 Rhaid i chi'n gweithio. Rhaid i chi'n gweithio, ac mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'r Cymdeithasol Llywodraeth Cymru, mae'n gweithio'r Cymdeithasol Cymru, rhai'r Cymdeithasol Cymru. Mae'n cael ei gweithio'r iawn, ac mae'r rhaid yn ni, rhai'r cyngorau sydd o'r cyfwnghysgwyr, ac mae'r cyfwnghysgwyr arfer wedi ddod oedd y cyfwnghysgwyr yna mae'n cyfwnghysgwyr a'r cyfwnghysgwyr. ac yn gwrthomoledd gwaith beth o'n ddechrau mae'r hollegorach i gwaith y ddweud o'r webcast. Ieithaf, rwy'n meddwl ddim ddweud fath, caf ddweud, rydych chi hason gael ei boblion a wnaeth ychydig oes y cyfrifredwyr ar y cyfrifredwyr i chi oes기�wyr a'ch cyfrifredwyr Gwladol Llywodraeth Llywodraeth Cymru yn unig lleiwyr cavesgwyr, sydyn ni gynnwys, sgwysgrifrit am ymddir yna, dangos i chi'n radiatorwyr ar gwaith, yn ymddir youch yn unig lleiwyr cavesgwyr Felly, rydyn ni'n debyg o'n gyflasio'n chwarae sy'n ein gweithio mewn cyfnodd sydd yn gyfer hynny yn gyflasio'n Lywodraff. Rydyn ni'n chwarae ddod iddyn nhw, rwyf doedd hynny'n pryn yn ddim yn effelio'r gyfoesio diwyddoedd er gyfer hynny yn gyng?!?! Cymru'n gyweithio'n cyfeithio, fel y bobl y cwyrdd mae'n ddim yn effeithio'r cyddiadau bydd yn gyfer y holl As I said earlier, my name is councillor Stephen Drew and I am one of the members for Camborn. My vice-chair is councillor Graham Coe. And I'm one of the members for the Fendit and Forth. Thank you very much. councillor Libby Earl. Thank you. councillor Sue Ellington. councillor Sue Ellington. Only member for Swavesy Ward. councillor Peter Fane. Inning Peter Fane. Shelton Warder. councillor James Hobrow. Good evening. I'm James Hobrow. I'm the councillor for Foxton Ward. councillor Helen Leaming. councillor Judith Rippeth. Good evening. I'm Judith Rippeth. I'm one of the councillors for Milton and Waterbeach Ward. councillor Richard Stobart. Thank you chair. Good evening colleagues. I'm Richard Stobart. I'm the member for Gertin, one of the members for Gertin. And also representing Madingley and Dry Drayton. Thank you councillor Dr Aiden Van der Weyer. Good afternoon. I'm Aiden Van der Weyer. I represent Barrington and close by villages. And we have other members. Members present in the Chamber online. councillor Henry Batchelor. Offending chair councillor Henry Batchelor. Lead Cabinet Member for Environmental Services. And councillor Bill Handley. Good afternoon Bill Handley. One of the members for the villages of Over and Willingham. Thank you very much. I don't believe there are any other members present who have missed out at this stage. No. And we also have with us several officers. Liz Watts. Good afternoon chairman. Liz Watts, chief executive. Bodea Sam. Good afternoon. Bodea Sam, head of service. Thank you. Dee Wood. Good afternoon. Dee Wood. Lee Hillam. Good afternoon Lee Hillam, principle operations manager for environment services. Thank you. And Marco De Luca. Godly. Marco De Luca, principle operations manager for Waste. Thank you. And Ian Senior. Hello. And I'm scrutiny of government adviser. Thank you. And Andy Francis. Thanks chair. Andy Francis, elections and democratic services manager. Thank you. And Jeff memory. Sorry. Thank members. Jeff memory, head of transformation HR and corporate services. And Peter Maddox. Peter Maddox, head of finance. Thank you. I don't believe there are any other officers present who have missed out at this stage. Okay. Thank you very much. I can confirm the meeting is quiet. There being at least four scrutiny and overview committee members here in the chamber. If at any time a member leaves a meeting, could they please make that fact known to me so it can be recorded in the minutes. Finally, reports of this meeting was presented to cabinet on the 15th of May. As neither the vice chair nor I is likely to be at that meeting. Is there any other committee member willing to present that report? Okay. At the moment, we do not. We shall maybe come back to that later in the meeting. It is always the hope that is made in each meeting. So apologies. Do we have any apologies for absence? We do. We have apologies from councillor Tom Beigold and councillor Sally. I'm also aware that councillor Bradlam is coming to us from another meeting and will be joining us but maybe a few minutes late. Thank you very much. Declarations of interest. Members are required to declare the existence and nature of any interest which effects relates to any item of business to be considered. An explanatory note for councillors is included immediately after the agenda sheet. councillors, does anybody wish to or sorry, does anybody need to make a declaration of interest in relation to any items on the agenda today? I do not see any. Okay. Thank you. Item number four on the agenda is the minutes. Does anyone wish to raise any points of accuracy about the draft minutes of the meeting held on 28th March 2023? No, if I can just pause for a second. Okay. I would like to make it clear that certainly wasn't a mistake on the part of Ian Singer. That was a mistake on the part of my understanding but I turned my phone off so that I could ensure I understood. Thank you very much Ian as always. Although a public question was submitted the questioner is unable to attend this evening as therefore withdrawn the question therefore there are no public questions to be asked or answered this evening. Councillor Rippert. Sorry I did not get my hand up in time. On the minutes can I just have to say. Unless anybody else has anything else to say at that point in relation to any of the items we will move on to the one major item for our agenda today. So as you can see we are looking at collection changes, the future of waste collections and it says we are being asked to consider and comment on the report attached and append it to one and recommend it to Cabinet for approval with any amendments we think are appropriate. What we are going to do is we are going to ask Bodea Sand to give us a short presentation to begin with. We are then going to tackle questions in relation to one aspect of the report. We may during that first set of questions end up tackling the second section as well. If not we may then pause and we may ask Bodea to give us a little bit more information in relation to the issues to do with changes to household waste unless it has been covered already. So Bodea if I can hand over to you in the first instance for short presentation please. Thank you. Thank you very much Chair. Thank you Andy. Just to try to set the context for the proposed changes to waste collection rounds. This is an exercise that typically any waste service would do about every three to five years and it's three to five years because it's a function of growth so how much growth happens over that period or whether any changes to be made to the collection systems. The last route reviews that was done for the Greater Cambridge Highway Service was about five years ago so we are quite overdue for growth. The slide here is just illustrating that. This is growth that's expected to happen in the Greater Cambridge area over the next two years. We're expecting almost 5,000 new homes between the next two years. In the last five years and this graph shows that that growth is scattered across the whole area. That's just focused on one aspect of the counseling area. The bigger blobs are the bigger concentrations so Cambon, North East Cambridge, Central Cambridge but the growth is happening across the entire district area and that represents about 5,000 houses over the next two years. The other context is that we have had similar growth of more than 13,000 houses in the last five years and putting that into context of the service. I think where service has today 32 vehicles. We have 31 vehicles five years ago. The scene is that the service has catered for quite a lot of growth without a corresponding increase in the input of resources. We've done that by the very, very clever work of my team here. Nothing to do with me. In terms of being able to rebalance, redistribute, we've had a change round. For instance, in Trump's in last July, we had a change in collection day. Just to move the collections from one day to another. We've done that in a very innovative way. We've had quite a bit of underground beans for the new developments so that saves collection vehicles. All that has been done quite effectively but we're now at the point that we need to do a very thorough review and just also to prepare for what's to come. The other context is national trends, national policy. We know that in the next two years, we