 Mor hwn, jydynt bod y peirgrif yn ddiwedd, neu mae'n gweithio'r hollugu Fastan Llai. Mae'r gwneud yn newid cymrydref yn Canzelor Bridget Smith, ac mae'n gwybodaeth tyment. Mae'r gwybodaeth o'r Cyfrifariaeth Cymru. Mae'r gwybodaeth yn Canzelor Bramil yn y gweithgaredd. Mae'r gwybodaeth yma yn cantepadau, ac ond ymydd ni coddodd a'i gyrslo. Mae'r hyn o'n cael cyfan, fel dyfodol. Mae'n ddullunio'n gwerthu hyn yn yr wych, mae ddau'n diolch. Mae'n ddullunio'n gwrs ym �r wych yn yr arddangos. Rhyw Llywodraeth, wrth i'w grannu, mae'n cael chyffffent ydych yn gwneud bach yr hyn. Felly, we will begin with apologies for absence. I think people, we have got one, haven't we? Yes, thank you, chair. We have apologies from Councillor Peter McDonald. Thank you very much indeed. Moving on to declaration of interest. Do any members have interests to declare relations to any items on today's agenda? No, thank you very much ynglyniad o ddim, pwysig y gywed, os ydych yn ymgynnod rhaglen ynglyniadau, ar gyfer y newydd, yr stylu, yn mynd i yn ymgyrch yn cyd-yaogau. Mae'r hubau, hanbyrch, ac mae'r gwirioneddau'r yn fwrdd, fel dyma'r brif. Mae'r gwirioneddau erbyn i ymgyrch felly fod erbyn i'r gwirioneddau erbyn i'r gwirioneddau yn argyrchu ar y cymdyn nhw erbyn. I don't have any announcements. I don't think any of us do. There's no announcements today. I'm moving on to item five, which is public questions. We have a statement from Mr Daniel Fulton. Good morning, Mr Fulton. Would you like to read your statement? Thank you. I would. Thank you very much, Chair. A first age general statement, democracy cannot exist without the rule of law. Without the rule of law, there is no democracy. Over the next several months, information will become public, showing that there have been extremely serious and disturbing misconduct on the part of a very small number of officers and members of this council. At first, the misconducting question was limited to merely interfering in the democratic process during the 2022 local election. However, the individuals in question gradually expanded their targets, seeking to interfere in judicial review proceedings in which this council was a party. The individuals in question enlisted outside help in accomplishing their design, most notably enlisting rogue officers of Cambridgeshire police to engage in intimidation and threats of unlawful violence against individuals who could give evidence in court. Mr Fulton, I'm very happy for you to focus on this council. I can't have comment on other public bodies. It's not appropriate here because I can't respond to that. You're not being asked to respond, but it's inappropriate that this council is used in order for you to air your views on other public bodies. This was the mechanism by which the real harm was caused. By enlisting Cambridgeshire police and their improper interference in the political legal process, members and officers of this council have actively subverted the rule of law. When it becomes impossible for public officials to be prosecuted for serious crimes, this undermines the integrity of our democratic institutions. What, you might ask, can we, as a mere district council, do about such a serious breakdown in the structures of democratic government and the collapse of the rule of law? The answer to that is that your role is to ensure that the facts of what have happened are put on the table and made available to the public so that the public can see what has happened and so that lessons can be learned to make sure that this never happens again. You have a very good example of another council which has faced very serious irregularities and misconduct by one of its members several years ago. By responding inappropriately and by ensuring that a thorough and complete investigation was conducted and by ensuring that the results of that investigation were made public, Cambridgeshire County Council took control of a situation that could have caused serious damage to public faith in local government and instead transformed it into a positive demonstration of the ability of democratic institutions to use a transparent and open process to regulate themselves. The results have been that public faith in the integrity of the county council has not only not been damaged but in fact it has been strengthened as a result of the process followed. If we want to live in a society in which the rule of law operates effectively and protects the integrity of our democratic institutions, we all have to take a stand when we see the rule of law being violated. Lastly, you might think we're just the district council. Shouldn't we just get on with collecting the bends and leave these difficult problems of democratic government to someone else? I would argue that we can't. We live in a time of democratic regress when we see internal and external threats compromising the integrity of democratic societies around the globe. The antidote to this is not inaction but action to take a stand as individuals to protect the ideals of our democratic society from attack. We must find a way to work together to confront the serious wrongdoing that has been perpetrated by individuals affiliated with this council in order to ensure that such serious wrongdoing can never happen again. Thank you for listening to me today. Thank you very much, Mr Fulton. I would never think that we are just a district council. I think we are an extremely important part of the local government structure. You began by making some serious accusations against some people within this organisation. You have to substantiate those with evidence because otherwise I have no way to corroborate it. I would encourage you to send to me any evidence you have of misconduct, interference or anything else inappropriate. That's the way to do this. Thank you very much. Do you have a supplementary? I just have one comment. Thank you very much, Chair. I think that's a very reasonable approach. My difficulty is that I am legally prohibited from providing you with the information