 Felly, oes da'r newid o'r newid y bytyn. Rydyn ni'n amser, rydyn ni'n gweithio'r hollb g Wrongiynau Pwyllgoreth yma yng Nghymru, ei ysgrifennu ar tanllewyr o dal juin o'r gyfer yna gweithio. Fe wedi gweithio ar gweithio'r gweithio ar y summit ar lawer o'r dyfodol i ysgrifennu'r coig. Rhyf am y gofyn yng Nghymru Salianne Hart, ac mae'r gyrfa'r gyrdd yng nghymru, a mwy'n dda chi allan o'r gyrddig, ac mae'r gyrddig, gyrddwg William Jackson Wood, Byddwn i'r cymaint? Mae'n cymaint gyda'r cymaint. Mae'n rhaid i am fawr o'r cyfrindwch? Felly, cymaint gyda'r cymaint. Mae'n ddweud am hynny o'r cyfrindwch. Felly, canol ydw'r cyfrindwch yn y cyfrindwch gyda'r cyfrindwch? Mae'r gweithio gyda'r cyfrindwch yn gyflwyglwch ar y cyfrindwch. Mae'n rhaid i'n gwybod i'r cyfrindwch ar y cyfrindwch. Mae'r cair yw'r cyfrindwch yn cyfrindwch erbyn. Rwy'r gyfrifysgol i ymdoddi wrth angen i phas ymgylch gyffredig ymweithio, am ychydig y peu ar y ddweud o'r caner. Mae bydd peth o bwysig wedi'i ddaw ar y cynlluneg i ddefnyddio'r cy包 ar ôl, a bydd pethau i wirioneddol yn ei ddweud o holl fwyaf o gael. Mae'r ddweud o bwysig ydw i'r gwaeliaeth disgweithio'r bydd, a'r ddweud â llunegu'r cynyddu hynny, gyda'r hynny'n gallu gofa'i'r gwathol. Rhyw됐o'n dal and cael eu resiliadau i amnoえるion, yn lywodraeth i fyfydoriaeth yr tyn fudfer. PerdOS busach oedwser i menu reyaent yn sfrugio a gweithio'r mwyfo. Ond mae'n gweithio i desadd dyweddiadwyr ddain. 당iwch ar gwaithalth aír ond pan oau ff instability. Si'n fwy o'r dillun o'r cwrdd gyda'r llyfr yn dyfu'r ddweud, o'i gweithio nifer o gweithio gweithio'n ymgwrdd cyflwynyddol. Mae'n meddwl gael ei chymig o'r ddefnyddio gyda'r symud. Nad yw, ymgyrch chi'n ddiwedd i'r pethau i'r gwybod a'r rhaid o'u ddod yn ymgrifion, Patrick. Rwy'n ddod yn ymgrifion o'r ddod yn eich ddod? Yes, Chairman, as you've already noted, William Jackson Wood has given his apology. Thank you. Item two on our agenda, declarations of interest. Do any members have interests to declare in relation to any item on the bussiness of this agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point. Thank you, members. Item three on our agenda are the minutes of the previous meeting. Mae'n gweithio i ddiwedd i'w gwneud ei wneud o'r hyn o'r cymrydau ar y Comitig, o'r 23r Febrigo 2023, o'r cyfrifod hyn. Oedda i ddifithu'r hyn o'r hyn, oedd i'n credu i'r ystod. Mae'n argynniadol 5 o'r cyfrifodau. Mae'n amser o'r cyfrifodau o'r cyfrifodau, ac mae'n gallu gwirionedd yw'r hyn o'r cyfrifodau o'r cyfrifodau. Mae yna'n eich cyfrifod o'r cyfrifodau o'r cyfrifodau, zedw'u'u weltydd. If we can approve the minutes of the meeting, can we do that by formation? Agreed. Thank you, Members. Now we'll hear a statement from a member of the public. Mr Fvorton, will you please make your statement? Yes, thank you very much chair. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today. It's very good to be back with the committee after a period of involuntary silence, but ond yw'n ei fod y gallwch yn cymryd y cyfnod o'r cyfnodol i'r cyfnodol yn amlwyddon. Roedd yn gwneud yn gwneud eich ffyrddol, a ydw i'n gwybod. Chwm ei wneud i'r bod y cwmwyllfa ymlaen, ond nid o'r cyfnodol ymlaen o'r cyfnodol i'r cyfnodol o'r peirio cyfeirio ar y ddechrau neu ydych chi'n ffordd maes cyfnodol o'r cyfnodol o'r ddechrau o'r cyfeirio ar y bydd o'r ddechrau. ac mae'r gwerthu cymdeithasol y ddechrau ar gyfer y cyfnod yw'r gwrthod o'r gweithio'r ddod yn nhw'n treulio'r gweithio'r gwaith yn ddod. Roeddwn i ddaith y gyrthod ar gyfer y gyrsgwr yma, ac roeddwn i'w gweithio'r gweithio a'r hwn o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod, ac roeddwn i ddim yn gwybod am bod yma i'r gallu ddim yn gweithio ar gyfer ei gwybwyll, argymdd y ddechrau, ac y dyfodol sy'n gweithio yma'r gweithio ar gyfnod yma. While I am all four synergies in local government, these synergies should generally be directed towards benefiting the public interest, not benefiting the personal ambitions of council staff, no matter how admirable those ambitions may be. And yet this is not the first time there has been questionable judgment and questions about secrecy in regards to controversial decisions in the recent past. I would kindly call the council's attention to the still unresolved questions about the HR Wallingford procurement irregularities. These questions, which have gone unaddressed for more than six months now, are still pending and those of us who live in Longstown in North Stowe, see the environmental impact of this development on a daily basis. Chairman, I want to order what this has got to do with the employment committee. Thank you, Councilman. Mr Foulton. I'm finished, actually. You're finished, thank you. Anyway, that's all. Thank you for listening. Have a good afternoon. Mr Foulton, that was not the statement that I received notice of last week. I have a written response. You will get another response to your new statement. Thank