will be mandated by government to begin to collect food waste separately. We also know that we are very likely to be asked to collect residual waste on a three-weekly or if not more infrequent basis very soon. We know that we may be forced down the line of actually having six collection beans at some time soon. That was meant to be announced a few weeks ago but was put up till the next few weeks of the elections. There's a lot of changes coming from national governments. What we're planning to do is optimise our systems now. Read, distribute the rounds, optimise where we collect them and how we collect them so we can make sure that we're as efficient as possible and best place to prepare for the growth that's going to come but also the changes that are going to come as well. One of the options we're also looking at is the four-day week. How can we do all that but also not just cater for growth but also explore by trial how we can deliver the service of our four days, which is the content of part of the reports. So, thank you, Chair. That just sets the scene of how we've arrived at the conclusion we have proposed today. Thank you very much. So, councillor colleagues, who would like to start us off on questions and then we'll work through our list. Councillor, to start by your hand is up first. Councillor Cym will check through other hands as we go along. When we're asking questions, councillors, we will know that in the reports it is very detailed in terms of the paragraphs that are through there in the executive summary in the other sections. It goes through about number 50. We don't have appendix A and appendix B. It tends to be easier for officers and cabinet members answering questions if we're able to reference the specific paragraph if at all possible, unless of course our question is very general across the whole range. So, if we could reference the paragraph, it would be appreciated. Councillor Stavehart. Chair, thank you. So, my question concerns the general methodology that's been adopted for doing this quite intricate optimisation process. So, if I do refer to anything, it's on the gender page 13 and paragraph 4. It results from the route optimisation exercise. I'm interested to know from Bodeon and the team what kind of methods have been used. Now, we could get very technical here, but I think at a kind of layperson level, it would be very useful to know what methods have been used, where that kind of appears in, if you will, a kind of spectrum of possible methods. Is this kind of Europe-wide or a worldwide kind of technique that's being used? And what's the experience gained? And how could that be more widely applied perhaps? And then, as we look a little deeper into the methods, what are the possible side benefits of being perhaps a little more intricate in the way we both acquire and handle data? So, I hope that's clear. Sorry. In the first instance, I will go to Councillor Henry Batcha as the relevant Cabinet Member, and obviously I'm sure he will most of the time part over to the relevant officers, but in the first instance, I will go to Councillor Batcha, who can then decide to answer or part over if he wishes to. Councillor Batcha. Thank you. If it is a very detailed question such as that, I will always be handing to officers just to prepare everyone. But I think the answer will be that the service themselves didn't actually undertake the route optimisation that was outsourced to a professional company that does this professionally. But as I say, I will hand over to officers behind me to go into the full detail of that. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you, Chair, and I'll have a go first and invite any more detailed questions. My very capable team here will add some more detail. Thank you for the question, Councillor Stobat. So, like Councillor Harry has said, we are walking with external consultants called AISL Limited, Integrated Skills Limited, the technical consultancy firm that has done this sort of work for numerous councils in the UK and abroad. They use a computer model called RootsMats that's used internationally, not just in the UK. It's also used not just for municipal services, but for logistics such as Royal Mail Distribution. So it's a very, very well known software. And the way this works is that it basically gathers mapping data in terms of where are the bins located across the council area and also where the houses. That's a starting point. So we gather data from our housing colleagues and mapping data to see where the bins are. And then also, our vehicles are equipped with in-cab systems. So every day when we go out to collect, we actually know how much waste we're collecting from each area, how long it's taking us. All that information is stored in our in-cab data software on our vehicles. Essentially what they then do is integrate all that and then prepare a base line. What we then do is that we refine that base line by checking that what the computer is predicting actually matches what we're collecting. So for instance, a vehicle comes to you, it comes to Gamlinge, it returns to the depot after seven hours, eight hours and it collects 10 tons. We amalgamate all that for that day and we see what are the results that the model is predicting, matches what we have collected over the weeks, over the months, and then we try and find you on that. Once we then have a base line, we are then much more comfortable to then use that base line to then predict what else we can do. So if we add two more, three more vehicles, can we shut on the time? If we have to add four thousand houses, how many more vehicles do we need? So that's the essential of how the model works. We develop a base line and then we run different scenarios and now try and test different approaches to the collection, which we are doing now. And that's how we'll be able to see what's possible by working over four days rather than five. For the future, there's quite a lot of use that we can put the models to. So for instance, we can test if we were to collect food waste weekly, how many more vehicles would we need? If we were to collect the residual waste, not every fortnight, but every three weeks, how many less vehicles would we need? We tested all those scenarios. But also beyond that, I think for some of the policies that we know are going to be mandated, for instance, deposit return schemes, where we'll be replayed for empty containers, we can potentially use this model to test where are the best locations to begin to connect empty containers. So there's quite a lot of use that we can put these models to once they're developed and fine-tuned. And I think even beyond waste management, the fact that we know what receptacles are in each house and where those houses are, we could have some future users for this data as well. Anything else? And of course growth as well. Growth is a big thing. So we can better get up for growth as well. We can know when we need to produce new rounds. Yeah. Thank you very much. Cancer State of Arts, do you have a follow-up or are you happy for us to move on? Well, I'm grateful for the answer and for the illustration of the potential and the fact that several factors can be considered within the scope of such a model. I think the team is modest. Choosing a good consultant to work with is difficult. And they've obviously chosen well and there is a degree of expertise in that which we ought to be acknowledging. So Chair, thank you for conveying the question. Thank you. Councillor Bradman, welcome. If I can just ask you to introduce yourself now that you've joined the meeting. Thank you, Chair. Sorry for being late. I'm Councillor Anabod and I'm one of the members for Milton and Waterbeach Ward. Thank you very much. Next up is Councillor Peter Fay. Thank you, Chair. I was fascinated by that short presentation in particular the thought of having six different recycling... Sorry, waste collection bins. Because I noticed a report from last March that consumers were very ready finding recycling rules too confusing. Strangent enough that was a survey by Barrett Holmes last March. But also, UK has got to do a lot more to improve waste collection. We are unfashionable to make comparisons with Europe. I think on the list of recycling rates I think that's the way. And some of the additional measures are listed here. Food waste in particular. Some others in Appendix A. Sorry, Chair. You asked me to mention page numbers but I'm sure you can remember which page number that is. Thank you, 27. Helpful comments from them. The point