and I am trying to get a court hearing to lift that restriction. So it's just a matter for the courts to decide when I can provide the evidence to you. But I would very much hope that that's soon. Thank you very much for your response and thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you very much, Mr Fulton. Take care. Thank you. Right. Moving on to scrutiny and overview. Councillor Anna Bradlin. Thank you very much for coming. Do you want to speak now or do you want to speak within the body of a meeting? Or both. Sorry, Chair. Leader. I'm happy to speak now because the following three items are the ones that scrutiny and overview considered. So we looked at the draft business plan, the urban street housing item. Yes, the draft business plan and urban street housing. All I would say is that we had a very long and extensive discussion at scrutiny and overview. We examined the new format of the business plan and found it very helpful. We raised issues and asked questions which were satisfactorily answered at the meeting. And the proposal that we have in front of you at item six includes in paragraph three the things that we would particularly like you as a cabinet to take into account. So that's all I really have to say because it's all there. I'm particularly pleased because I personally asked that it's a bit of cross council working. And I asked that we should, when allocating housing through to council tenants, if those council tenants wish to be foster carers or are currently foster carers who could take on another child if they had another bedroom, to bear that in mind favourably because certainly at county council we are desperately in need of new foster carers within the county. So anything we can do to help with that would be really very welcome. Thank you very much, leader. Thank you very much indeed. Was there anything else in relation to items later in the agenda? You wanted to comment on it, it seemed to be fairly positive responses to the other items. Sorry, the formal response from updating scrutiny from overviewing scrutiny is at the beginning of item six. That says what we were concerned about. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Right, so we're asked to note the report. So moving on to the main item. So item seven is the business plan action plan. Thank you very much, councillor. I will propose it and councillor Milnes will second it. So I agree with what scrutiny said that the way this is set out is a massive improvement, really helpful. Sorry, it's just disappeared off my screen. Sensitive laptop today. Thank you very much indeed. So I think this builds very successfully on the previous iterations of the business plan. Shows that we are a council with a focus on delivering growth in the best interests of our communities. It quite clearly demonstrates that we put the environment and both in terms of climate change and net zero and also all the green and blue places in our community at the forefront of everything we do. And we've made massive progress in our efforts to be the best in a modern and caring council. We have some exciting work going on using artificial intelligence to improve the experience of people contacting us for help and advice. I think we're at the forefront of that, familiar with the councils. I'm being asked at LGA for a nice example of AI being incorporated and a lot of councils are very slow off the mark here. But I think we're ahead of the game. So I'm particularly pleased that the plan demonstrates progress summary within each area. I think it's very important that as well as looking forward we also celebrate our successes. So I think, yep, very pleased with this. Good work to build on council mills. Do you want to add anything? Thank you, leader. Other than to endorse what you've just said about making progress on all counts, I think our residents see us very much as leading away on many of these issues and running a prudent financial and improving the loss of a rapidly growing population. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ryad. Any questions? Councillor Henry Batchelor. Thank you, leader. Just two points from me. One, just to say I'm very, very happy with the points that relate to my important failure of environmental services. I'd just like to thank the officers for helping us get to this stage and also to the scrutiny committee for helping us get to the draft version that we have in front of us today. We did make amendments based on their comments. Just one small bit of pedantry as well, which seems to have passed everyone including myself by. Page 31 on the front page of being green to our core, the bullet point roughly about halfway down that relates to the WREM project. It's written in here as water renewable energy network, when it should be water beach renewable energy network. So we've missed a beach somewhere. So just an update, we will be adding that in. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Any comments from any other cabinet members? No, any comments from any other members? Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, leader. Can I just refer to something on page 29? And it's 5C5 about East West Rail because, and this is something that came up at scrutiny, I believe, about mitigations. And I'm just wondering where the leader and administration see that it's possible to mitigate for those residents that it's going to very much effect in the south if that route is pursued and whether it's still council policy to support East West Rail as was in the letter that the leader wrote. Thank you. Yes, thank you for the question. So yes, we've stated all along since prior to 2018 that we have in principle support for an East West Rail link for many reasons, which we've expressed regularly in the interim period. So, Mr Gation, I think we've already exerted some influence on East West Rail limited to make sure that their original proposals were for very, very high embankments. I think they've come down considerably now. We're still waiting for the finalisation of the detail of the route. And I think that's where we really then come into our own to make sure that the impact on communities proximal to the railway line are mitigated as much as possible and whether that's through buns, whether it's through tree planting, whether it's through green buffers or whatever, I don't know, acoustic fences. I'm not a railway engineer, but we should be working very hard to make sure that those communities who, as things stand at the moment, are seeing this as a threat to the life that they currently have, that it is as unimpactful as it possibly is. But yes, we still support East West Rail link. Thank you. Any other questions? No? Okay, fine. So, the recommendations are set out on page 17, I think? 