid yw'r cymdeithasau i chi'n gweld gofod ag yw ffordd o'r cyd i'r cefnogaethstone ychydig sy'n mynd i ddod o'r camera. Yr holl digad hynny mae'n cael eu gweinidol, Dwi'n gweithio ar gael teimlo, a chyflwch ychydig ar y stêf neu roedd eich gweithio. 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Mae'r jael o'r cyffredinol wedi'i cychwyn i'r olfawr ac yr hyfoddiol yn bod yn ogymell kair o'u cyffredinol. a'i dwylo'n amser olygu sut rydw i i chi'n gynnangodd a oedd pa'r cyflawn. Cynnyddwch ychydig oedd yn cyntaf hynny sydd ar draws achos ry Patreon. Ond y gallwn ymlaen oedd yn cael ei ddweud yn wneud y ddweud a iddyn nhw'n dweud yn cerddio ac yn ymlaen i chi yn ei gwaith. mae ydych chi'n dwi wedi'n gweithio eu cyflwystein, dwi'n dweud ar amlwg yn cyflwystein y ddweud. Maen nhw'n dweud, Squidward, eisiau cael eu cyflwystein i chi yn dweud o ran graf. Fel geisio yn unig iawn, yn ymweld, ond byw i'n gymhwyl o gael i'r holl gwaith o gyda'r ymlŵr ac'r hon hon ni. Yn gyfnod mai'r rai gyrwch o gŵr yma ynglynwyr, lle gyd, mae rwy'n credu'r freithio'n gŵr hwn. Mae'n rwy'n reisio'n fawr, wedi'u gweithio'n gwyfawr hynny yn gwybodaeth o'u cyngorol. I know Councillor Cathgard is there. Councillor Van Der Wire I see is there. I'm attending remotely, that's good. Thank you. That committee member is present in the chamber. I will now invite each of you. Oh is it not? Camera? The camera is not on me. I've been empty-chaired. That committee member is present in the chamber. I will now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. Members, after I call your name, please turn on your microphone, wait two seconds and say your name so that your presence may be noted. As I said earlier, my name is Councillor Grenville Chamberlain and I am the Member for Hardwick Ward. My vice-chair, Councillor Judith Rippeth, cannot be here today, so are members happy for Councillor Steve Hunt to act as vice-chair for this meeting? I certainly am. Everyone agreed. Thank you very much, Steve, for doing so. Now may I invite you to introduce yourself, please? Yes, thank you, Chair. My name is Steve Hunt and I am one of the councillors for Histon in Wicton in the Northern Park. Thank you, Steve. Councillor Anna Bradman. Sorry, two things. One is Councillor Anna Bradman from Milton and Water Beach Ward, but I just wanted to point out it's possible that if the chairman used a different microphone than the one applicable to the chair, it wouldn't follow you if it wasn't the right microphone. No, it is the chair's microphone. Thank you. Councillor Dr Martin Karn. Councillor Dr Martin Karn, Member for Histon in Wicton in the Northern Park. Thank you, Martin. Councillor Nigel Cathcart. Nigel Cathcart, Member for Bastion Ward. Thank you, Nigel. Councillor Graham Coe. Thank you, Chairman. Member for Fenditon in the football ward, one of the members. Thank you. Councillor Dr Clare Daunton. Thank you, Clare Daunton, another of the members for Fenditon and Foulbourne Ward. Thank you. Councillor Peter Fane. Peter Fane, Shelford Ward. Thank you, Peter. Councillor Joe Sales. Nice to see you. Councillor Sally Ann Hart. Thank you, Chair. Sally Ann Hart, the other Member for Melbourne Ward. Thank you. Councillor Alex Malion. Thank you. Councillor Dr Aidan Van Derwyl. Yrgrifennu ystafell, Aidan Van Derwyl ar Bastion Ward. Thank you, Aidan. And Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair. I'm Richard Williams. I'm the Member for Whittlesford, Triplow, Heathfield and Newton. Thank you very much. Now, we are blessed with the company of some senior members of the council here today with us. Firstly, we have the leader, Councillor Bridget Smith. Thank you. Sorry, Chairman. If any of the members' microphones are not working, the online people listening will not be able to hear what they say. No, indeed. So we do need to sort that out before we proceed. Okay. So we've got Councillor Bridget Smith's microphone is not working. Yours is okay. Is yours working, Alex? On the left-hand side. No, we need to get Rebecca to sort that card out, if you will. Rebecca, thank you. We'll just hold on a moment or two, Members, whilst this is resolved. Can't see where that is. No, Llywydd. Yes, of course. Members, we're going to adjourn just for a couple of minutes whilst we sort out this IT. Please bear with us. Thank you very much indeed, ladies and gentlemen. My apologies for the delay. Let us continue with the meeting. I was seeking confirmation of those members of the Cabinet who are with us. We have here with us in the room Councillor John Williams. John, perhaps you'd like to just introduce yourselves, please. Thank you, Chair. Councillor John Williams, a member for Fenditon and Forbwnwald and also the lead Cabinet Member for Finance. Thank you very much, John. Joining us remotely from the Cabinet, we have Councillor Neil Goff. Neil, would you care to introduce yourself, please? Good evening, Chair. Yes, Neil Goff, a member for Cottenham and Deputy Leader. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Peter McDonald. Peter McDonald. Yes, good evening, Chair. Thank you very much. Peter McDonald, the Cabinet Member for Business Support Economic Recovery. Under item 3, I'll wait. I should declare an interest. Thank you very much. And Councillor Tumey Hawkins. Good evening, Chairman. Thank you very much. Tumey Hawkins, Cabinet Member for Planning and Member for Coalicot Ward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other Councillors present remotely, please? Thank you very much indeed. So we now have a number of officers with us this evening. I'd like to welcome them all and start with our Chief Executive, Liz Watts. You're very welcome, Liz. Good evening, and good evening, Members. Thank you. We also have Chief Operating Officer, Anne-Anne Ainsworth, and you're very welcome. We have Gareth Bell. Peter Maddock is the Head of Finance. And I believe Steve and Kelly may join us at some point. We also have Bodeesan. Bodee, you're very welcome. Have I missed anyone out? Good. Thank you very much indeed. Could I ask you if at any time a Member leaves the meeting, would they please make that fact known to me so that it can be recorded in a minute? Item 2 on our agenda today is Apologies for Absence. Ian, can you please let us know who has sent their apologies, please? Certainly. Apologies from Councillors John Johnson, Harvey and Ripth, and there are two substitutes today. They are Councillors Malian and Councillor Hales. Thank you very much, and thank you for substituting. You're very welcome. May I ask under Item 3, do any Members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? But if an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point. But are there any declarations of interest, please? Yes, Chair. I probably should declare interest as Chair of the County Highways Committee when we're coming on to Civil Parking Enforcement. Thank you very much, Peter. Are there any other declarations of interest? No, thank you much. Sorry. In the same spirit as Neil Goff here, I should probably at least note that I am the Vice-Chair of the Greater Cambridge Partnership and obviously a member of the County Council as well in relation to Item 6. Thank you very much, Councillor Lee Goff. Please do. Please can I remind you about the type of process of not raising a hand because the hands are not always visible for everybody. Thank you very much. Item 4 on the agenda is the minutes of the previous meeting. That was held on the 16th of December. Can I go through page by page for accuracy, please, on page 1? Chair, might I just please ask if when people are speaking would it be possible for them to take them a mask off otherwise it's quite difficult to hear at times. I agree. Thank you. Page 1, page 2. My observation is on page 11. Do you want to wait until then? We'll be there shortly, I hope. Page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10, and page 11. Thank you, Chair. It may have occurred like this, but I'm not sure, so I just wanted to check. On page 11, at the top we have a supplementary question from Jane Williams, who previously asked her question on page 10. We have a paragraph which starts, Necap, vision regulation 19, page 33, and it ends on, would any committee members live on this site? And I just draw your attention to that, which is repeated on page 12 around halfway down the page. And I'm not sure if that's intended to be repeated, because it may have been from somebody else. I don't know. I just wanted to check whether it was appropriate that paragraph was repeated in the minutes. And the second thing is that I think the numbering on page 11, so below that paragraph I drew your attention to. We've got paragraphs 9, 10 and 11, but I'm not sure that numbering, I think that numbering continues from the numbering on page 10. I'm not sure if it's appropriate that that numbering should be there. And I just wanted to check whether that's all as it should be. I'm not quite sure what it should be, if it's not that, but... I think we'll ask for that to be... We'll ask for that to be looked at, and for the question of whether that, one of those paragraphs should be removed or the answer which is under it, for the response on page 12, should be combined with that on page 11. Thank you for spotting that. Eagle-eyed. I presume that pages 12 and 13 are then okay. Subject to those, is everyone content that we approve the minutes? Thank you very much indeed. So we now move on to item 5 on the agenda, which is public questions, but I can confirm that no questions have been received by the deadline. The next item on the agenda is item 6, and this relates to the proposal for civil parking enforcement in South Cambridgeshire, and I will invite Councillor Neil Goff to introduce this item. Neil, over to you. Thank you, Chair. So firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the work of the officers on this, and we've got Gareth Bell on the call with us this evening. He's been very much involved in the preparation of this paper, which I think is very clear and very concise and very welcome. And a number of officers have been involved in this before. In fact, this has a very long history, this particular subject matter. In fact, I was looking back in my email, and the first meeting I was involved in on civil parking enforcement was back in July 2018 with Peter Fane, who I think is also in the Chamber. We were talking to officers there in the context of issues raised in our villages. What we have this evening before you is really a step in