I'm making here is that this is complex enough already. If we're going to succeed on recycling rates it's probably got to become more complex. We have an appalling record in UK on recycling of e-waste. I believe since I've started on European figures we're the bottom of the European League except in 2020 when we came second bottom. We've got a lot more to do on that but this, and of course it's not all about who collects it. But I wonder whether this framework is sufficient to take account of all of the additional measures that may be required of us over the next few years and if it seems reasonable that it isn't we have to build on to it. How do we do that without becoming too complex? Councillor Henry, back to that. Yeah, absolutely. And from a political perspective obviously we as a council want to be as green as we possibly can. It's one of the core values that we have splattered all around the walls of this building. Recycling is a big part of this service and it's something we want to encourage. The more difficult that is made for us as a service by legislation that is put to us we have to move with the times. We're not as good as some of our European counterparts that's accepted. I will say the trial that we have been running for the last three years that recently ended by some villages in the district were being asked to collect food waste separately was largely successful. People did take to using the food waste bins correctly. So adding more bins is never the solution so I'm sure as time goes on there will be a more streamlined way of collecting all the waste separately and in as fewer bins as possible. But yeah in terms of specifics I will as usual hand over to the officers. Thank you. Thank you chair. I think you're absolutely right for that point. I think the comment I would like to make is that Warwick Tatlin seems to be at the middle so if you imagine a hierarchy at the very top is before waste is actually produced so there's a whole series of activity to do with reducing waste so that it doesn't become waste so that's quite a bit of work we're doing on that in terms of engaging, educating, increasing awareness of the public so they don't produce waste in the first instance. So this bit is the collection when it's actually produced which we're now trying to optimise and then once we've done that there's a limit to what we can do by ourselves alone as a district council the larger part at the bottom of the pyramid is then treatment and disposal and for those two ends we're working very closely with our counterparts across the cabrature areas and of course the this was an authoric with cabrature county council this year we're going to be a rebound in the recap waste strategy and tackling all those three parts of the pyramid but with particular focus on the top of it because the bottom bit is going through you may know quite a lot of change because the county council is locked into a very long-term PFI contract now that we're now trying to unravel so the focus for this year will be on how much we can begin to change behaviour at the end of the pyramid whilst we here optimise in the middle bit of the collection and then over the next few years beginning to embark on a way of developing new treatment solutions Thank you Councillor Fain I would just say thank you to both for a very comprehensive response Thank you very much Councillor Ellington Thank you Chairman I suppose I wanted to start really at something a little bit more fundamental and on page 14 under the recommendations it notes that any agreements trial of four day week will need to be approved by Cambridge City and presumably Huntingdon and I wonder what our relationship was like with our fellow districts and whether we were actually posing them some really significant problems and the second part of that is if our bin men excuse the term but if our bin men decide that they're working four days a week why can't they go the extra day a week as an agency for one of their fellow district services and how are we handling this relationship because it could be really nasty for all of us Two parts there Councillor Henry bachelor Thank you, so in terms of the relationship we have with Cambridge City obviously we are a shared way service so it's not only South Cams the service is shared across two authorities us in Cambridge City it has been easier for us in South Cams to get to grips with getting the bin crews on a four-day week because all of our office stuff have been on a four-day week since January it is more difficult to get to get say Cambridge City's head around the idea I'll say but they are they are bought into this and they're going through this very process that we're going through now through Scrooodyny and their version of Cabinet at the same time frames that we are it also has been put to the crews themselves as well as the unions that represent them feedback has been generally positive about the proposals so I think fundamentally it's not an issue I mean, obviously working four days does free up the bin crews one more day so if they do want to go and work a second job somewhere else where that's an agency they're more than free to as I will say a lot of them currently do now given the fact most finish around midday so then they go off and do something else already so that does free them up to take on further employment should they want to do that so I hope that gives you more of a a higher level view of the service but yeah, if there's anything more in depth any of my colleagues can give us then I'll pass on to them anything to add on that thank you chair I've just had a few things and I'll pass on to Marco so I'll give him the heads up about the operations crews I think District Council colleagues are actually looking to us to pioneer this historically and we've led the way and they've been very, very keen to support us so for the four-day week we actually have a colleague from Hunts District Council being a critical friend and challenging us on their approach so he's working with us on that we have as an authority we have the forefront of many things so for instance we were the first to introduce electric vehicles we were the first to use a HVO for our vehicles hydro-attracted vegetable biofuels we were the first to try out food waste collections and we've pioneered that we've gone ahead we've learned the lessons, we've shared that widely so I think we do have the support of the District Council around us and the County Council in terms of the operatives it's a risk but we hope and trust that the benefits will far outweith the risk in terms of we ask them to work a very, very short extension of time every day 30 minutes but also have the benefit of a full day off to do something different quite a few of them have families quite a few of them are already very keen to spend more time with their families doing something different so hopefully it's a risk that the benefit of having a full day off would not be negative by them going to work for another District Council so we sincerely hope not but I'll invite Mark who just shared some more light on the feedback we already beginning to get from the operatives Mark O Thank you Chair So generally our operatives have been really positive about proposal they see it as a very exciting opportunity to get an additional day's rest obviously and potentially if they need the finances to work an additional job I used to work for Cambridge City Council obviously I merged with joined South Cams District Council as part of the merge Cambridge City Employees and I've spoken to a few of those about how they feel about us going to a full day week and they're quite positive I think it's good that hopefully we're going to lead the way and it'll have a domino effect with other councils and we'll lead the way and others will join on this success moving forward Thank you Well it sounds very positive Watch with care Thank you Thank you very much Councillor Ripper Councillor Ellington has kind of covered my question I was just going to ask more generally how negotiations were going around the full day working week and also is it really possible to make that not compressed hours but genuinely the full day working week when it comes to being collection sorry Councillor Batchelor first I'll hand it off this is not easy thank you chair I think I'll invite Dee to speak to that in just a second it's not easy our preface we've identified a concept that involves just working 30 minutes extra every day that will buy us quite a lot of time with two additional