17 to 18, fine. Okay. Righty Ho, so I won't read those out. So, do members agree with the proposals? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? So, Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals. Thank you very much. And item eight is Urban Street Housing, a nice paper about additional growth which was very, very closely scrutinised by the scrutiny committee, which was very helpful. So, Councillor John Batchelor is going to present this, and I think Councillor John Williams is going to second it. So, Councillor Batchelor, over to you. Thank you very much. So, we're looking at Urban Street again, and as we know, this is one of the big success stories that we have in the organisation. Our investment of £100 million has produced more than 500 housing units, and has a current value of more than £120 million as an asset base. So, that's all good, and in addition to that, they're contributing more than £4 million a year to our income stream. What we're proposing here is to make available another £20 million in order to continue to make best use of the expertise that we have in Urban Street. As and when opportunities arise, this will give them the wherewithal to actually take advantage of them and bring further benefits to South Cams District Council. I'd like to say that the success of Urban Street is the small team with the leadership of Duncan Vessie, who have done a brilliant job on behalf of the council. I'm sure we would like to say thank you very much and keep up the good work. I note that Scrutiny endorsed this proposal, so I'm very happy to move the recommendation at item three. Thank you, Councillor Batchewa. Councillor Williams, do you want to comment? Thank you, leader. I endorse what Councillor Batchewa said about Urban Street and its leadership team, and I think it's performed extremely well in the last few years and has contributed to our housing policy. So we've broadened the purpose of Urban Street just purely making money for us to one which now supports our housing policy in not just the district but in our travel to work area. I'd like to draw attention to one important issue that we have facing this at the moment, the growing issue, and that's homelessness, particularly of single people. Unfortunately, the private rented sector is shrinking because of actions by government, particularly on tax and other areas, and therefore we are seeing homelessness increasing. Homelessness isn't about people living on the streets, it's about people finding that their tenancies are coming to an end and they cannot find another landlord to continue living in our area. So Urban Street is able to provide a very important safety net to those people who don't qualify for social housing but nevertheless require private rented accommodation. So this will enable Urban Street to purchase properties, not just at family homes but in particular homes for single people to help with that shortfall. Thank you very much indeed. Any other comments from Cabinet Members? Councillor Anna Bradlin. Thank you, Leader. Thank you for letting me come back in. I thought it was worth pointing out that at Overview in Sputiny, Members asked a lot of questions about this because it's a great deal of money and Members wanted assurance as to how that was being obtained and how it was going to be used. So we were grateful for the clarification which was reported in paragraph 4 on page 48 about the fact that money was going to be used to address homelessness. We also wanted to be sure that the quality of homes that were bought by Shirehomes and built were going to be of good quality. We wanted to know how that very large loan was going to be handled as well and so that was explained very thoroughly about how it was going to be drawn down in phases and that the £20 million required would not be taken out in one go. It would be taken out as loans as and when they needed to finance the amounts to be lent to Urban Street which was a relief because it's a great deal of money and we didn't want the vagaries of the stock market or whatever to suddenly cause us problems on the loan. I know it's going to come out from the Public Works Loan Board but it's a concern because even the Public Works Loan Board rates can go up and down as well. So we felt very much reassured by the answers that we were given at scrutiny overview. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. It's likely to be the Public Works Loan Board but not necessarily but that's likely. So thank you. Scrutiny gave this forensic attention but it's absolutely right and proper particularly as local authorities are under very close scrutiny from government at the moment for their borrowing and for their fiscal competency. So we were grateful to the attention that Scrutiny gave us. Any other questions before we move to the recommendations? My thanks to the team. Thanks to Duncan and the team. Small is beautiful when it comes to managing housing associations like this. So thank you. So recommendations are on page 47 and 48. I won't read them out. Do cabinet members agree with the recommendations? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees the proposals. Thank you very much indeed. And to stick with housing. We're now moving on to Shire Homes Letting and Councillor John Batchelor is going to introduce this and Councillor Tumi Hawkins is going to second it. So Councillor Batchelor again. Thank you very much. This is just for information but it's as well to understand what the role of the Shire Homes is to really illustrate the value that it brings to South Cam's district council. Shire Homes manages more than just over 100 housing units and are used to house homeless people. So this is a very significant part of our role, our statutory role in supporting homelessness. So Shire Homes is a well run company with just four members of staff. So I'd like to equally say thanks to them for the very significant work that they are doing in a very efficient manner. So that's all I want to say on that one. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Hawkins. Thank you leader. Just to support what Councillor Batchelor has said but also to just point out that it is good to see the way in which we are executing a statutory obligations in a cost-effective way helping owners of houses that they don't know what to do with or can't manage to manage it and use it to reduce homelessness and people living in temporary accommodation because I don't know if anybody wants to be in temporary accommodation they'd rather be somewhere where they can go home. So yeah, good work. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions from anybody? Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you leader. More of a request or food for thought I say, Shell Homes is something that I think there's been a lot of support across the chamber over many years for and it does do a very good job but when it's looking to sort of explore potentially new properties and move out further then to make sure that they're dispersed through the district. As we'll see later on for example in my patches it seems one of the more deprived areas and I know when we've had issues and Shell Homes is to be used. People have got to go quite far. It's already stressful to be homeless and they want to keep as much stability for children going to the schools and then you've got the travel costs as well. So just a play to sort of have a look at making sure we've got good coverage. Thank you very much. Councillor Batchel do you want to respond to that or should I bring in Susan Carter? Well only briefly to say that there's only 100 units. But this is additional to our own 30 to 40 houses that we've provided to support homelessness but it's never going to be enough. You know there's issues all the time and we're still having to use bed and breakfast in extremists. So we're doing our best we're increasing the numbers particularly through Shell Homes which are actually using private housing and operating as managing agents on behalf of the owners. So we hope that they can expand further but you know we've only got one person that's actually trying to do that for a moment so within the restrictions I think we're doing as well as we can at the moment but there's always more to do. Thank you it's a very nice model. Susan do you want to add anything to that about the sort of general geographic spread and the difficulties in getting that? Yeah sure. One of the things that we are quite pleased with with Shell Homes and it helps is it does give people a bit more choice over location because we can disperse them and we do try to get coverage across all districts obviously a number of vacancies we have at any one time is always going to be small so it's still incredibly difficult to match people up with the perfect location but it gives a little bit more ability to do that than just temporary accommodation. Thank you Susan and thank you for all your hard work on this it's a really nice model but I'm aware that our spend on homelessness has doubled in recent years it's only going one way it's not as bad as some councils but it's still getting more and more expensive so recommendations are oh it's just a note, it's just a note okay so we note it thank you very much indeed thank you for the report so item 10 is the monitoring report which yes that's a bit of work councillor Tumi Hawkins is going to present this and councillor Brian Milans is going to second it Thank you very much Llyda yes it's a very tronky document as usual firstly I want to thank the officer team for the work they've done on it Matt Diaz and Jenny Notico as we know we have a statutory duty to publish the authority monitoring report it used to be called the annual monitoring report but the idea is that it gives details of the progress that we are making as a council in implementing a local development scheme which is a local plan timetable and the planning policies in our adopted local plan also asks us to monitor our reports how we cooperate with them neighbouring local authorities the model plans we make and how we deal with sale and of course we don't have sale we have S106 and we have a separate report on what we collect I just want to make some key points rather than sort of go through all of it and thankfully I've got Matt Diaz and Jenny Noticoen here to answer questions more specifically the annual completions that we had in 22-23 for Greater Cambridge City as South Cymru was 2,339 dwellings this is against what the delivery rate is for the local plan currently which is 1675 dwellings a year that's 1,675 so we are delivering quite a lot more at this point in time and partly we find that because of the higher numbers that were delivered in Cambon West and Northstow we ended up in South Cymru with just over 1,500 as opposed to the 1,033 that we were expecting in that time period and of the houses delivered 794 are affordable dwellings of which 472 are in South Cymru so we are delivering quite a number of affordable housing here for our residents now employment for space I think is one thing that we did a lot recently because of the government's interest in creating their own version of Silicon Valley but we did have a net gain of 27,000 square metres in South Cymru and there's more coming in the