you. Thank you. Members, we now move on to the major item on our agenda, which is the results of the four day week trial in the next steps. I'd like to first come to Councillor John Williams to introduce this item. Thank you, Chair. First of all, I'd like to start off with an anecdote, actually. A few weeks ago, Cabinet had a visitor and it wasn't to do with this, but it wasn't unsolicited. But he wanted to tell us before we started our meeting how he had found our staff at all levels from the officers he'd spoken to on the telephone to the officers he'd met in the building, how positive and helpful they were. And in his considerable experience with local government, it never come across a council with such helpful and positive staff. And I think that actually shows the results of the trial. Now, we're not, this paper is not adopting a four day week for this council, that's a decision that four council will make in due course when our trials are finished. What this paper is asking you to recommend to Cabinet is that we continue with the desk base trial and include facility staff for a further 12 months. Now, it's quite clear that the intention of the three month trial at the beginning of this year was to see whether or not we could do it. The purpose of the trial is clearly set out in appendix one and its purpose is to improve our recruitment and retention. The fact that last year we couldn't fill 40% of our posts because of the problems with local government in attracting good quality staff against the competition from the private sector. And given that we are limited in our financial resources in terms of staff payment, that we had to look for another way of attracting good quality staff to this council and to prevent good quality staff from leaving this council. And it was clear that one possible way, and it arose out of a local government association meeting last year, that we could look to see if we can adopt a four day week. And that's what the trial was about that we've just completed and it's what the continuation of that trial for another 12 months, that's the purpose. Now, the three month trial so far, you see from the report, has brought other benefits apart from the fact that turnover has actually gone down in those three months, quite significant. And it's shown through the staff surveys that were carried out by Robertson Cooper, that we have seen an increase, an improvement in staff wellbeing and health. As well as I say that downturn in staff turnover, which actually has brought about already a saving in what we've been paying in agency staff fees, because we have statutory duties to carry out regardless of whether or not we have the staff available to do them. So we have to employ agency staff, and that is much more expensive than employing these people directly through the council. And so we've already seen from the three month trial that we could be saving £300,000 at the end of this year, that intention was to look for a saving of £1 million. And I think as a leader of this council has said in an interview to the Guardian newspaper, we can do an awful lot with £1 million that we're actually at a moment spending on agency staff. Now, one of the conditions of the trial was that we shouldn't see any significant reduction in performance. And you'll see from the paper that actually Bennett Institute of the University of Cambridge has monitored our KPIs and our performance and they have found that it's broadly maintained that we have not seen a major step back in our performance. And in fact, the only red KPI wants to do with invoices, which had nothing to do with the trial. So again, we are seeing that our performance has broadly not been affected. Our staff well-being certainly has improved and we have started to see that we've started to overcome the retention issues and I'm sure the recruitment issues in general. So therefore, I'm asking this committee to recommend to Cabinet that we continue with the trial for another 12 months and clearly while that trial is going on, we shall also introduce a three month trial for our waste crews so that they too can see whether or not they can operate a four day week in the bin collection, which I have to say a lot of councils already do. So, you know, a lot of councils already have a four day week. Now I must finally before I finish, I must point out, you know, it's been I've read in the in the press that, you know, we're going to have a four day week council. No such thing whatsoever. This council will continue to operate actually 24 seven and as a result of this trial, we've actually been able to extend the hours of our of our call centre. So far from closing the council on a Friday, which has been suggested in one newspaper, this actually is going to improve the hours that we are available for our. Residents and our businesses to access the council, so I'll now hand over to Liz, who will present the report, but I just wanted to make sure that we understood exactly what we were doing here today and what we are doing is extending the trial for another 12 months and at the end of that 12 months, it will then be for a full council to make a decision whether or not we go for a four day week. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Williams. Thank you, chair. I don't really have too much to add to what councillor John Williams has said. Hopefully the paper is fairly self expenditure. I would like to extend huge thanks to the Bennett Institute colleagues who are here with us today and to also the project team who have supported the work of the trial throughout council. I think you'll see from the report that the data speaks for itself, but either I, Jeff or colleagues in the Bennett Institute will be happy to answer any questions you may have on the data or anything else. Thank you, Liz, and thank you for the comprehensive report. Members, do we have any questions? Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, I hope you will indulge me slightly at the beginning before I go on to the most substantive issue with regards to what councillor Williams has already been said. It's already been alluded to and we've already heard that there was some reference to an officer of this council. What I wanted to make it very, very clear is that until last night, as far as all the conservative group on this council, we were not aware of that. Neither would we think that what was said was, in any sense, shape of gone fair because that particular officer does not have the right to reply. Therefore, we want to be disassociated with anything at all with regards to anything negative towards that officer who we have found might have our differences, but we have found to be an exceptional officer and has always helped us as much as they possibly can. I just want to make that exceptionally clear and just as to be reminded that many officers here are carrying out further studies at all levels and always has done, and I can remember back many years ago, and I'm using this because I am the longer serving councillor in this chamber, people many 20 years ago were doing PhDs who were directors and were using the work that they were doing as information for that particular qualification. Therefore, I just want to say that this is my last statement. I think the officer is very, very good and we should now move on and grill councillor Williamus like we all do with as much relish as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you councillor Hale. I am mindful that normally questions would come from committee members first. I am mindful that councillor Dan Lentl is online and has a question to ask. I haven't been able to ask councillor Lentl what time he needs to leave the meeting because I would like to continue really with questions from members of the committee first. Are you able to put that in the chat? Councillor Lentl, yes, so how long have we got your presence today on the meeting? I have very squawky children downstairs, so I'd appreciate the opportunity to say my piece and leave the committee in peace. Okay, with members then. I can say his piece. Councillor Lentl. Thank you chair. I'd like to echo what councillor Howells just said about the officer concern with the revelations in yesterday's Daily Mail. That said, nothing in a well-run local authority should come as this much of a shock and a surprise. Clearly a political decision was taken for which the officer cannot be responsible. A political decision was taken not to inform wider council, not to inform the public and apparently not to inform members of staff that a PhD was being undertaken. In fact, the council leader appeared on local and national media to spin the story knowing that this revelation was not being made. It's not the most incredible revelation ever. The fact that it's not being said, you know, the fact that we're being asked for forgiveness rather than permission does seem very worrying. A political decision has been taken that has subjected the reputation of this officer to national scrutiny that isn't appropriate. Officers, as Councillor Howells said, deserve to carry on with their work in the background and politicians to take responsibility for political decisions. So, two questions to the committee. Firstly, whether they were pre-informed that this was happening. And secondly, whether they would support an inquiry to find out how the advice was given. It was clearly given that the PhD was to be kept from the public. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Chairman, with your indulgence, I would prefer a written response other than something off the cuff. Yes, I was just chair checking. And thank you, councillor, I have taken advice prior to the meeting and the advice I've given is to seek further guidance and to get back to committee. Thank you, chair. Thank you, committee. Thank you. Members, any more questions on the report? Councillor Anna Bradman, you have a question. Thank you. I wanted to ask in the office's report at paragraph 12 on page 13. There's a statement that in August 2022, a total of 23 agency staff were employed to cover vacancies at a 12-month cost off. Now, I don't know if that's £2,065,000 or £2,065 and no pence. But I wondered if, if, Chair, maybe Mr Member could explain what that means. Because if it was £2 million, that's £89,000 per member of staff, which seems rather not, but perhaps you could explain. Yes, certainly. It is £2 million, particularly in hard to fill posts such as planning, where we're competing not only with other local authorities for a very scarce resource, but also the private sector. We do end up paying exceptionally high agency charges. A lot of that, of course, goes to the agency rather than to the individual. But that's particularly why it was so important that we found a way to recruit permanent members of staff so that we could divest ourselves of some of these charges that our lives were asking the residents of South Cambridgeshire to bear. So yet that is an accurate figure. It is an average, so there are some, obviously, that's a lot lower than that, but some in those hard to fill vacancies are a lot more than £86,000 a year. Thank you, Mr Member. So the decimal point in the middle should be a comma of the figure. Thank you. I have one further question, and that is, I saw there was a brief survey of members. I just wondered whether there is a KPI relating to response to member queries. There isn't a KPI. The expectation is that members will get a response within 48 hours, where, and occasionally, a full response might not be possible within 48 hours, in which case we expect officers to get back to members with an explanation of why there's a delay and when they can expect a response. We ask, where possible, that members use the online form to raise their queries, because that way we can track that centrally and make sure that members are getting their response because it's up to members how they choose to contact officers that would encourage members to do it that way. It's not a specific KPI in so much. It's not reported as part of our KPI report, but that is the standard that we have in place. Thank you very much. Councillor Richard Stowart, you have a question. Thank you, Chair. Well, I have questions in a few categories, but may I start with one, which is on the presentation of data and the data analysis. Could I just ask you, could you give the page reference, please, Councillor? Yes. Just bear with me a second. It's the first of the Bennett Institute report, which I'm just trying to find out. Sorry, I can't quite hear. Yes, so this is a gender page 39. And it's the report from the Bennett Institute entitled the first one evaluation of the key performance indicators. That's the context. And I just want to say to, well, through you, Chair, to the team, that the progression through visual are relatively straightforward statistical analysis. That's a more complex statistical analysis seemed particularly apt. So that's a kind of a technical comment. The progression from visual to, if you will, analytical is a good one. Now, the often quoted adage, I think, in handling signals and data and such like is if you can see it, you can compute it. But the trouble is sometimes you can't see it because it's hard to see in like more than three dimensions. So just to round this off, I'd be very interested to hear from the team as to how that analysis will proceed as the data builds up. And how might we be seeing from that data expressions of confidence or areas where we need to interrogate some more? Just what is at the prospect? The tools are many and various and the choice of them can sometimes be quite tricky. But I'd be interested to know where we're heading on this journey of data analysis. Thank you, thank you. I'm assuming that might be okay to come to our representative. Would you mind introducing yourself to the committee? I don't want to mispronounce anything. That's on the right. Thank you for the question. So I'm Dr Nina Jordan from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy from the University of Cambridge with my colleague Tula Huw. And we did the statistical analysis together. I think it's a really good question. So we focused on the key performance indicators for this analysis because this was the data available. And as I said, we've tried to do different statistical analysis in order to show a comprehensive picture. Going forward, if the trial is going to be extended, I think data about recruitment and retention are obviously a focus point. But we need to have wider discussion about how do we measure productivity within the council. And that's something we need to develop together with staff together with managers to understand what is a purposeful way of measuring productivity. Because that's a hard one, measuring productivity. And then based on the data we will focus on, we then obviously have to decide what are the best analytical tools to explore the data. Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you for the answer. I think you have another question. Well, only to say, as you're applying, sorry, as these kind of analytical techniques are applied, very often interaction is a good thing. And I've seen a very good effect in the academic sector, I wouldn't go into detail. But where a group of people are asking the question, well, could we slice the data this way? Could we look at it that way? And I'd strongly encourage, if I might, the use of interaction as part of that process. If you're not already doing it, it is a good practice, so I strongly suspect you are. But I'd recommend that. Thank you, thank you, Councillor. Did you have more questions? Yes, so let me just quote page number. I can come back to because I know I have another question in the chamber. Yes, let me do my homework for a moment and then come back to me please. Come back to you, okay, lovely, thank you. Councillor Mark Hale, you have a question. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, I'm looking at page 93 and under the head in in green challenges related to Greater Cambridge's Shared Waste Service. I have a concern there. Already we have now have a group of staff which have on all intents and purposes had a quite a large pay rise for the amount of work that they did. We all know the system there. But we also have a large group of people now, the Shared Waste Service, who have not been involved in this after this particular point. And I'd be very interested to see the report that's going to come out on that. I just think that before we actually make any comments to Cabinet, I would like to see that report. I would like to see and read and digest that report, have a discussion about that report before we then make any suggestions to Cabinet. Because if we can't get the Shared Waste Service involved in this, if that is what the council's decision is, and a Cambridge City council doesn't back us, then the whole thing fails. What we have done then for the last 12, 18 months would be just fall down. So that is a very, very significant. I think that's an impasse there that we've actually got to come across. And I don't see how we can do anything until that is done. And that's what I would like to see. I don't know if I'm looking at the council. Williams or whoever to answer. Thank you, thanks. Thank you, Councillor Hull. The report actually went to the Scrutiny Committee last week, so it's available online. Right, well, I haven't seen it, and therefore now we're going to make a decision on something I didn't know was around. Because it does say earlier on in this report that it is attached to this particular agenda, and it's not. So I'm not going to go along searching if it's not there. Now our apologies if that was clear, Councillor Hull. This was referring to the report to Cabinet, which is why it says it's attached. Right, I'll arrange this. Yeah, but I'm so sorry Chairman, but that doesn't help me make a decision today if I haven't seen the report. I don't know if anybody else has read it, I don't know if anybody else has read that report. Brian, you've read it to the one. So, Councillor Brandon, with your permission, Chair, thank you. Councillor Hull, I wasn't quite sure. Are you referring to the report that related to whether the Waste Service had been engaged in doing this? I wasn't quite sure which report you were referring to. I'm referring to the report that's in here that is referred to the Waste Service. I have no knowledge, I wasn't aware that it was in scrutiny in the public field. So, as a member of scrutiny and overview, we asked a number of questions of Bode Isan and the other staff who were involved. D and the other staff who were involved with engaging with the Waste Staff. And in fact the question was asked, have the Waste Service staff been asked about this? And it was very clear that extensive consultation had happened with the Waste Service staff. They were keen to take part and they in fact had been quite proactive themselves about how. So, an initial operation had been done to establish how the rounds could be optimised. Certainly could be done in four days. They had also done a considerable lot of work looking at which days of the week those might usefully be. And they had looked at other councils where they had gone Monday to Thursday and Tuesday to Friday. Some were just Tuesday to Friday, the problem being that of course all the bank holidays fall on a Monday. And so actually they spent a lot of money on staff to cover the extra collections on Saturdays to cover the ones that couldn't be done on the bank holiday Mondays. And so there was a lot of engagement that