vehicles as well but we'll still have quite a detailed phase to go through we have upwards of 300 rounds that we're going to prepare in detail but we are quite comfortable with the idea that we have now and over the next few months we're going to be working that out in detail I'll invite Dee to just add a few more comments to that Thank you Dave Thank you chair So we have actually in the modelling stage in the very early modelling stage looked at many many different scenarios different options so we haven't just gone into it looking at just a four day week we've looked at things like could we model four days over five for instance and looked at other councils so we've done quite a lot of research gone out to see what other people do also because there are quite a few four day week collections out there but for us I think we found that this was the best model based on affordability based on mainly on the staff well-being so that's what we were focused on when we came up with this option That's councillor Llywodraeth I can see it's quite tricky balance to actually get and it is after all a three month trial I presume to assess whether it can work Thank you Thank you councillor Libby Irle Libby, have you, sorry I was looking at the tables on page 18 16 and 17 would contrast the well-being of staff before and after a four day week I'm wondering actually with the new rounds and the new way of working is that valid because we're actually now looking at the existing rounds and the existing workload being compressed into four days when we're actually looking at a more complex waste collection more housing more bin lorries to be staffed and I'm wondering how that actually is going to impact on staff health and budgets and has that actually been fully considered that we really are still fucking it to see with four day week and an increase in workload and complexity to go with it I wonder if councillor Baxter would like to comment on that councillor Baxter I know as part of the optimisation it has taken into account growth I think we saw those days slide at the very beginning of this item it also takes into account increases in crew numbers increases in vehicle numbers I think most people know we have one more electric bin lorry that is due to be with us hopefully any day now has been held up somewhat but hopefully it's with us we're on the verge of ordering another one and obviously we do have our regular fleet as well so I think the answer to the question is yes growth has been anticipated and built into the figures along with the four day working week pattern but if officers can add anything to that I'll welcome it Thank you councillor Harry maybe I'll invite Lee to add a few comments as well after me but I think just to give some reassurance that in reality the total workload that we expect people to do by the week would not increase so it's the same workload for the typical five day work every period but then it's going to be done over four days and the difference is we're going to have a few more vehicles make that happen and then actually ask people to work at extra 30 minutes every day what we expect is that the full day of rest will more than compensate for that extra 30 minutes and at the moment quite often when we do have for instance after a bank holiday some of the beans are heavier people actually do work a bit longer because you may have noticed on some rounds when unable to complete because the vehicles are full they have to come back they go the second time so already people work a little bit extra every now and then without any detriment to the health so we're hoping that we can strike this balance by introducing more vehicles and redistributing all the loads across the entire area and just asking for that 30 minutes but then having that full day of rest that the overall workload will not be significantly increased and there will be a next positive benefit to employee well-being these are helping or Mako? Go ahead Thank you chair Just to add to that 30 minutes added to the work in time in a day equates to roughly 150-200 waste containers being collected currently our organic waste teams they already work the same duration in a day they do an extended hour a day under the new system it would work up to 30 minutes for the driver in 30 minutes extra so we already have crews that are working those hours and they get additional time after the winter to compensate that and generally morale seems high they seem fine working those additional hours other councils are actually doing longer working days and we're going to do because obviously they're compacting theirs full 37 hours into the four days which are actually doing longer working days in which all crews will be doing so in terms of working time they're actually over the week they're doing less hours Thank you Just to ask the final bit of that if we are collecting food waste separately is that going to be a separate round or is that going to be done at the same time as another round? I think it would be a separate round so it needs to be collected in a separate vehicle because you have to separate the food that's the purpose of it but yeah, if someone could confirm that I think that would be good Marker Thank you chair, so the food waste collections will be done with a separate vehicle completely separate crew smaller vehicles so less emissions etc so yeah, one vehicle one driver and one operative as well unless we're in high built identity areas where we potentially have two loaders and one driver collecting the food waste where we dispose of it as obviously we don't know yet but the answer depends on the facilities that we can use I have Geoff Mimby's hand up so welcome back to council I'll just let Geoff add something to this Yes, just to reassure councillor Earl that after the end of the waste trial if it's approved we will be undertaking a wellbeing survey of the waste staff to see whether or not we get the same results as we have with the office based staff so we will have the same sort of data for waste based staff once the trial is completed so we can see whether or not the same impact on wellbeing is a place to both Thank you councillor Earl Thank you very much It's fine to move on Okay councillor Badlan Badlan Thank you chair and my question is rather similar to councillor that of rather similar to that of councillor Earl but slightly different and I'm reassured by Geoff Mimby because my thought was I'm sorry I missed Bode's presentation at the beginning but my concern was if we're asking our staff to do longer days and I appreciate that's only by 30 minutes now so that's helpful when they're working in order to give them a day off I'm just slightly concerned by the fact that we know that our long term injury rates are already higher than in our district council so I'm concerned that we may get increasing injury if we're asking our staff to do a longer day or indeed as others have pointed out they might go and work for another authority on their day off so what I'm concerned about is we need to be monitoring their health because the injury any injury that they might incur might be incurred by doing work over five days even if it's not for us so I just wanted to check whether we're going to do that monitoring of their welfare and make sure that our staff aren't inadvertently putting themselves at risk by using their obviously they're entitled to use their extra day or whatever they choose but if we need to be mindful if that's causing a risk of greater injury thank you councillor bachelor thank you so obviously the waste crews do have the highest rate of injury and absence because of the nature of the work that they do it's a very physical demanding job so I know obviously the waste service has lots of things in place to help monitor and hopefully prevent that there's huge amounts of training they go through and how to operate the service professionally and to cause themselves as little damage as possible given the nature of the work that will always happen and that will always be a risk in terms of monitoring obviously if we are going to trial this the two things that we would need to monitor would not just be performance but obviously health and wellbeing of the crews as well because if it is turning but if it is causing having a negative impact on the crews then that would have to be something that we consider but in terms of how that's monitored I will pass over to Jeff or one of the officers behind me thank you chair can I invite Lee just to comment on the health and safety aspect as well