pipeline neighbourhood areas we designated 16 and we adopted or we made three neighbourhood plans in Gamlingey Fulbon and Westwickham bringing a total of 8 in the district I mean there's a lot I can carry on saying but I think I'll leave it there for now if we have specific questions then please do so and I therefore recommend it as a paragraph 3.1 and 3.2 Thank you Councillor Hawkins Councillor Mills Thank you, just like Mark and the other officers that have been closely involved with the creation of this it's a really long report a lot of detail in there a lot of work involved in putting it together and it's a really valuable piece of information for us now Thank you and I hope somebody in Government reads it I mean it's jam-packed full of useful information and actually it's a really good reference document for us as local members so we're very grateful for it thank you and it's a nice amount of work, must have gone into it Any questions from members Councillor Heather Williams Sorry, thank you So on page 74 this paragraph 2.3 I've just got a question it's about the NECAP the Area Action Plan I'm sure the merits we will debate of that when it comes to planning committee and everything else but I'm just wondering whether leader and the administration think it's sort of right to refer to it as a major brownfield site when the relocation is into Greenbelt and just about the fairness of the terminology should there be reference to that because it's quite hard for members of the public to come to that conclusion when it does actually involve the destruction of Greenbelt Okay, Councillor Hawkins Do you want to take that and I can refer to officers as well I'll take it, thank you leader The reference to the site is for the site itself where the waterworks is going is a separate matter when we look at the site it is what it is, it's brownfield it already has a use on it, so moving waters there somewhere else means that it is a brownfield site already has a previous use I know people will want to link where it's going to this but the definition of the brownfield site is the site already that has a previous use Do you want to come back Yes, my point was about referencing it because it has been described and I believe as officers that they do go hand in glove and I think the issue is then are there other things that could be classified as brownfield in order to move them into the green bell and I think it's a valid concern from people, I said the merits of whether it should or shouldn't and the houses development that's for another day but it's just whether the administration thinks it's fair to not make reference in that way, I think I've got my answer but that's it I have to ask the question Do you want to respond or? Thank you very much indeed Right, if there are no more questions we're back to the recommendations which are Yes, thank you Page 63 and 64 I think that's correct, isn't it? OK, so do members agree with the recommendations? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees with the proposals Mike, thank you very much and swiftly on to the state of the district in South Cambridgeshire so I'm really pleased with this so I'm going to just introduce it very briefly in Councillor Henry Bachelors going to second it so the suggestion that we did this came out of the corporate peer review and I'm very impressed actually that we managed to move so swiftly in order to produce another really really useful reference document which I, has it gone out to parish councils? Is it going out to parish councils? I see, OK but I think parish councils will be very interested in it as well as well as a lot of our partners so I do hope that we circulate this widely because it is just jam-packed with interesting information on the state of our district so thank you very much to Liz for instigating it and officers for putting it together so thank you very much so Henry Bachelors do you want to comment? Thank you, Leader so just thank you to the corporate peer reviewers as well for asking us to do this because I found it a very useful exercise and some really interesting facts in there South Cambridgeshire has the lowest amount of crime per capita in Cambridgeshire which I wasn't aware of very pleased to hear so lots of interesting facts and statistics for not only us in this room but for everybody in South Cambridgeshire to read so yep, just endorse the the recommendation here, thank you Thank you and I see we've got Chris Richards in the room so thank you very much, Chris very useful, yes and councillor Liz Watts do you want to point something out here? Thank you Thank you, Leader it was pointed out to us that there's a typo in figure one but actually on further examination of the document this morning I've noticed one further typo so could I suggest a recommendation that's added to say that you delegate a authority to me to amend any typos please happy to do that, thank you so any questions from members any questions from anybody else councillor Williams Thank you it's just one thing before I might almost plea from page 389390 it might be that that's a technical term to state of the district but you might want to opt for a different like a state can be seen quite negatively like oh it's in a state it might be a technical thing but I've sort of read that and I it just might be it might be a more positive way of phrasing it the plea though as you can see on page 389390 it does refer to the ward that I represent and also Basin Bournemare is lucky to grow up and I think the issue there is very much that we we get these deprivation issues because of fuel poverty because we're so oil dependent so it's just another plea that when it comes to updates and what have you that we target those that are dependent on oil I think that helps us on the green credentials as well because obviously oil is not good for the environment and would help people with their bills also so just a plea that if we're planning any works we've got roll out schemes for insulation and the like that