the process of an actionable plan to introduce civil parking enforcement in South Cambridgeshire, which has been enabled by partnership working with the Greater Cambridges partnership and the County Council. Greater Cambridges partnership is critical in this because they have agreed to fund the initial set up costs and any deficit over the first five years. You will see in the table there is an anticipated deficit which the GCP will fund, and therefore there will be no costs associated with the set up or that period for South Cam's district council. That is critical because those of you who remember there's statutory guidance around civil parking enforcement, which makes it very difficult for South Cam's to introduce civil parking enforcement as we don't actually have a stream of parking revenues to fund any deficit. The GCP has really enabled us here to unlock this opportunity. The Greater Cambridges partnership supports civil parking enforcement because it will reduce legal and inconsiderate parking in our area to improve the flow of traffic and reduce congestion. I also think that this will be very welcome in our parishes. I know a number of parishes have expressed to us in local, in parish council liaison meetings, their frustration around the lack of enforcement on parking which has caused significant problems in a number of villages. I think this will also be very welcome indeed. The one thing I should note is that this is a step in the process. What we're looking at today is an item which is going to come to cabinet to support an application by the county council to the transport to introduce civil parking enforcement in South Cambridgeshire. That is a step in a process, an important step in the process but a process which is really quite long and has a number of steps in it including in the involvement of the Secretary of State for Transport before this can be implemented. So this is not a short term implementation. This is a part of a long process but I think it will be welcome that we're underway in this and I will close my comments there and take any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Gough. I am aware that there are a number of questions coming. Members, over to you. Councillor Claire Daunton, please. Thank you. Thank you to Councillor Gough for setting us right on the history of all of this. I'm really welcomed this and I think it will be particularly welcomed by schools where it's one of the areas right across the district that suggests that we have parking problems, perennial parking problems. My question really concerns a scrutiny of this and there are three organisations involved, three institutions involved and whether when we're setting up the whole process that scrutiny could be taken into account where the scrutiny lies and how that will operate. Councillor Gough, did you wish to respond to that? I think the question really is within the three organisations where does the management control lie? I think that the core body which is responsible is the county council which is actually applying, which is making the application. I think they will spearhead the process of this application and accountable for that. I think there's very much the spirit with which this is being prepared to date has been that there has been a lot of cooperation and dialogue between South Cams District Council and Greater Cambridge Partnership and the County Council and I would hope that and anticipate that that would continue so we would be certainly involved on an ongoing basis in the development and implementation of this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you chair. Mine was just a quick question on page 17 paragraph 15 where it talks about enforcement being reduced or increased potentially depending on the need for that enforcement. I was just wondering how that would be measured and how that would be decided across the organisations. Is it that we would see reduced penalty notices or reduced resident complaints or that they might move enforcement officers to other areas? I think that's a good question. I think it really will be reflective of what the experience of the scheme is and I think in an ideal world what would happen is that we would have one year of enforcement and then everyone in South Cams would obey the parking restrictions and arguably at that point there's no revenues there's no problem and there would be every reason to expect that we could scale back the level of enforcement. I think this is about recognising that as we get experience of what the effectiveness is and the effects of enforcement officers we may modify the degree of activity up or down according to the needs so this is a recognition that we're not precisely in the period at the moment where we know exactly how the public is going to respond to this and you will see in paragraph 14 reference to the fact that there is experience that level of penalty notice in the area remains stable despite enforcement I think that's an assertion that will be tested when the scheme is introduced. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you very much chair, obviously I'm really pleased to see this and really pleased to see it it's moved quite quickly over the last year or 18 months. Again I welcome the support of the GCP I know that they've been pledging support for this for a while and as I said it's really good to see us taking this up. Residents will obviously be really pleased to see this I think for many people it can't come quickly enough certainly for people on station road in Wittlesford and I know many other members have got similar places with real problems. There are a couple of questions I just wanted to ask firstly about how the scheme or whether the scheme will be run essentially as one service that will cover the city and South Cams and I think East Cams is involved as well as Huntington I know one of the other districts is involved so will it be run as one scheme or will it be run as three separate schemes I think that will be very important to the way it develops after that year we kind of see the level of enforcement that we need. One other point I was also really pleased to see paragraph 21 that there will be a reporting route so concerns about illegal parking can be made. I was just wondering if we yet know what the details of that would be and how that would work something like the reporting of traffic faults on the county council website something that's open to the public and then just a tiny point which is not a substantive point but I think there's a typo in paragraph 19 which says SCDC's initiated conversation with the GP and CCC about CP and has already stated I think the apostrophe S shouldn't be there would make more sense thank you Thank you very much Members, are there any more questions? Sorry I'll come to you in a moment. Councillor Cathgard Thank you again I think this would be welcome there are two aspects to it there's the enforcement side where people park on W lines or whatever and then there's a much more a vagal one which is inconsiderate parking where people park in areas which cause inconvenience to other people it's this inconsiderate parking which could actually take an awful lot of time it is a problem in our villages I just wonder whether how we will actually look at that whether we how we cope with actually identifying areas of inconsiderate parking or whether we concentrate on purely the enforcement of areas where the transgression is actually quite clear I mean often get complaints about people who park in my village and they go along and have a look and I can't see any mandatory objection but I agree it's inconsiderate so I'm just wondering how this will be managed Thank you Councillor Goff Okay, so let me just address Williams's questions first so firstly on the point on 19 on the type absolutely we will correct that thank you very much in terms of the introduction this is being introduced in parallel in Huntingdon and Fendland as well so we are we are sort of piggybacking all three areas they will or I believe to go here to confirm this but certainly the south camp one will be utilising the back office of the county council and this is important because when you actually think about civil parking enforcement there's quite a lot of very important process associated with it in terms of managing appeals and sort of collecting the the fight and so forth so it's not an inconsiderable process and it obviously makes a huge amount of sense to integrate those but I think my expectation is that this will be sort of seen and reported on separately for south camps rather than being sort of amalgamated with the other areas and that is implicit in the discussion we've just had about how we would run the activity on enforcement agents it would be specifically tailored to the needs of south cambridge and the funding would be specific to south cambridge as well sorry councilor williams I've forgotten where your second question was the second question was about the reporting and how the reporting will work paragraph 21 talks about the scheme will also include a reporting route so concerns about illegal parking can be made I ask whether that will be a public reporting route or akin to the traffic reporting system in the county I don't know whether any specifics of that have been actually outlined gareth do you know any kind of details on that? I can come in on that and can help on councilor kafkarth's question as well on reporting there's still a final decision for the south cam scheme but at the moment it's assumed that it will be the same reporting mechanism it is for the scheme that the county council will run in the city which is open to the public it's a really simple it's feedback via email because the kind of feedback that you're giving is slightly different because in most cases if we're frank someone who's parked illegally perhaps has moved on by the time someone can get out there so it's about establishing themes so it will be a simple mechanism open to all councilor kafkarth I don't want me to carry on to just talk about inconsiderate parking alongside councilor kafkarth in regard to inconsiderate parking we've included in the report here the process that we're looking to try and put in place with the county council it's very early in the conversation around some form of notice or letter for people who are parked inconsiderately rather than someone where a ticket can be issued it is an early stage and there's more work to do there but it is for seeing