thank you Lee thank you chair you'll probably be aware that we've done some other changes to the waste service over the years especially with regard to safety so we were one of the first councils to allow our refuse staff to wear shorts which is quite pioneering in waste really to be able to do that so the changes that we're proposing may have an impact just as councillor Bradman has said with musculoskeletal injuries and things like that we've also had other changes to the service like we allow the staff to wear trainers obviously safety trainers but for all of these things including these changes we have to keep our eye on what the outfall is to those decisions because although today we allow our staff to wear shorts and trainers the statistics that I monitor myself may in the future change our mind and we may have to go back and decide that's not a good decision because if the stats are showing that we're causing more injuries to staff and there's concern then we have to review it and we should always be prepared to do that and that's what we do at the moment so I don't see that I think that we need to keep our eye on it on musculoskeletal injuries with staff I think that a half an hour extra a day is marginal I don't think it will cause too much of an issue but you are correct the injury rate so it's something that we need to monitor just like we monitor all of those other innovative things that we do to do in waste and I'm sure if something presents itself then we'll react accordingly to it Thank you I don't know if I've seen anyone else Yes, councillor, right now Thank you Thank you very much I find that reassuring but can I ask will we know and I'll skip that way because I said myself our staff are entirely it's up to them what they do on their day off but I just wonder if we do see an increase in injury just suppose I'm not saying we will but would we be in a position to know whether they were using their their non-working day to work elsewhere and if that might be having an impact on them and I'm not seeking to be draconian about this at all I just wondered whether we would know whether that was likely to be influencing their health and well-being councillor Bachelor I suppose unless they volunteered that information it'd be difficult for us to know what people do on their day off is their choice we can't be prescriptive in that if they want to take a second job doing the same job elsewhere then as far as I'm aware they're allowed to so I think the answer to that would be we wouldn't know unless that information was asked and made and then it was volunteered but yeah unless any of my colleagues can counter that I think Councillor Harry is absolutely right there's no way we're going to know but I think just sort of anecdotal evidence it's unlikely that they will go and do another waste collection job we know from colleagues that they do have another job they mostly work in a pub in a restaurant it's not the same kind of job that they do so I think it's unlikely but not impossible but we'll never be able to know and hopefully they won't go and take another waste collection job I think Lee wanted to come in as well Lee Thank you chair I just wanted to say that there are two means of being able to test that theory and one is that there is a disclosure that staff are supposed to make to say that they have got an additional job so that is an HR policy for staff to do that and some staff choose to do that at the moment and we are aware that other people have got jobs because they've disclosed it secondly there is another means to do that unfortunately it only falls towards the drivers because we have to monitor drivers hours so the staff are required to put a card into the vehicle that measures the time in time for us but our analysis also takes into account if they insert that card for other use as well so with other organisations so it's a responsibility of us to check that and make sure that our drivers are not driving too many hours Thank you That's fine thank you chair Thank you very much I would like to ask some questions please about page 22 and page 23 that's paragraph 43 through to paragraph 48 so my first question is in the two sections it mentions requiring two further vehicles are two further vehicles in total required or is it two vehicles required for the four day week and two vehicles required for growth that wasn't my first question related to that will these new vehicles be standard vehicles or will they be electric vehicles and then moving on Did we do that question? I sense your questions are going to be a series of complicated ones so it might be good to break them down as we go along so Councillor Bacheldor I'll ask officers that one Thank you chair so indeed he is correct W2 vehicles needed for four day week and in addition our two vehicles needed for growth for four day week will be now the two vehicles for growth we don't think we're going to leave them until about 15-18 months from now and at the moment they're not intended to be electric vehicles there will be a conversion of vehicles but then there will be vehicles that we can use by off well for HVU Thank you Absolutely So the vehicles which are needed due to growth will be funded by section 106 presumably and I'm looking at the costs in paragraph 43 the phrase that the costs will be charged proportionately to South Cams and Cambridge City it's not quite clear whether the figures that are presented are the full costs or our share split Is that possible to clarify please? I'm going to pass backwards Thank you chair So the full cost of £132 that's for the entire service so that cost will then be shared across South Cams and Cambridge City Council and the proportion that the framework has been established it's about 57 no sorry about 51 49% roughly about that Yes Thank you Are these costs a mixture of revenue and capital So in paragraph 44 it mentions capital costs of £430 £430,000 being required across both councils It's just not quite clear how these how the costs are spreading and which bits are capital and which bits are revenue I don't know if that's something that could be expanded on when this part goes to cabinet is that that sort of fleshed out a little bit more so that it becomes more transparent please Councillor Batchelor I was just going to say yes I'm sure that can be expanded when the full paper does come to cabinet Sorry, before we move on is it possible to answer Councillor Lin's question at the moment if any officer is able to answer the question that she's asked related to capital as opposed to revenue or capital Thank you chair And yes, thank you for that comment We've actually improved on this We've now presented these figures in a tabular format So the figure of £132,000 that's revenue and the figure of £430 that's capital So we'll split them clearly into a table that shows revenue and capital in the report that's going to cabinet Thank you Councillor Lin me I think that's it actually Thank you, Councillor Coe Thanks very much chair My question was on the timing of the introducing the four day working week and whether it's the right time to do that given the cycles that the head of service alluded to at the beginning So normally we would review and re-evaluate the service every three to five years and currently we're five years out from that so well in need of that service to be reviewed and re-evaluated Will we really get a true comparison if we are evaluating or comparing a service that is five years out from being re-evaluated to what we see with a four day working week Are we going to get a true comparison or do you think it would be better to introduce the four day working week at a later stage when you've re-evaluated the system in its current form to get a more true comparison I think I'll pass to officers in that one if that's okay chair Thank you chair I think the reality is there's not a perfect timing for anything but the timing we're working to actually it's quite fortunate for several reasons one is that we do need additional vehicles and this is going to be a trial we want to be able to do this trial without incurring two more significant costs or the permanent business quite fortunately we have five, six new vehicles in June so the two additional vehicles that we need we don't have to incur any capex so typically a service like ours which is quite efficiently run will replace our vehicles every seven to eight years so four or five of those vehicles in the year seven they still have a little bit of life left so luckily we can actually get