had happened with the Waste Service staff and they were keen to have a go. And having seen the optimised routes that had come out of the optimisation programme, they were keen to try it. And in fact my question at Scrutiny and Overview was, we know, well I'll ask that separately because it brought up a different area of concern. But from my observation, I appreciate, we haven't seen a report as part of this paper. But a lot of questions were certainly asked at Scrutiny and Overview about that. Chairman, I thank your vice chairman for that and I really do appreciate it. But I still have not seen the report and it was said that it was in here, I look for it. It's not there, I can't, and it's a critical part of what we're going to do. This is a very important point, Sharon. I'm also being a member of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee. I was aware that the paper was there and I'm sorry, that's probably why I didn't look for it so much here because I was aware it came to Scrutiny and Overview. I'm just wondering, you know, taking that as a way that has scrutinised the report. I would like to view the report and therefore make a decision on what is probably the most critical part of everything that has been said by Councillor Williams and others. It was said in this agenda that it was part of it. I searched for it, I didn't find it. Excuse me, sorry. Did you want to come back on that? Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Howell, and apologies for the confusion. So this report is a report to Cabinet and insofar as it's a report to Cabinet it refers to another report to Cabinet about waste. We took the decision to take two reports through different groups, different committees. The reason for that was that this report has been coming, the death space trial has been coming to employment and staffing since last October. So we felt it was sensible to maintain the continuity of this committee's Scrutiny. The waste report was much bigger than just the four-day week trial. It considered issues around growth in South Hampshire and Cambridge, the impact of growth on waste collections, and the potential for ground optimisation being included along with proposals for a four-day week trial. So the reason that the two reports went to different committees was because they were sort of addressing two slightly different things, but they were both sort of converged Cabinet on 15th of May. And the reason this kind of refers to the waste report is simply because it's the Cabinet report that you've got in front of you just to cover sheet for your committee. Chairman, thank you very much indeed, and I thank the Chief Executive for that. We were told we have given this, this has come into us, and as you know on page 11, I'm not going to then paragraph two a trial for colleagues in the Waste Service Services considered as a separate item under this Cabinet agenda. I take on board what you said, but I still think that what has been said is so vital to us making comments, because this is the one thing that could trip the whole of this up or not, as the case may be, this actual report should have come here. We do need to see that report before a decision is made. I'm sorry, I can't back down on this, I can't see how the most important piece of information. We are the Employment and Staffing Committee, not the Scrutiny Committee. That's our decision to make. Thank you. Chairman, I'm happy to adjourn for an hour so I can read it. Councillor Howell, you mentioned that you would feel happy to adjourn for an hour so you could read the report. But that means everybody has to, well, there wants to read it and read it. I guess when we're looking at what we're being asked to do, we're being asked to recommend this report to Cabinet. But what you're saying is you wouldn't be willing to recommend that without having read that report. No, I will not re-recommend. I will vote on this unless I see that report now. I've got time to read it. I will be saying I abstain from the vote, but not saying I will not vote. I'm just being advised that we don't have any waste, members and officers from Waste to be able to comment on that report. So I'm suggesting that we continue and we take a vote on whether we, as we're being asked to do for this record, to recommend that this report goes to Cabinet on 15 May. However, I'll just check. Are there any other questions that we haven't had about the report? Thank you. So apologies, Councillor Stowe. I forgot to come back to you. Thank you, Chair. So I have two questions that if I might take them in turn. The page reference that I was searching for a moment ago was pages 89 to 90. That's in the second of the Bennett Institute report. And this was the report on discussions with officers. And there was a comment on, between starting on page 89 and 90, a section, on whether we're using digital tools to the best of our abilities. So