that that will be activity that will take place alongside the enforcement activity so if someone's out doing enforcement and they see someone parked inconsiderately they can take the action but the scheme wouldn't be set up to be able to resource just going out to areas to look at inconsiderate parking thank you very much thank you chair I just wanted to I'm very glad to see this coming through particularly from a village which is concerned about displacement parking in future so I'm very pleased to see that but I just wanted to check clearly civil parking works in areas of density and I just wanted to check whether we think it's going to work in more rural dispersed areas and I think other members might be concerned about that too Councillor Gollff well I think it's certainly the intent here is that this initiative covers the whole of South Cambridge it's not for those four villages which would be considered to be those which are most densely populated I think the effectiveness in dealing with any problems in more rural villages I think is to be tested but I guess my hope and expectation is that in those areas a little bit of enforcement might go a long way and that resolve problem very quickly very much Councillor Gollff Hello, thanks chair maybe a couple of response items as said I declared in interest as chair of highway so not responding as such from the cabinet but just a bit of additional information so there will be an enhanced reporting tool available within six months in the county council obviously the civil parking enforcement is a bit further out than that but it will give residents the opportunity to report the expectation is from the county that the parish councils themselves will be able to guide enforcement officers it will be light touch on request and just to reaffirm what Councillor Goff said it will cover the entire district so even a small village relatively small village if it has a problem and once the enforcement team to respond then they will respond That's very helpful thank you very much Councillor Martin Carl Some of the points have been carried already dealt with by in response to Councillor Brandham and Councillor Donne's questions comments but I'm concerned I'm very much in favour of this I think it's very much needed we have a particular problem in one part of my warder in Orchard Park which is effectively a village of Cambridge but is in South Cambridge and you have one side you've got civil enforcement the other side you haven't but what I am concerned is the resources and you have two enforcement officers dealing with over 100 villages and you've talked about therefore being a response to complaints but part of the effectiveness of enforcement is the fact that you know that someone is going to turn up and regular visits seem to me an important element I'm just wondering whether two enforcement officers that cover such a large area will be adequate maybe they haven't got the resources maybe that's the reason but I am concerned you're doing other rural areas you mentioned I would be interesting to know whether you've actually got other rural areas similar to this in the county which you've already got enforcement and how that has worked and what resources you need there how have you come across that requirement as you're determining that requirement Thank you Councillor Goff Yes I think two agents across the whole is obviously a thin geographic spread but we have to recognise where we are at the moment the level of enforcement that we have in the district is very very limited indeed I can't quite remember the statistics but I think it was when we started this conversation I think the number of parking violations which were tickets were issued in it I think it was 1819 I think across the whole year it was 21 which was just illustrated where it sits on the priorities at the moment of the police so whether two will solve the problem completely I very much doubt it will not eliminate the problem of inconsiderate parking but it will certainly improve it quite significantly because it is two more than we have at the moment and as we've discussed previously this is not set in a stone this is a scheme which once introduced can be modified Thank you very much Any more questions Councillor? No thank you very much indeed we are invited to take note of this it will be going to Cabinet I believe on the 9th of February is everyone content that we should recommend this to go forward and get to the comments that have been made which we will forward to Cabinet for their consideration in due course Agreed Thank you all very much indeed Thank you Gareth and thank you Neil for your contributions So we now come to item 7 on the agenda which is the very complex and very detailed 2025 business plan that we have in front of us So I'm going to hand back to Councillor Neil Goff and ask him to introduce the report Councillor Goff Thank you chair Again first of all I'd just like to note the contribution of the officers to this report and many of the servicer on the call this evening I think the report is really very concise it's very comprehensive it's a very good document I'm not going to hold up the meeting for too much time by way of introducing this report there were just a few points I wanted to highlight first of all this is another year in what was a business plan which covered period from 2019 through to 2024 so a five year plan and as one would expect therefore it's a plan where the basic key priorities remain unchanged and there's a tremendous amount of continuity in the objective for this year compared to last year and the year before because it's all part of one integrated plan the second point I'd like to make is that we've really tried to introduce a real focus on delivery in this plan and indeed in many ways the most important document is not the things which we are going to deliver but it's actually the things which have been delivered and the recognition that many of those have been delivered in very difficult circumstances in the last couple of years and indeed some of them should be overachieved and acknowledge that this is in many ways a report which formalises the success and the efforts of our officers in delivering the plan The third point I'd make is that obviously there is has been in the last few years a real impact in the way in which this council has been asked to deliver with respect to the impact of COVID and last year an explicit decision to upscale the level of efforts which we have in terms of supporting our businesses in our communities and I'm pleased to say that that focus continues within this plan too it's a very important element of what we have to do in the next 12 months is continue to support our communities and our businesses in their recovery from COVID The last point I would make is that this document obviously has to be read in conjunction with the budget because everything we deliver in here has to be funded and resourced it is funded and resourced what you see before you and obviously over time as we modify or update the budget and the business plan we will do so as we progress towards the council in February 22 when you will see this document coming back for final approval Thank you chair Thank you very much and thank you for letting us have sight of this it is an extremely complex document but I know that there are a number of questions from members so who, Councillor Bradman you're going to kick us off please Thank you chair so just one nitpicking typo folks and that is on page 30 of our agenda pack under ongoing objectives into 2022-23 the wording says encourage local people to use their shops and food outlets and I think what that meant to say was encourage people to use their local shops and food outlets just an observation because was to try and get people to use their local high streets more than elsewhere the second item I wanted to raise was about trees this is on our page page 35 and you know absolutely brilliant that the south cams has been making it possible for parishes to plant trees but I just and we had three free trees last year and six free trees this year so it's in this T2 target of being green to our core right at the bottom deliver six free trees I just wanted to alert south cams I'm sure you are aware but not only are we encouraging parishes to plant more trees but charities such as the Woodland Trust are also doing that and indeed the county has a concern in this regard and I just wanted to remind you as I'm sure you are aware that actually parish councils own relatively little land and parish council land is often a recreation ground or a sports pitch and so we need to be mindful that by all means yes invite them but actually parishes may there may come a limit to the number of trees that parishes can plant because of lack of space so I just wanted to be alert to that and I wondered whether we at south cams might consider making this offer available to private landowners who might be the bigger endless of land in our parishes I'm not saying we should I'm just saying can we consider that and there might be all sorts of things reasons not to do that but if we could just bear that in mind thank you thank you very much thank you did you wish to respond to that council goff? yes I think the only thing I would say is that actually the response by the parish councils has been pretty extraordinary and actually if you look on page 39 and see that 2022 for the six free trees that's 72 applications we will receive from parish councils so you know despite as you say councillor Bradmer the limited land and so forth it does appear that this is both being well received and the parishes have actually risen to the challenge which is very gratifying so if we were seeing low take up of the scheme I think we would reconsider but it looks like it's hitting the spot thank you very much well I have a cube but I can see that councillor Smith is quite keen to speak now I think thank you just for clarification for councillor Bradmerm the three or six free trees schemes are not exclusively for parish councils nor exclusively for parish council land so in my own village of Gamelinge it was a community group who were applied to I think we gave them a that might have been through zero carbon but they part in mini forests but it's not exclusively for parish councils and you know there is other sort of community land and I think we offer considerable help to villages who are keen to plant trees but are struggling to find the land so I think you know we