we focus on oil dependent areas first thank you and I'm aware that the combined authority have been responsible for the government's latest retrofit scheme which absolutely is targeted at homes that are reliant on bottled gas and oil so the leads very much coming from government there we obviously don't have the money but we are doing our utmost I think we're doing some as well aren't we so I think we're not just this we're implementing funding yet but I think the fact that we have this data makes it very easy for us to know where those areas are on the title I'm going to come to Liz because I think it's just a term that's used isn't it thank you councillor Smith it is a term that's commonly used but I guess having pointed out a possible negative content it's not one that we have to use and if members have got a suggestion as to what we could use then we'd be very open to hearing it yep the state of you yes we'll take that away it's an interesting point thank you very much indeed so we've got a recommendation that we review and note the report but also that we delegate responsibility for any minor changes to the chief executive so oh sorry councillor Bratton thank you sorry two things one is that doesn't it take its lineage from state of the nation reports in other words it's a neutral it's trying not to be either positive or negative so it's simply what is the state but the other one is I am alarmed to see Milton and Water Beach Ward my own ward in this tranche of deprived areas and I suspect that's because we have a large area of gypsy and traveller accommodation in my ward and but I'm glad that it's there I'm glad it's been recognised because actually I've been concerned about that area for a very long time so if being identified in a report in this way enables more effort to go into improving the quality of housing and the quality of infrastructure in that area I'm glad to see it and I hope well not glad to see it there but I hope it will encourage more emphasis on the infrastructure in that area please and as I think you highlight the importance of this not just going on a shelf and gathering dust it is a document that needs to be referenced regularly in relation to any interventions from this council so thank you very much indeed so do members agree with the recommendations anyone wish to vote against anyone abstaining cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation so we're moving on to money matters now and starting off with the capital strategy so this is where it becomes the councillor John William Shaw so item 12 John's going to propose this and I think councillor Bill Handley is going to second it thank you leader well this time every year we review our capital strategy and you'll see in the appendix A the changes are in red pretty much minor changes other than the fact that this has been updated to make sure that we are in line with the potential code of 2021 but otherwise there aren't any major changes to the strategy thank you very much indeed councillor Handley I'm not the doer, thank you leader any questions from cabinet any questions from anyone else we went through all of this at scrutiny in some detail okay so the recommendations on page 407 I won't read it out so do members agree with the recommendation anyone voting against anyone wish to abstain the cabinet therefore agrees with the proposals by affirmation thank you item 13 the Treasury Management strategy John Williams to propose and I'm happy to second it thank you leader as with the capital strategy the Treasury management strategy is also a review at this time of year again we just basically bring in the strategy up to date there is a we have looked at the description for the minimum revenue provision following the peer review there was some comment about that so we have changed that slightly and hopefully made it more the explanation better for people to understand but otherwise as I say it's pretty much as it was before thank you and as I appreciate the track changes being obvious otherwise it's impossible to work out what's changed any questions from cabinet questions from we've only got Councillor Bradman here now because no okay so going to the recommendation on page 429 at 3 do members agree with the recommendations anyone voting against anyone abstaining cabinet therefore agrees with the proposals by affirmation thank you and it's all getting quite speedy isn't it so item 14 can be famous in last words review of earmarked reserves so Councillor John Williams and Councillor Milne's a second thank you thank you leader again this is something we do every year we review our reserves particularly our un earmarked reserves and also making sure that our earmarked reserves are there for a purpose and again as I say this just brings it up to date from last year thank you Councillor Milne's second that and no further comments thank you thank you any questions Councillor Bradman thank you leader at Scrygiannion Overview we looked at questions were asked about earmarked reserves and in what ways they were delineated and I just wondered I know that the member had a conversation with Peter Maddock about that afterwards or I believe that was the intention so Peter's a laundry in that I just wondered if that conversation had happened yet with the member to reassure her about I think the question was related to were they were they earmarked specifically for different things or were they in a total earmarked reserve do you remember it was Councillor Leaming I'd asked you a number of questions so I did speak to Councillor Leaming on Friday about one or two things that she raised can't remember there being something specific on earmarked reserves I may have to I'll have a look at the minutes and I'll be happy to touch base with her again if there was something specific on earmarked reserves but I did have a meeting with her on Friday Thank you If it would help leader if you look at appendix ADM earmarked reserves are listed in appendix A I noticed that there was I noticed