two vehicles for at least another year for free without having to pay the capital cost so in that way the four day week trial benefits from not having to kill any capital cost the timing is also right because we know like I said at the beginning there's a lot more changes to come from national governments the one that we know is going to happen in the next 18 months, two years is mandating the weekly production of food waste if we can optimise the service now and actually get four day week going we actually then have a full working day that's available to use we also have the capacity of some of those vehicles on that non-working day so I think quite a few things work in our favour with this timing at the moment Thank you for that one sir Councillor Hope right I actually have four questions and I think I'll ask them once in time if that's okay the first question is about the four day week trial and specifically about the comparisons with other four day week arrangements and four day week trials in the report and so that's page 16 paragraphs 25 and 26 which talks about the office based south canons trial I think and page 19 paragraphs 29 and 31 which talks about four day week experiences with other councils so my observation in reading on that is that quite a few of these examples are rather different from what is proposed here so of course the office based trial is fundamentally different from a bin collection round trial and many of the potential efficiency gains in office based trial are very different from the potential efficiency gains for a bin collection trial and so I suppose I'm feeling rather cautious about the reference there because I think it's difficult to take lessons from one example and apply it to another more specifically that there are references to several other councils who have operated four day week arrangements and the comments are that some of them are clearly condensing the same number of hours into different days creating very long our days so our proposal is different from that so really my question is are there any other councils that have adopted an arrangement that is very similar to the one that we're proposing and if so are you able to make specific reference to those examples and their experience as opposed to this much larger collection of examples many of which are quite different from the arrangement that we're proposing Councillor Baxter Thank you, absolutely agree that the office based trial that's happening here is a lot different to that of the refuse collection team, that is they're two completely different types of work so I appreciate that they have been contrasted in the reports but in reality there are two different work streams I agree with you there in terms of other local authorities that are currently doing it that we can compare with top of my head but I'm sure colleagues behind me will do for you Okay, thank you chair and I think I said at the beginning that we are pioneers in this we wish we could learn from somebody else in reality we haven't come across anybody else in the UK or elsewhere who's done this so I know there's nobody we can learn from at the moment but we have actually learned from those who are doing four-day we can in a different way like D mentioned we explored four-day five which is the pattern that others do already that will have involved a lot more vehicles and therefore more expensive but also people that actually do four days their crews are working longer hours so again we know that other people are working 40 hours of our four days and therefore if our crews are working 32 hours we are much more comfortable that it's less likely to result in injury because that's what work much longer we've also learned from them in terms of what's the best day to choose at the beginning by default we actually thought that the best day to avoid was Monday I can picture the top that we work on Monday we are not settled yet in terms of whether the best day is Monday to Thursday or Tuesday to Friday but we are learning examples from others how they have picked which day to be done on working there and what the benefits are so there's nobody we have been able to learn from in terms of the full working practices but we have gained insight from people that are working four days in different ways and I think the benefits of the office bed which is very very different is that we know that there are well-being benefits of having that resting so that's the main thing and we know that staff actually go away and do other things on their non-working day that's then beneficial in terms of they're coming back and feeling refreshed and energized to work on their working day so that's the benefits of the office office-based office-based example that we have but I think the other big thing is everybody wants to make this work so we started this journey about November December and at the beginning we had some there was no idea that was wrong it was a case of a courage everybody to think out of the box we had some crazy thoughts like using drones to collect waste so sitting down here and doing a waste collection with drones we've not been able to hone all those ideas into where we are now so I think my comment is that whilst there isn't any road map to where we want to get to we are all working on this collectively and other countries where like I said we have a critical friend in Hones District Council that's all coming together to try and learn as we join it and hopefully we're going to head off the destination that actually is very very effective Thanks for having me Thank you I think that's a really comprehensive answer I now totally understand the situation I hadn't quite understood it from the report but I think that's very clear Thank you I have three other questions So my second question was more straightforward so it was about the net environmental impact of the move to Four Days and I think in the report there was a comment that there will be more bin lorries will be required which of course is an environmental cost but fewer rounds will be required which is saving and I wasn't quite clear whether or not the net environmental impact full life cycle taking into account everything around that was positive or negative and I wondered if that had been worked out or maybe it's not clear I suppose you could comment on that Thank you Council Bachelor Thanks, not clear to me at this stage Can I write a D to respond to that please Day? So with the vehicles you'll save a day going out but you'll collect a few extra bins so there should be a saving because the vehicle won't have to travel the same distance and then when you're looking at the staff commutes we don't say it's 20% less emissions from staff commutes because I think the report acknowledges there is a displacement so staff won't necessarily be at home all day, they'll go out and do leisure activity for instance so they will still use carbon emissions that they still will travel so hopefully that makes some sense Absolutely right So I'm still not clear whether we expect the overall impact to be positive or negative If we don't know yet then that's fine as an answer but I just wondered what your feeling was about whether the overall impact is likely to be positive or negative I think it will definitely be overall impact negative, no question We can't quantify it yet but I think we know that two things, one, a cruise not coming to work on one day I hope they won't be travelling as much as not coming to work that would not save them money So some of them journey from as far as Peterborough or beyond so definitely they will save a whole day of not coming to work because I think there will be savings there but also when it comes to the vehicles there will be a bit more vehicle journeys on some of the days but overall we will be saving at least 60% of the vehicle journeys because the bulk of the vehicles will not be going out on one day so there will definitely be a net savings environmentally, we will quantify that as we go forward Absolutely right Thank you very much, that's very clear That's the third question So this was about the costs now you've already commented on this and it may be that you've already answered my question but I wasn't quite sure so I'm going to ask it anyway and hope that it's useful So it was to do with the the costs of additional vehicles related to the mood for days and whether or not the overall increase in costs is a long-term increase in running costs which we expect on a per capita basis for the population that we're serving or