do help them do that thank you thank you for that alright Jess so we have councillor Daughton did I see councillor Flane's hand as well yes so it's councillor Daughton of Flane player over to you thank you very much there's a lot of good stuff here there's a lot of questions and they're both in relation to housing which is on page 32 on the liaison meetings will there be capacity to introduce other liaison meetings in areas where there are new developments that's my first question and my second one is I don't actually see here or under communities the introduction or the establishment of the new housing engagement board so should that be listed here so in terms of the liaison meetings my my sort of response to councillor Daughton is that certainly I think we would consider additional meetings is an area which is quite resource intensive on officers to sort of manage the meetings but it does appear to me that there have been some really good feedback from these liaison meetings and so certainly where there are multiple developments in other areas we would certainly I think consider that so sort of open to suggestions if that's really specific for in terms of the housing question I think I'm going to ask sort of Peter Campbell whether he would give us an update on where that is and whether it should be introduced if I may pass that over to Peter Yeah by all means Peter welcome Hi members yeah Peter Campbell had a post in yeah thank you councillor Daughton as you know the housing engagement board was introduced last year and I think you're suggesting that we know about achievement for the previous year and if councillor Goff the Grable to that I can see no issue in doing that Thank you very much indeed and if I might just add to a comment in relation to those liaison meetings I would say that the one in Hardwick that I attend has gone down extremely well and it's enabled a two way dialogue between parish council and the district council and I would strongly support the extension of them if we can arrange it within the available time So thanks councillor Peter Fein Peter Yes I very much welcome this report very well put together My question really relates to the four key priorities on page 25 which we've long agreed inevitably however the context for that changes and therefore perhaps the prioritisation and the emphasis I think that in particular following clock 26 and the move to net zero we have to look not only at being green to our core but I would suggest that building homes that are truly affordable has to take greater account of the costs of heating those homes with a very sudden increase in energy costs and therefore the many fuel poverty in prospect Looking at page 31 I think it's perhaps we should be helping businesses to understand at the top of that page there the benefits not only of generating their own energy but also of energy efficiency as well as the wider post clock 26 initiatives and in looking page 32 before improving the energy efficiency of existing council housing that will of course include the challenge of replacing many of the heating systems gas boilers will become hard will not be installed in a new house 25 of course and I wonder whether we should take account of the council's responsibility for enforcement of the energy efficiency standards for the private rented sector as a whole and not just looking at existing council housing in that respect perhaps that comes elsewhere and if I could just join in the typo bingo as though these typos have not already been picked up by officers I think I'm first to paragraph 18 on page 23 I don't think we're committing to be an employee of choice for people with disabilities but I may that may be just my grammar No I think you're right thank you very much I'm Councillor Gawthall I think Councillor Fane you make some very good points as well I think in terms of the increased emphasis on the issues of the environment and particularly energy and efficiency I absolutely agree I think when we come to that priority area about truly affordable housing it was very much always our intent that that was a broad concept of affordability to include both the cost to residents of affordable homes of for example getting to work or getting to school in terms of their accessibility to accessible transportation and also the efficiency and energy efficiency of their homes but you are right I think and we perhaps will take this back and consider it as to whether we need to reinforce that point about energy cost particularly against the context of what is happening to unit energy prices in this country which is obviously really really significant so I welcome those comments and I think as Cabinet we will take those on board thank you very much any others we can only have three more requests to speak from councillors Cohn, Caffgearth and Richard Williams councillor Graham Cohn thank you chair my answer is a quick one on page 35 where we talk about the investment investing in green energy I just wondered if that could be sort of bulked out at all by talking about electric charging points at all across and South Cams and how we are looking at implementing those both on our own land and maybe in conjunction with a private sector it is probably referred to in the other reports that this sort of links to so I will set that in the case and the only other thing was on the fly tipping measures which I mentioned on page 30a I know that the council has already taken measures about like skilling refuge collectors and other maintenance staff to report fly tipping and I just wondered if that should be something that is included within the statement there that is all thank you very much councillor Goff again thanks for those comments good comments I think certainly if we can I am a great fan of making these objectives if we can a little bit more quantitative and a little bit more tangible so we will have a look at whether there is anything we can do with respect to that on electric vehicle charging points I guess councillor Goff I guess what you are headed towards is can we put a number there we will see what we can do to at least in that direction of travel an on fly tipping I think again this is an area which has been a sort of focus and the sort of processes where we are using our cruise to identify fly tips and sort of quickly clear them has I know from my experience in my world been successful and there has been recognition of that amongst the residents again we will have a look and see whether we can I am looking at Foda here to see whether he is nodding or shaking his head again as to whether we might be able to sort of put some measures to indicate the success that we have and what we might be aiming to do in the future but I think both are good points which we will take on board, thank you Thank you very much, it is very helpful councillor Cathgar councillor Nigel Cathgar Thank you I agree of almost everything in these documents and I think they are they are all good the problem about having priorities and objectives is that if it is not as a priority or objective sometimes it tends to get almost totally overlooked or diminished significantly but one thing that has been diminished over the years is the attention we pay to conservation areas and the quality of our traditional high streets and the preservation enhancement of our listed buildings and restoring lost architectural detail Now this was a considerable effort by the council many years ago and I can't see it there anywhere, it could be argued of course this is just one document amongst many which the council consider and I'm not quite sure where to put it actually because it hasn't been obvious place forward but I'd just like to make the point that the quality of our high streets and conservation areas is of importance to all our residents because it adds to the quality of life for everyone who lives in our existing villages and it's something I think that you know it would be satisfactory if it could be considered somewhere within these documents but as I say I've looked in vain of anywhere where it could be put but perhaps it might be a place where there might be a place for it somewhere Thank you Thank you very much Councillor Gough did you wish to say anything Yes I'm sort of I'm sure it's in here somewhere Yeah but just sort of Liz we did sort of in recognition of what you know we talk about the sort of quality of our high streets and the villages and so forth I know one aspect which we have continually kind of recognised is an issue is the existence of some buildings which are sort of problematic in terms of deterioration and I thought that that was somewhere in our list of priorities here but I am struggling in vain as well to find it Liz did that did that actually make it If I may chair through you we have got a group set up to consider some of those issues including things like buildings at risk and so on I don't think it's addressed in the business plan it's more under planning and planning policy discussions and reports and so on but we could potentially have a look at picking it up in this document if members would like us to Thank you very much I think that would be helpful Thank you Liz I know it's just one aspect of what Councillor Cathcart was talking about but I'm sort of aware that it is a sort of initiative which is being taken which represents a greater focus than there's been in the past so we will see if we can incorporate that into the document Thank you very much Thank you Thank you very much chair I've just got two points, the first point in defence of Councillor Bradnam I have to say that similar issues have come up in my parish councils but exactly where they put the free trees I was very pleased to hear what the leader suggested about the trees being planted elsewhere but that's not actually what the scheme says on our website it says the council offered every parish council in the district six free trees in exchange for an undertaking to plant the trees on parish council land so that's on our website right now and that's how my parish has understood that scheme so if we could look at changing the criteria for the upcoming scheme I think that would be very good because parish councils don't as Councillor Bradnam has said have that much land then it ought of the scheme to carry on I think we should make those criteria more flexible because that's what it says on our website right now my second point was on page 37 C10 our objective to reduce the amount of non-recyclable household