that there was a specific reference to earmarked reserves and I wondered if that had come out of that conversation I think it's clear that these are these are separate pots and even though there might be some flexibility within a pot actually that is quite clear what their purpose is okay but I mean if any member wants further clarification they have only to ask okay so we'll move to the recommendations and yes before it goes to before it goes to full council right recommendations on page 471 do members agree with the recommendations anyone voting against anyone wish to abstain so members agree recommendations by affirmation and item 50 now the summary general fund revenue budget so councilor John Williams to propose it and I'm happy to second it thank you leader first of all I'd like to amend it a little bit on the recommendations unfortunately we missed out the mayor's preset in the list of those authorities that we collect for so we need to add in there the candidure and Peter Book of Bindle authority preset I'm very pleased to to move this in fact we you all know in the news how difficult it is at present for local authorities number of local authorities have already had to issue 114 notices where they found themselves in financial difficulties and local government in general I believe and seen its funding from government reduced by some 30% since 2010 and it's only so far you can go to make productivity improvements and make savings but I'm very pleased to say so far south camps is concerned and this was highlighted in the recent independent corporate pair challenge review in this council we have a track record of balanced financial strategy and prudent financial management and a robust investment policy and that has meant that although yes we are also facing increased costs we are facing increased population we are facing increased homelessness and anti-social behaviour flytiff etc I'm pleased to say that not only are we able to increase our preset by less than inflation by 3% and that means for an average home an increase of £5 a year or 10p a week we've also been able to deliver increased services and in a number of areas areas of waste for example where we are looking to increase in the flight tipping team and we are also continuing with the introduction of electric bin noise in planning where we are strengthening planning with apprentices and in particular strengthening planning so that we can challenge the government's for Cambridge which obviously directly affects us and our residents as well we are also able to increase support for cost of living particularly in housing we are making certain post permanent where we help our tenants with cost of living increases and we are also enabling us to do extra things like increasing the recycling of electric goods and also as we come on to the housing revenue account being able to build more council houses so even though we are facing these external pressures from inflation and other areas actually the way because we have run the finances of this council so well we are actually able to also deliver a budget growth in these very difficult circumstances so I'm very pleased therefore to move this obviously this will be debated at full council and I'm sure that that's where we are going to have a debate about it but for now I would ask you to accept the recommendation so that it can go to full council thank you very much indeed thank you to you Councillor Williams and to all the finance team for producing this sometimes I think people think it's easy for us it's not easy it's every bit as hard for us as it is for other councils as well but it's very gratifying that we've been recognised as a fiscally well well managed authority and that's down to the quality of the officers that we have running this for us and for John's very careful oversight so I'm very grateful for that so any questions from the members any other questions so we'll move to the recommendations which are many with the addition of including the combined authorities Merrill precept as well please page 483 and 484 so do members agree with the proposal anyone wish to vote against anyone wish to abstain cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by recommendation and the ends in sight capital programme next please Councillor John Williams again and Councillor Henry Batchel has gone to second this one thank you thank you leader again this is a report which will go to full council so I'm not going to go into it in any great detail other than to say that clearly the opportunities that we have for delivering an expanded capital programme are limited and that's reflected in the fact that a formal requirement is less than we expected nevertheless we are still developing particularly in terms of housing and and in terms of green areas as well such as the Water Beach you know solar farm which has already been mentioned so I just would ask you again to agree with the recommendations so that this can go to full council for further debate and hopefully to be passed by the council thank you very much Councillor Batchel very happy to second second that leader and as Councillor Williams has mentioned lots of proposals in the capital programme that will actually help us achieve the four pillars of our business plan that we talked about a bit earlier on specifically in my own area in terms of the waste and being green to our core there are several items in this item that do relate directly to that so yet more than happy to second this item and bring it to full council for a decision thank you thank you and that's a recommendation to take it to full council so anyone else? no okay so do cabinet agree with the recommendation enormous to vote against enormous to abstain so cabinet therefore agrees with the proposal and item 17 the housing revenue account so John Williams and I think Councillor John Batchel is seconding thank you leader quite an ambitious programme of housing to not only build more houses but also to bring our housing stock up to a