whether these are short-term additional costs related to the additional capital and I wasn't quite sure whether, I couldn't quite often report whether those additional costs were temporary and would tail off or whether we expected the additional costs to be built in as additional running costs in the long-term That's the answer back to you I'll hand it over to officers for that detail Thank you chair I think the figures put it here they are not temporary costs so we've showed the costs for year 1 152,000 and then year 2,000 and those are revenue costs and those will be more or less stable after year 2 however in the medium to long-term we'll expect them to tail off so like I said at the beginning for instance we know that for every 3,000 houses we need at least one more vehicle as a rule of thumb for our service in the last five years we've only had net one or two vehicle increases in terms of to cater for a growth of 13,000 houses so we'll be able to absorb a lot of additional growth by really really optimizing the use of the vehicles so even though this will be additional costs for those two vehicles we expect that we can then use these new rounds beyond their ordinary capacity and therefore save on introducing new vehicles for that underline That's great, thank you so we're expecting the costs to tail off and that's wonderful thank you that's clear fourth question on my lap Yes, thank you so this is very simple really I wondered what assumptions have been made in all these predictions about waste demand around the issue of overall waste reduction now of course we want to reduce the overall amount of waste that we're collecting but we don't know how much we'll be able to reduce that by so really my question was are these are all the predictions in the report based on demand as opposed to household or per capita remaining constant and so any waste reduction that we achieve would that be a next improvement on the situation as described in the report or are there some assumptions in the report around waste reduction that are built in Chancellor Baxter Yeah absolutely we're trying to as Bodie mentioned earlier we are trying as a waste collection service to and as a council here to encourage people to reduce their waste consumption a lot of that involves sorry human behavioural change which is never easy but that is what we are attempting to do in terms of the detail you've asked for about how that number is calculated again I'll be handing back to the experts behind me Bodie Thank you chair and it's a very valid question the answer is we haven't made any assumptions on reducing the waste growth because it's the same otherwise it's going to have been a lot easier to just say minimising growth no we haven't done that but what we have modelled is what happens if so for instance if we were to go down the route of not collecting residual waste every two weeks whatever three weeks we now know that we will need so many vehicles reduced numbers so for instance if we have 11 refuse vehicles now for residual we know that if we are connecting waste on a three weekly but not two weekly raises that will go down to like nine vehicles we have modelled how many vehicles we need for the food waste collection based on quite a wide variety of participation rates so if we introduce weekly food waste collection tomorrow and we assume we have a participation rate of about 70% how many vehicles do we need we have modelled all that so we have all those data sets at a disposal so that when those new services are now being introduced we have a very good understanding of how we can make that happen but also what the net impact will be but we haven't used those for our model at the moment we've modelled them but for four days a week we assume the same waste production going forward so any reduction will be net benefit but it's unlikely to translate into any reduction in vehicles that quickly Thank you that's all very clear and it's really good to hear about all this modelling and the different scenarios I can see that that's going to be tremendously useful as things change thank you Thank you I have a few questions I'll run to them they're not huge complicated detailed ones talk a little bit about the legislative changes that are happening nationally and there's clearly some challenges there some uncertainties around there but there are some opportunities and I think you've got a very good approach to seeing what can be done there in that context there was a reference in the report about the fact that recycling makes have stagnated recently in the council I was wondering what evidence there is at the moment that you have about the reasons for that whether that is something that we could look at specifically a bit more possibly alongside this issue of overall waste production because obviously sometimes it gets confused and the incentives go a bit wrong but to that that's my first point I have a presentation to think about the report there's a good chunk in the I think I've got 28 about the benefits of the move for the four-day week I think it's sort of to demonstrate a bit more a sort of balance discussion about it some sort of the challenges disbenefits and risks sort of in a similar format would be helpful I don't know whether that's feasible type of cabinet comment also on the implementation of the four-day week here you sort of started partly answering my question which was are you going to be doing just four days so the office based staff is sort of any four days among the five during the working week but here you're talking about everybody doing four days the whole service being four days and that has both benefits in terms of vehicle servicing for example a bit more resilience there are also disadvantages in that you have to have more vehicles have you looked at doing something more like the office where you're operating for five days but having staff doing four of those five days or is it just not how the service works and then finally on the decision making do we know much about the city decision making is that sort of scheduled does that have to happen in parallel to our decision making I don't think there's a reference to that I can repeat any of those questions Thanks I have a punter two of those four so the way the report's presented absolutely if it's easier to present the benefits of the four-day week when the paper goes to cabinet I don't think that will be an issue to change the way the information is presented I think that's a relatively straightforward thing if that's easier for people to read in terms of decision making I know the city council's decision making is running as parallel to our process as possible so it's going through their scrutiny process which is slightly different from ours and then also through subsequently through their cabinet so it is running as parallel as is possible so they're not making this decision in a year's time so they're making it roughly the same time that we will be and how the implementation of the four-day week was calculated ie people spread the work over five days over four, is it a prescriptive four days I will hand that one to officers of how that was come to and in terms of recycling rates and the evidence around why that is reducing again I will ask the professionals for their view on that one thank you and team picking up the range of questions thank you chair and just to give some additional context we actually have some dates pending for the city council consultation so we have a meeting with the scrutiny resources committee on the third of July we've actually had an informal meeting already just came back to your questions the recycling rates it's a very very valid point and we have done quite a bit of research recently I will ask D to comment on that just after me we know that we are now hovering about 50-52 per time recycling rates we know that the top performing councils across the country that are in this mid 60 rates they all have quite a few things that we don't have so for instance they all collect food with on a weekly basis and they almost all have a three weekly collection of residuals so if your black bin is not being collected on a fortnightly basis then you are forced to recycle more and fill your blue bin so we know that those two criteria have quite a leapfrog impact on the recycling percentage you want to add anything quickly D? yes so on the benefits it talks about the aim is to reduce the number of agency staff and reliance on them and if that happens what it should result in is less miss bins because