waste collected I think that's an excellent objective to set ourselves I was wondering if Councillor Goff could just clarify that the figures mentioned in the second column are the targets so when it talks about monthly averages of 17.08 kilograms I think it means that they are the targets we're aiming to achieve not what we've discovered in the quarter three analysis and I was wondering if I could just ask for a little bit more detail as to how we're going to do that I think it is something we should do in some ways it could be done very simply I think we just gave every household a very easy to read and easy to understand leaflet saying this is what goes in each bin that would actually go a long way because I don't think we've done that for a while but the other key area I just value a little bit more information on is recycling of food waste I know a lot of districts have the little food bin that we don't and I think that that's a particular area where we really could maybe do something to to help residents do what they want to do to help residents do what they want to do and to achieve the targets we're after and to achieve the targets we're after that's good that's good that's good again good comment so I'm going to ask with your commission chair for today to talk about some of the details of this but again this is an area where I'm very pleased that we do actually have some measurable targets associated with the waste because it is also it's not just about increasing the proportion of waste which is recycled which is what often one sees council supporting but it's also about reducing the total amount of material which is collected and that is what these measures are trying to achieve I believe these are measures which are reported quite regularly it is quite complicated and the county council I think has done a piece of work quite recently at investigating the composition of certainly black bin waste because one of the real problems is things ending up in the black bin which shouldn't be there and which cause cause the total amount of landfills therefore to be unnecessary and high so this is a real area of focus I think the point about food waste as well is very real and you'll be aware of the trials which are taking place in that in some areas of our district on separate collection of food waste but let me ask what it to pick up here and see whether there is any additional detail he wishes to add in terms of what the plan is for this coming year so with your... Thank you very much councillor goff, there's really not much to add your answer has been quite comprehensive I think just to also say that data that we gather is measured across various parts of the chain so in terms of collections in terms of the recycling plans and what goes for disposal and we have to report on this as well to DEFRA so there are various stages where we collect the data and there are also various stages where the data is verified and audited these numbers are targets that we plan to achieve so the targets that we have set ourselves in terms of food waste we do have a food waste trial that's going on and quite a few parishes across the two council areas the shared waste services that we collect food waste from and we're learning what are the best methods it's not in terms of the way we collect the food waste the kind of bands that we use with the tension that when we receive very soon hopefully some mandatory guidance from the government which is long overdue and then we will be able to hopefully roll out food waste to the rest of the council areas at the moment it's not mandatory we need to budget for that it's going to be quite a big expense but we are conducting trials which are giving us very good results and we're learning from so that when the time comes we'll be ready to hopefully roll that out across the entire council area Thank you both very much Chair, can I just come back with your permission so sorry the answer to Cats of Williams' question is those are the targets for this year and I can play the game of spotting typos two as well and it's actually the rate of rejection of recycling materials not ejection is so that is a measure trying to reduce effectively the contamination of our blue bin recycled material by foreign objects which causes penalties and loss of value if we exceed that 6% target Thank you Thank you very much indeed Councillor Martin Carlin Councillor Smith Martin A couple of things there are two elements that I wanted to comment on really the council has not been active for many years on cultural issues and we are now starting to look at the possibility of how one might tackle that to be meeting a couple of days on how we might look at a cultural strategy I was trying to think where that would come in but I think it ought to be included as the programme I feel it probably comes in the modern and caring council but there's also an element in the business side of it as well so it straddles a bit and so I feel that needs to be mentioned even if it's just in the long term the longer term objectives that we might be looking at rather than an immediate action and the second point is the fact that just in February 2020 we passed an emotion on building on European links which is not very cycle nothing has happened because a couple of weeks later the whole of our actions changed dramatically and I've not been pushing it I don't think anybody else has been pushing it but now we are moving out of the pandemic I think we ought to think about how we might do something on this and a lot of villages have European links they are threatened I'd like to comment I don't know if you've seen the recent comment in the press about the effect on school trips since Brexit they basically collapse virtually none are taking place 5 or 10% of what happened before because European schools don't wish to come to Britain because of the problems involved in doing so so if we are going to maintain our links we need to think how to do that it's important particularly for our communities that these are maintained quite a lot of communities have already got things set up and certainly in lots of schools so I think something might be mentioned on that about as a long term thank you councillor Goll yes thank you councillor Goll yes certainly the sort of cultural work stream I think which as you say has been identified I think we can reflect that in the in the document I think it's this document basically is an evolution I see that as something which is now kind of actively under consideration so I sort of recognise we should probably make reference to that in the report because there's sort of European sort of connections again I think it's certainly a very good aspiration I struggle a little bit to find out how we would translate that to immediate actions but I'm certainly happy for Cabinet to discuss that and think about it and if councillor Goll has got any specific actions or activities which you can foresee in the next year sort of to consider that in the deliberations for Cabinet so thank you very much for that contribution thank you very much I'm now going to come to councillor Bridget Smith who I wish to add thank you I sort of respond to councillor Richard Williams so councillor Williams you were partly right and I was partly right and I was partly wrong too so it says under the terms and conditions on the website trees must be planted on South Cambridge and Parish council land except where no parish council owned land is suitable in which case trees can be planted on land owned by a charity or on county council land with written permission and I know that I intervened in one case where the parish council was struggling and actually our officers as one would expect took a pragmatic and flexible approach so that isn't the terms and conditions but you do have to click a link so we will very have to take up your suggestion to make that that clearer because we certainly don't want people not applying for these grants just because they think we've got no land at all so we'll make sure that's higher up on the explanation thank you thank you very much councillor Bradenham I think you are our final speaker on this topic thank you very much for letting me come back for a second strike at this I just wanted to say very quickly on our page 37 which is where we are looking at being green to our core and we are looking at air quality monitoring and the proposal on page 37 which talks about subject to air quality monitoring results explore feasibility of creating a public space protection order specifically targeting idling vehicles I just wanted to ensure that that would reflect the current road traffic act which so for example obviously we'd be totally supportive of dealing with this for example outside schools and indeed supporting network rails wish that this should be checked at level crossings where cars might idle and pollute the area around level crossings and I just wanted to ensure that it would exclude for example things like people temporarily stationary because of traffic flow or congestion or at light controlled traffic lights or indeed people for example simply de-icing their car on their own drive I know there's an exclusion for people doing maintenance and I don't know whether de-icing your car is included in maintenance I just wanted to be sure that that would be targeted where we see a real need so for example outside schools and level crossings would be very sensible in my view the other thing was I just wanted to check whether there is any plan to do any monitoring on the A10 or near our new development at water beach new town where there's concern that the school is quite close to the A10 and I just wanted to be sure that we might be considering putting their quality monitoring there Thank you Councillor Ligaf So Councillor Bradman's answer quite a detailed question but I noticed that Odey was nodding furiously as speaking with respect to taking on board traffic acts so I assumed from his reaction that he is very aware of that and that will be incorporated into the activities associated with that particular objective in terms of the A10 monitoring Councillor Bradman will have to get back to you on that I simply don't know whether that is part and parcel of the objectives unless anyone any officer on the call knows explicitly I can address that as well Just two points absolutely the intention is that if we do proceed with this protection order the focus will be near schools those are the areas where we will be