decent standard and all that takes money and as you know the housing revenue account is a ring ffence account so basically speaking in order to fund those things they have to be funded from the council tenants themselves and therefore we reluctantly having to put council rents up to enable us to ensure that we have decent housing stock and we are delivering more to council homes I'm sure Councillor Batchel have more to say on that but you know this housing revenue account I think again is a shows that this council despite all the financial constraints that we face is a council that's a council of growth and that applies to our housing stock as well as everything else thank you thank you Councillor Batchel yes thank you I'm very pleased to second this and I'd just like to echo what Councillor Williams was just saying about being very clear that the entire investment and maintenance of our 5600 houses are funded solely through council rents so the reality of the outside world has to be recognised particularly in the building area where costs have gone up very substantially so happy to second thank you very much any questions no and it's obviously vitally important to us that our housing stock is good quality stock so everybody has a decent home if we are their landlord so lots of recommendations at page 589 and 590 do you members agree with the recommendations anyone wish to vote against anyone abstaining cabinet therefore agrees the recommendation by affirmation and item 18 now general fund meeting term financial plan Councillor John Williams to propose and Councillor Brian Mills to second yes thank you for the leader me again very quickly it's very interesting to note that if we strip out the actions we have to take to safeguard us against a potential fair funding review we would actually be making a small surplus every year for the next 5 years but the problem that we have and this faces every council in this country is that because the government doesn't have a 5 year plan for local government and we basically live not just year by year but literally week by week as to what the government is going to to do in terms of funding local government we have to make provision for worst case scenario and therefore we have considerable money tied up in our unimart reserves expecting we hope something that won't happen that every council in this country has had to lock away this money in the expectation that something might happen with councils like ours having business non-domestic rates taken away from us and given to other authorities that are in other parts of the country that are in a worse economic state than we are but the very fact that we don't know when for certain when that is going to happen and we don't know for certain how much it's going to cost us then we have to have this money put aside money which we could otherwise be using and this really demonstrates the fact that government doesn't have a plan for local government this government doesn't have a plan for local government and everyone's suffering as a result including our residents Thank you, well said Councillor Mills Thank you Nothing to add to those salient points from Councillor Williams and I'll be just second this report Thank you Finally financial local government is a hot topic in the press at long last a bit later in the day though Any questions Right, so do members agree with proposals which are set out on 629? Great Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone abstaining? I therefore agree with the recommendations by affirmation and lastly localised council tax support schemes, so Councillor John Williams seconded by Councillor Bill Handley please This proposal that we continue with the very successful banding scheme that we introduced about three or four years ago which has simplified peoples the payment of support for localised council tax and basically it's continuing that scheme but upgrading it by 6.7% for the coming financial year to take account of inflation Thank you Councillor Handley Only to say this is a very good report fully supported Thank you Thank you and the simplification was very welcome when it was brought in Thank you, any other questions Councillor Radnan Thank you Leader On reflection Sorry, you might want to take the vote on this one first it's after that just before you finish the meeting Fine, thank you So Please Thanks This is about council tax but we have a similar sort of arrangement in housing which I'd like to just make a point on I might have said something of the order of 40% have either all or part of their rent pay through the benefit system The real issue is the working poor those who don't qualify for benefits but are struggling very much and we have a scheme now that is aimed at trying to support that area and I think this is a similar principle to this one so I just want to make that point Thank you Thank you and your sense is that this scheme is successful you're pleased with the the way it's going and the impact It's fairly early days Yes Looking good so far Thank you very much indeed It would be nice to have an update on that at the point at which you think it's best The recommendation is set out on 647 Do you members agree with the proposal? Anyone wish to vote against? Anyone wish to abstain? Cabinet therefore agrees with the proposals Thank you Just for the interest of clarity leader Thank you very much I wanted to come back to item 14 where I asked the question about the earmark reserves and on thinking about it again what I realised is of course that we've got appendix A which explains the earmark reserves and that was what Scrutiny and Overview asked to be included in the report I'm sorry for the confusion But I was just thinking Of course it was that we wanted to see the table Thank you for the clarification of that and thank you to officers for producing it Okay so that brings us to the end of the meeting Next cabinet meeting is on the 12th of March Thank you all officers and members for all of your time and attention