around, and May, I just expand that a little bit into the general area of productivity. You know, very often we're presented with digital tools and we use like 10% of their capabilities. So I could phrase the question as, where are those pressure points, if you will, to improve performance in the use of digital tools related to productivity? And how might we resolve that? You know, taking the areas where the greatest gain might be made first and then progressing through, how might that be done? Thank you. Okay, for you to reply to those questions. Oh, that question, thank you. Yeah, really, really important question. Thank you. I think... Do you mind just leaving your microphone a bit? They're pretty good but sometimes they don't pick up. Thank you. I think based on the conversations and focus groups we had with the staff and the managers, I think the first step would really be investment in training because digital tools are available and in order to use them to the best possible ability, I think there's sometimes a lack of awareness, understanding and skills. So investing in training for how to use digital tools to enhance productivity would really be the first step before then investing in digital infrastructure itself. I would say. Can I ask one further question? Starting by saying thank you for the response. Thank you. Sorry. Just to give you some reassurance, Councillor Stobart, we're undertaking a series of service reviews at the moment, looking primarily in those areas where we are under work pressure such as planning, for example, and working with them, looking at the systems that we've got, making sure that we're taking full advantage of the options that are there because as I think you're intimating, you know, you buy a system, it gets upgraded over the year and over the years and sometimes you don't always make sure you're on top of all of the new functionality. So we're undertaking that work. So we've been doing that in conjunction with our planning colleagues who are now pretty much leading the world on the use of digital technology. We're starting work with the Revenues and Benefits Service identifying their ways that we can improve performance there, including automation itself for people. So there's a rolling series of reviews going primarily into the areas where we get most benefit. Councillor Stobart. May I ask just my final question, which was really around team culture and cultivating team culture. So there is a discussion of emerging team cultures. I know in our previous discussions, presentations and briefings and so on, we have talked about emerging team cultures. I wanted to be sure that as those cultures emerge, they were first of all properly supported. And secondly, that those who are considered most vulnerable and I think they're young, perhaps relatively inexperienced, possibly professional staff, who are absolutely reliant on both the encouragement and the mentoring of both colleagues and managers. So one of the things that I think was noticeable about hybrid working as it came out from the pandemic was this was an area which younger employees pointed to, something where they felt deficient and their careers were not developing as they would have liked. But we're just like some comments on how do we look after that group and any special measures that we will put in place because we'd recruit these folk through the expensive recruitment process. We wouldn't then want to have them demoralised through an environment in which they weren't able to progress professionally. Thank you. I mean, there's a number of things that we're doing at the moment. I'm sure you'll have noticed when you come into the building now that all of our people are located on the first floor. We've got that real sense of community building. They're always near to somebody, you can give them help and advice. We're producing a toolkit for managers and actually provide, we've already provided leadership academy training for our senior managers and that's being developed into a further cohort for junior managers and for supervisors for how you manage in this very changed working environment that we're seeing after the pandemic. And we're encouraging teams to come in at least once every two weeks and get together as full teams because we think it's really important that actually people get together, communicate, collaborate and talk within their teams, talk about those things that perhaps they don't get the chance to talk about when they're working from home. So there's a series of things being undertaken at the moment. We've got another toolkit due to go out for managers which is primarily about working in a hybrid environment rather than working in a four-day week environment. But a lot of the concepts there are the same about how you have to operate differently, how you have to check in with people more regularly. Particularly, and I'm glad you highlighted this for people that are new to the organisation, particularly new to the workplace and the role that mentors and managers can play working with those people. So we've got a number of things that started before the four-day week project, but actually have been heightened by the fact that we've got the four-day week trial going on at the moment. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I'm just mindful that we're moving on at pace with the discussion and honestly we'll go to a vote soon, but I'm aware of Councillor Anna Bradman has a question and Councillor Mark Howe has another question. But if anybody else does, if they just make sure they catch our eye, that would be helpful. Councillor Anna Bradman. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to remind us that this report is about, as we were reminded at the beginning, it's looking at the results of the three-month trial and it's seeking to extend that for a further 12 months. That is for the desk-based staff and that the trial that will seek to also go forward is three months for the waste service. And to clarify what I said earlier to Councillor Howell, the paper that came to scrutiny and overview related to the optimisation of the waste service. It wasn't primarily concentrating on the four-day week. It was looking at ways to optimise the rounds in order to be more efficient. That was the primary purpose of that study. So actually what I just wanted to remind us is that the report in front of us at present gives us the information about the trial on the desk-based staff. So it's just to bring us back to what's in the report that we do have. Thank you. Councillor Mark Howell. Thank you very much. Chairman, on that particular point there, I'm still speaking on page 93. I have two questions. One I think is more for Mr Memory and I think one is more for Councillor Williams. It says there with regards to the collection of the bins over a four-day short a week. I'm assuming that would mean then more bins are collected. I'm looking at the physical impact that would have on the employees. Mr Memory, my question to Councillor Williams. I don't know if he can be answered. So I appreciate this. He might say that that's not. Is if any conversations have been had with city councillors and their opinion of this and you get a general flavour of how they see it for going forward in the future. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. So we'll come to Jeff first to respond. My colleagues in the way service are probably better positioned to answer this because I do know that there's been a great deal of research about the amount of extra work people would have to do. It would effectively mean that their loaders are walking about 30 minutes extra a day to enable this to happen. They've been looking at other way services that operate on a four-day week basis and that would still mean that our waste operatives were walking less than a number of other services. However, they are very mindful of the fact that an important part of the four-day week is to ensure that people get both mental and physical well-being benefits from that. So they're doing that research at the moment. I'm afraid I don't have the detail of how that research but I know they're very mindful of that. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Councillor John Williams, are you able to reply? We're just to say that our Chief Executive has been having discussions with Cymru City Council on this. I wouldn't want to pre-empt what their decision will be but I'm very optimistic that they will support this. Thank you. Thank you, Members. I'm assuming there are no more questions there at the moment. So we are, this committee is being asked to recommend this report to Cabinet as on a four-day week and I'm sure that we will be able to answer the tremendous report to Cabinet as in paragraph four on pages 1112 of the papers. I am mindful that William Jackson, what isn't here today, when this initiative first came to staffing and employment, something that was flagged up very much was how can a council deliver the services if we can't maintain staff and recruit staff. It's just a comment I wanted to make. So it looks like we might need to have a vote but we can do hands up and we can do hands up. So, Members, if you would like to vote in favour of this committee recommending that this report goes to Cabinet, if you would like to raise your hand. Oh, hands down. Can we put our hands down now? Thank you very much. I'll go back to my teaching days. Anybody voting against and any abstentions? Not to vote. Anybody choosing not to vote? Thank you. Thank you, Members. I'll just come to our final item on the agenda, which is the... Yes, this committee therefore does agree to recommend this report to Cabinet. Apologies for missing that. The date of our next meeting is 28 June 2023 at 2pm. I'll now close this meeting. Thank you.