targeting not individual homes and in terms of monitoring we have a few monitoring stations portable stations which are currently deployed I think what I would say is if there are specific areas that members think we should be sampling monitoring please let us know specifics and then we can look into that Thank you very much indeed I have no more speakers on this so we have made a number of comments a number of suggestions many of which have been taken up and I thank Councillor Goff for that the recommendation for us is on page 22 we are invited to consider the proposed draft 2025 business plan a with the action plan primarily focused on delivery 2022-23 and to make any recommendations for changes or additions to the plan which we have done am I right in believing that the meeting is minded to approve this for onward transmission to cabinet thank you very much indeed an excellent document thank you for the hard work that's gone into it we now come to agenda item 8 which is in the separate package of documents that you received and that relates to the summary general fund revenue budget and I will in a moment invite Councillor John Williams to present that but I should just say to you that firstly thank you so much for the very detailed work that has gone into this I find the fact that we have separate sheets detailing the expenditure line by line extremely helpful but I would just remind members that of course this is still very much an ongoing document and there is still quite a considerable amount of work going on so there are some missing numbers at this time but they will come together in the next few days so Councillor John Williams over to you thank you chair and as you say this is working progress so there are some figures that we are still waiting to put into the document and obviously there may well be some changes to the document as a result of those figures so but can I also take the opportunity of introducing this to thank the officers for they've had a look at the way we've presented these reports and I think they've come forward with an excellent particularly the tables are so much clearer now and that there is so much more detail but despite that it's set out so well that it's still very easy to to use so I'm very grateful to the head of finance and his staff for the way they've produced not just this one but also the housing revenue account paper as well you'll see that if you look on page 32 the crux of the sorry if you look on paragraph 32 the crux of all this is that when we look at the spending baseline and we look at what the difference between spending this year and what we intend to spend next year we'll see that it's just about £900,000 increase in that in that expenditure you'll see in the document that the bits behind that are in the appendices together with the savings that have been identified to enable us to continue to have a balanced budget despite us increasing the services and the activities of this council in line with the business plan that we have just discussed if you have any details about the figures the head of finance would be happy to to answer them and obviously I'm happy to answer any questions of policy on this, thank you thank you the council Williams if I might start we did of course have a look at this in a pre-meat last night and one of the areas of concern is the reference to the increase in the cost of pensions and I get to ask the head of finance to come back to us with some numbers particularly in relation to the rate of contribution so perhaps I might invite Peter to just start off by giving us that information please thank you chair I can confirm that the employer's contribution rate is 13.8% I just thought I'd pick out some highlights within the report and perhaps look at a little bit of the detail in the new pages firstly I'd like to apologise for the lateness of the report it's a bit of a trade-off between getting as much information into the report as possible and producing a report that has lots of figures missing so we've tried to get that balance right as best we can but I do appreciate some of the figures our impact is still missing I will update the numbers that I can update as we go if I draw members' attention firstly to appendix A which is the budget summary on page 79 now I do think we need to do a little bit of work on the number because I think it was entirely clear in hindsight how we've numbered this up and perhaps within appendix A it's probably helpful to refer to which of appendix B each line relates to so you'll see at the top of appendix A we have each of the service areas and those seven rows if you like there refer back to the detail budget packs so I think it probably would make sense to put on that budget summary which number in appendix B relates to so you'll see right at the top of that each of the service areas net expenditure what I would say is that expenditure has generally increased next year but as the chair mentioned earlier a lot of this is related to pensions within the budget we account for pensions in relation to the service cost rather than the employer's contributions and that is a significantly higher figure than the employer's contributions having said that you'll see in the second part of the table there's a line fourth line down under net cost of services called depreciation reversals and other adjustments there are two key expenditure items that we have to include within our net cost of services which we then reverse out in order to come up with a figure that's to be met from government, grants and local taxpayers and those are depreciation so the use of fixed assets has to be charged to the service in which it relates we cannot charge that against the council tax so that has to be removed as part of that line I've just referred to and the other item is the net cost of pensions which again features within the service area but we then have to reverse that out again in the same way as we do depreciation the net cost of pensions has gone up somewhat or the estimated increase has gone up in 2223 related to the pandemic I suspect in a number of in the way investments have performed so you will see that the depreciation reversal and other adjustment figure is significantly higher than in the current year so effectively what I'm saying a lot of the increase shown in the net cost of service is then reversed out in that line so the overall effect on the budget is broad Peter do you happen to know what the cost of that pension what the total amount of that pension contribution is not off the top of my head I can find that out I did look at planning services in particular and I can confirm that the figure for 2122 was 235,000 and in 2223 is 955,000 so that demonstrates the magnitude of the increase but as I said we are then reversing that out and that accounts for why that is a significant element in why the cost of planning has gone up I understand if I just talk a little bit about the budget perhaps so there is a narrative under budget formulation point C paragraph 13 there is a little bit of narrative about budget packs so what I thought I would do is to have a quick look at the budget packs and try and explain what the figures are telling us so you will see with each budget pack there is a title page and then we have a summary so that summary is a little bit more detail behind each of the lines so for example on appendix A under 7,041 and this summary page the second page of the budget pack for planning shows a little bit more detail behind that 7,041 a 7,041 just below that there is a separate analysis of that figure between the amounts that relate to our ongoing budgets and the amount of that which is one of items so again that 7,041 is split between those two items on that summary pack we then have a number of pages which give further detail and each page again so the second page section is in a bit more detail behind the first line on the first page and within each pack there is a little bit of a narrative around what each budget is some of the key changes and we have been consulting with Heads of Service around some of the wording there so there is a little bit more detail behind that and then finally at the end there is what we call the subject of analysis and this again is an analysis of the net expenditure but by type of expenditure so employee related premises related etc and the types of expenditure are those that are prescribed in one of our accounting practice codes called the service reporting code of practice and this is something that is standard across all local authorities to get a degree of consistency in reporting so so we have got a pack for each each of the areas do you want me to stop there and see if there are any questions on the budget packs or shall I continue? I think stop there for the moment and we might come back to you with questions of detail on it I have to say I think the section that you have just referred to and the breakdown of the understanding of each line of the budget summary having this detail is extremely helpful I know it is not a work but so thank you on the team for delivering it Members Questions? It is only actually a typo but in the first section 32 that you referred to you have the columns and I read that we have got £574 billion in increased resources for the column headings Thank you for that What page is Councillor Cain referring to? Page number 8 section 32 of the table Yes, thank you, it is just pounds Cheers I would love it if we did have that resource Indeed probably take a few more people to look after it Thank you very much Councillor Bradman You will know how good I am analysing financial documents and I would just like to and I not so I just want to thank Peter Maddock for the format of this report which is more understandable than they have been in the past clearer than they have been in the past and with a lot more detail which I can't pretend to understand all of it but actually I do think that what this demonstrates is that this district council is really taking a grip of its finances and I really appreciate the work that you have done to do this so even if it skims over the top of my head to some degree what we can see is that this has been looked at very carefully and I very much appreciate that Thank you Thank you I don't see any more hands going up Is everyone content? So OK, carry on Let's all continue and pick out a few more highlights If you turn in the report to Preparagraph 29 you'll see there's a table that summarises the provisional financial settlement So this was issued just before Christmas and we've there was a consultation period that ended on the 13th of January and so far I haven't seen any confirmation or otherwise that the provisional settlement has been agreed but you'll see there a comparison between the settlement for last year and the provisional settlement for this year the business base the business I can't say it the baseline has remained unchanged The rule services grant is continuing at the same level as last year There was some fear that this would be removed but that's continuing The lower tier services grant which was a new grant that was introduced in 21-22 as a one-off grant has in fact been continuing for a further year so that was something that we weren't necessarily expecting We've also had a new grant produced called a services grant which doesn't sound very different from the line above but again this is at 182,000 and it's been billed as a one-off allocation just for 22-23 The new homes bonus we had a consultation on this during the spring I think which closed and we haven't really heard anything more on that so what we actually got within the provisional settlement is new homes bonus based on the old formula however they did suggest that there was going to be a further consultation on new homes bonus so whether they didn't like the responses that were received I'm not sure but there's going to be a further consultation on this so it's a little bit unhelpful in that the future of new homes bonus is still rather up in the air when a review had been suggested at least two years ago so we wait and see what happens there and then council tax income the figures quoted there are based on an increase in the council tax base of 1078.2 and an increase in the council tax of £5 which equates to 4.9% the settlement allows us to increase the council tax by 1.99% or £5 whichever is the higher we've already referred to paragraph 32 which shows the differences between the previous year 21, 22 and 22, 23 and it's basically it's comparing the figures in column A on appendix A or A or column 1 shall we say 2 column 5 so the 946 difference is the total movement just to say that in relation to business rates we don't yet have the figures the business rate preset has to be set by the 31st of January and we are going through the process now of setting that there's a fairly lengthy government form that has to be completed in order to set that and as I say we're working through that and the figures will be available hopefully towards the end of this week or early next week but what I can say is that the baselines and our tariff have remained unchanged I have no more questions does anyone else any other member have a question that they'd like to raise Martin you'd like to reiterate what Councillor Bradden said about how helpful it was to have the explanations in the way that it's laid out we all do we're happy about that I think with the questions that we asked during our preemie yesterday and those we've successfully had answered today I think we've satisfied all the queries that all of us have had we are invited to take notes of this prior to going to cabinet is everyone content that we send it on its way thank you all very much indeed thank you Peter and your team so we come now to item 9 which is the housing revenue account and I will ask Councillor John Williams to introduce this as well please thank you chair I'd just like to draw attention to paragraph 21 and the table on housing stock which shows that we estimate that by the end of this financial year we will have increased our housing stock by some 70 properties this year so we will have exceeded our target and I congratulate the housing team for their efforts in doing that but otherwise again I would commend the head of finance and his team for a very fine document and a document that's very easy to read and well set out thank you very much Members Councillor Bradman thank you chair I was actually going to ask for a comfort break but since you've come to me I simply wanted to thank the district council for the delivery of houses at Gibson Close in Water Beach which we very much welcomed with its proportion of affordable housing and I also wanted to ask a question about self-build plots which is on page 112 of the supplement I have been slightly concerned about the delivery of self-build plots and I'm I think I'm reassured by paragraph 72 where there's a recognition that there have been significant delays in concluding sales that none of these plots have been sold in 2021-22 but I would also like us to be mindful of if these are to be sold as plots for self-building to be mindful of who might be buying them I know that sounds a bit bizarre but to be sure that they are not actually going to major developers that they are actually going for people to build on site for a house that they want to live in I say that because the plot referred to on page 113 which is that benefit close in Milton I think that one has been well I'm not sure it's actually being lived in going to be lived in by the person who developed it and I just would like to be clear as to what our monitoring is of that and how we manage those thank you Councillor Williams the sale of self-build plots are we certain that they're going to be they're going to be built by self-builders as opposed to eventually ending up in the hands of major developers I'm afraid that I will have to ask my housing colleagues and that that Peter can answer that That's going to say Peter Campbell how Campbell can probably answer that question but do you want to put on record the assistance from Peter and his team in writing the housing with me account to report there's quite a lot of information Peter you're happy to do that of course the proposal in paragraph 72 is saying that moving forward disposal will not just be self-builders that will be made more widely and I confirm that we there is a legal agreement on the properties that have been sold and if there are deviations from that we will consider appropriate action again for purchaser and if the council of Braddon wants to speak outside this meeting for details I'm happy to do that Thank you Peter Councillor Nigel Cathgard Nigel Thank you Just a question really on rent levels on paragraph 40 I just want some sort of clarification of that it seems to suggest that social housing providers which we want could actually reset our rent levels at 80% of the of market rent but our policy is to set it substantially less than that I just want some confirmation that that's my understanding of it because there's a huge disparity between council rents and housing association rents and that disparity seems to be widening over time and a number of us always felt that by keeping council rents as low as sensible and practical we do provide that sort of that the ability to actually make the rents truly affordable but I'm just wondering about whether there's a long term trend away from that I just want Peter Campbell could indicate where we are on that I'm happy to do that there are two separate rent levels here and sometimes the phrases are used interchangeably but they refer to different things so most existing council houses are set as a social rent that is based on a formula set by government and sometimes you'll hear it referred to target rents and that is the the lower level which I think that council card refers to there is also the concept of affordable rent and affordable rent is based on 80% of the market rent and some housing associations and the council use that when we're acquiring new housing so there are two separate levels to look at and of course when those are both increased by inflation although they may go up by the same percentage the pounds and pens the financial difference does increase thank you Peter thank you I have a question about the garages which is on pages 43, 43 44 I see that there is probably a project to look at the disused garages and I think I'm interested to see the number of garages across the district approximately 347 and I just wondered whether the project that's ongoing at the moment is likely to release more space for homes for development for council houses it's too early sorry I jumped in sorry Peter I was going to say that I'm sure that's one for you it's a bit too early to judge that but that would be one of the aims of the project if there is a possibility if there's more supply than demand and that resulted in releasing some land for development but in a way that's prejudging the work itself we don't actually have the launch for that the first meeting doesn't take place until this Thursday so what we'll do we'll make sure that members are kept updated with the progress of that thank you that's helpful, thank you Steve I'll cancel originally sorry thank you very much just a couple of points one is just a point of clarification really and this may be me but on page 105 for the agenda pack so paragraph 56 57 3 to 61 talks about the HRA revenue account budget for next year 22 23 but it's all written in the past tense really confusing as to whether this was about the future budget or the past budget so it's for example it says the HRA budget at the start of the financial year supposedly referring to 2223 was just above 2.6 million so a bit of clarification on that it may be me maybe the way I'm reading it but I was a bit confused about the past tense future budget and clarify for example that the income increase paragraph 49 is 1.8 million that we're expecting next year from the 4.1% increase not not for the last year I'm sure that could be cleared up the other point I had was just a point of clarification really just for my understanding of all of this so in our key decisions pack something different with a gender item but there are two acquisitions of affordable homes one at North Stowe one at Gamelin Gay I couldn't find any reference to those in this in this budget does that mean that those purchases of houses are not part of the HRA account and falls somewhere else in the council's finances or is there some other reason why I couldn't and again maybe me just missing it after those purchases in this document thank you Peter can you help us with that I'm just looking through other Peter's report but normally the I think the main report that you've got refers to the revenue aspect of the HRA and there's also a capital reserve as well indeed if you look at Appendix C just found it which is the Cadillac expenditure from the HRA you will see that the new build which is looking backwards is included there probably need to check that out so thanks for the question there there's a number there's items in there unallocated now it's possible it needs to be phished out of that sorry Peter what it normally does is that I mean yes that is currently unallocated I need the decision is then made as past the key decision which Council Williams referred to and then that amount will be moved from the unallocated pile into one which is against that specific project so the unallocated amount is the amount that we've got currently or for future acquisitions and it will be it will be moved when a purchase decisions have been made I think that means we'll have to come back to you on that detail in you Councillor Steve Hunt yes thank you chair I was looking at page 106 paragraph 63 and it's about the number of decent and non-decent houses and it's to be quite a large number of non-decent houses if I'm reading this right it's about one in 20 of them and I do note that the figures are to be updated and I was wondering in the absence of the newest figures we'll at least have an understanding of whether it's going up or down whether we're making headway on that and also this thing about access refused by tenants is there anything we can do about that to understand better the conditions of the properties that we have Peter coming there property numbers of non-decent do sometimes increase the measure of decency is in part based on the age of the components within that property and sometimes you get sometimes when a component reaches a certain age that can be treated as not decent for example in my own home which is now 21 years old since we purchased it because the gas boiler is now more than 20 years old it could be treated as non-decent it still works properly I'm still heated but because we've got the time scale as the measure that is an issue and what we've not done is updated is been through and checked the condition of the report doesn't reflect the condition checks that we've made on some of the components what we are going to do as some members will be aware of through the asset management strategy is during this year the intention is to carry out a stock conditions survey as closed 100% as we can get so rather than just relying on mathematical models we'll be carrying out proper surveys of each property and other components within and using those revised figures for all future plans Thank you Peter Nigel Cathcart Council Nigel Cathcart please Thank you for letting me come back Now it's just that the garages I mean this could be a valuable resource I don't agree but you need to be careful in some cases the garages are empty half the time in poor condition or led to people miles away in some cases they're fully used and in good conditions so it's courses for courses but I agree we have a great variety of garage blocks in the district but whilst we're talking about garages I just really need to declare an interest if we use one of the garages rent one from the council to store my vintage Riley I should really declare an interest there which I thought didn't do before thank you Thank you in actual fact I was going to ask a question about garages or in particular garage rents if we're putting up the price of housing rent by 4.1% why don't we do the same with garages that might have been answered by the fact that we've got 150 hen 2 oes my other point was just in relation to the rent arrears and the bad debt provision in particular I noticed that it was at 77% of the March 2021 level am I right in believing that we need to increase that provision by an additional 83,000 to take into account the increased level of arrears on which Peter will answer that I believe that's the case I have no more speakers registered we are once again invited to take note of this report comment on it as it goes to cabinet I think once again it's a very good report am I right in believing that the meeting is content with that and therefore we recommend this to cabinet thank you all very much indeed so we now go back to the original pack we come to agenda item 10 which is the treasury management strategy and once again I'll invite councillor John Williams to introduce it please John just before you do we've been going for slightly over 2 hours would you like a 5 minute break or would you like to carry on carry on no break sorry councillor Williams please go ahead thank you chair following the revised investment strategy we have reviewed and revised the treasury management strategy and also the capital strategy which is the next report after this the changes are in red as we've done in the past you can see where we've made changes and again these documents are working progress so there are figures that are in these documents at the moment but obviously will be before they go to cabinet thank you very much members comments I think I would draw your attention first of all on to page 63 to that pie chart which I can't read I don't know whether anyone else can he's probably better left out and certainly doesn't print I think probably best to remove that but members would anyone like to kick us off with the discussion councillor Graham Cone just a quick one on page 57 10.1 on the investment strategy I think this is just more my lack of understanding about this but obviously the figures there have increased quite a bit and then we've added in the fact that in red that sentence about will reduce in forth coming year as these figures include government COVID grants the two figures including the COVID grants was that saying in the year the subsequent I weren't quite sure if that was reflected in them and that was the bigger increase or not so part of the reason there was that we had a bit more invested than we would have had was because we got the COVID grants up front and we invested in short term until such time that we had to pay it out so we did have additional amounts invested simply because we got that money ahead of distribution so it was just a one off thing really effectively okay there you are councillor Brett thank you chair I simply wanted to draw our attention also on page 57 to the objectives in 10.2 and to say what a relief to read that the authorities objective when investing money is to strike an appropriate balance between risk and return minimising the risk of incurring losses from defaults so I'm just very glad that we're being prudent and actually that message comes through loud and clear through all these reports and although that's just one let's call it verbalisation of it it exists throughout these reports so I'm very assured by them thank you I think the key here is that we don't invest in Icelandic banks councillor Richard Williams thank you very much chair just a quick one on the yields to page 63 I completely see that you're sticking to the current yield even though CPI has gone up I just wanted to ask and I know this is a speculative question but what about inflation to stay significantly above that target into the next year I mean what would the strategy be if the decision was to raise the yield I mean how easily could that be done we are rather driven by what we can get out in the market and I think it's something we need to keep under review I mean we've generally been able to 2% because clearly a lot of money is with early streets so we've generally been able to keep ahead of that but even with the good interest rates we get from that we've got no chance of getting near so I think it's something we're going to need to keep under review pretty regularly just to see how best best we tackle it but clearly we're not going to be able to achieve it at the moment if anyone knows a bank that's giving a reasonable rate of return would you please let me know because I am a fair right bank tell me too any other comments ladies and gentlemen once again it's a very detailed report is everyone content that we take notes move it on to cabinet in due course thank you all very much indeed so we've come now to item 11 I can find the appropriate page I think we've done I had some 10 and 11 together are we not I know we've got the capital strategy my apologies thank you John capital strategy once again that's over to you to present thank you thank you chair well again as with the treasury management strategy the changes are in red with the capital strategy we have had to make a change because of the introduction of the infrastructure funding statement which we're now required to do so that but also we've also looked at taking the opportunity to revise it given the change to the PWLB rules and say you'll see a power back 9.3 we have also taken opportunity to amend it to say that there is now a presumption against investments made purely for yield thank you very much thank you chair I'm going to say it again I'm really reassured paragraph 8.5 on page 98 that the council's policy on treasury investment is to prioritise security and liquidity over yield focus on minimising risk rather than maximising returns and I absolutely applaud that and I'm very relieved to see it thank you thank you any other any other comments from members no are we therefore minded once again to take note of this and send it forward for consideration by cabinet Ducall thank you all very much we now come to item 12 which is the work program and I would simply ask you to take note of that I think we've got some busy meetings ahead of us to come and we then move on to item 13 that I would ask you to take note that the next scheduled meeting of the scrutiny and overview committee will be on Thursday 3 March 2022 at 5.20pm that brings us to the conclusion of our business this evening could I thank the officers both those here with us and those who joined us remotely my thanks to all your members for your contributions this evening once again it's been I think a very helpful meeting thank you all very much I wish you a safe journey home Martin did you wish to say something I just want to highlight that I received my agenda this morning to be posted on time so there were delays in the post and the officers might wish to take note of that did you receive all your agenda this morning or just the second post all my agendas and also the planning committee which is tomorrow they've both been delayed there's obviously postage problems yeah I'm sure that's something local to your area certainly mine arrived the latest part by Saturday morning so I've had a little more time to look at it but really oh goodness are we offline Rebecca