at the moment we employ quite a number of agency staff that are not familiar with our rounds and it does mean that they miss more bins than if they were permanent staff now obviously if you reduce the number of miss bins you will increase hopefully the recycling because you will be collecting more and it means that people won't end up putting their recycling into black bins when the bins are missed thank you and then in terms of implementation like I said we are just at the beginning and I will be looking to Marco and Lee to crack that knot before I come back in a few days we are going to be doing four days of our five in terms of the back office so for instance what we are presenting so far is really about the domestic service we have a tradeway service that has to run over seven days because restaurants and pubs they have collections at the weekends so again that will give an opportunity for people who are not working on five days maybe to work over time with a tradeway service so because we have a service that has to be done over seven days we will have team leaders the likes of Marco and Lee and our team supervisors working four days over five but also to give us that full balance for instance being able to service on the day they are not being used our fleet manager Robin will likely be working on the day that the fleet is not being used so the back office system will very, very much likely be four days over five but also the tradeways business will likely be I don't know what the factorial of four days over seven is or the reverse but it will not be a four day service so we are still working on those details but not everybody working to restrict four days thank you very much OK, to move on nothing else to add OK Chancellor Stobart thank you chair so the question is around how to how the model will be validated once data begins to emerge so there is a model and that will have you know the parameters if you will associated with what's chosen what works but as the data comes in what is the process of in a sense reconciling what's seen in practice with what the model's predicted and so how will that validation process work that's the first question second is around the type of vehicles I mean we have touched on vehicles and conventional technology vehicles but there are other possibilities as well perhaps hybrid, perhaps hydrogen, fuel and so on how do the vehicles and also their mode of operation fit into the modelling framework and how quickly could that be updated if there was some data to indicate perhaps those vehicles working less than optimally I suppose you can't keep going back to the consultant and say keep running this model just to check this data to see if it's correct or to update a vehicle operation so how does that work how often will this assessment be done so I'll stick to those two questions one about validation one about how vehicle technology type can be included in the modelling system that we've been discussing and for Bachelor two very technical questions which I'm going to pass on byday thank you chair I'll invite Michael to talk about the model validation process in just a few minutes but I'll answer the second question first so the ideal mix that we're looking for in our fleet is about 50-50 at the moment we have an entire fleet including the trade rest vehicles 45 vehicles our target is to have about 24 vehicles that are electric and then the remainder to be a hybrid of vehicles that we can either use Bio24 or other more advanced systems so for instance we know that the electric vehicles are the ones that have the least range and therefore they cannot go very far with Bio4 there's no restriction on the range so by the time we reach a stage where we have half a fleet of electric vehicles any advancements that come beyond that we know it's better than the electric vehicles we have so for instance if hydrogen becomes more viable there will be no restrictions on how far hydrogen vehicles can go at the moment we can't send an electric vehicle from a death point water beach all the way to gambling gate it won't be able to come back on the required battery charge so we have a limited range of electric vehicles to the range that can go and not more than about half of our fleet when there are advancements and we have better vehicles we know that there will be no restrictions and therefore it will be a life for life replacement and no need for any more than enough for them the challenge we have is that hydrogen vehicles are still quite expensive they are more than double the cost of electric vehicles so we still think that's quite a few years away but to answer the question we are going to limit electric vehicles because we have and then beyond that it will be a very simple life for life replacement in terms of model validation Maco has been through this with us after a few times so if you can add some more comments on that please Maco So the important thing is the legwork that we put in initially to check the rounds before we even roll them out so we have a piece of software called Dennis Connect which tracks the rounds, speeds times in and out of the states the tonages as they enter and leave the states so what we are hoping to do is produce heat maps for the crews rounds for the crews, well in advance was going live, getting crew involvement engagement involved prior to the go live date, cross checking all that data with the staff making sure they are feeding back to us any issues that they pick up, I mean the previous software picked up the river cams a road in Cambridge and we have done it in Cambridge City that was highlighted early on luckily that you couldn't drive through that obviously once we go live we will be relying on staff feedback, close monitoring of the crews, logging the detail on spreadsheets of amount of bin lifts so our Dennis Connect software also picks up on bin lifts as well it can feed that data back to us, we know how many lifts they are doing a day how the mileage as I said before then we will cross-chat information by data team and make sure that the crews are actually doing the amount of work that we expect them to do as much as just not looking at finish times just assuming that the route is not achievable cross-checking that information, feeding that back cross-checking that data with ISL's data that they have given us before we go live Thank you Rick, and just after that we haven't nailed down the start date so we expect that the detailed rounds will be ready by June and then we are going to try and use the fall of July to actually review the rounds where the process that Marco has said but if it takes longer it's going to take longer so we are not going to go live be comfortable that we have checked and double checked that the rounds are actually doable before we actually implement them so we will have quite detailed checks before we go live That's a statement Very satisfactory set of answers Validation is tricky because of the need to gather reliable sources of data but Marco has outlined a process which seems very solid so good degree of assurance in those replies, thank you chair Thank you very much Councillor Bradman Can you hear me? We can, yes My microphone is showing strange messages which I have not seen before This is fairly straightforward A paragraph 46 on page 22 in the middle of that paragraph it says the estimated costs for the four day week trial approximately 33,000 per council would be funded from the services operational budget In paragraph 48 which is the introduction to the table it says the summary of costs for both elements is set out below for the whole service not split by council and then it says the three month trial the route optimization for day week is 33,000 so I'm not quite sure whether the 33,000 per council is mirrored in that table where it says 33,000 for the whole service and that would seem to be if it's 33,000 it would seem that might be 15,000 per council or only one council is going to do it first so it's 33,000 Do you see what I mean? Are you with me? I'm sort of looking at Peter Maddock because I'm wondering if this is a money thing I think if I can come in please chair it Po day has already got his red lights on it's okay Peter, po day is there Thank you for spotting that Councillor Bradman it's an error that's at a three should be 16.5 that's at a three split across two councils I'm glad I waited to speak another time because I just thought you'd want to get these papers right for Cabot so should it be 16,000 in the table on paragraph 46 it should be 16,000 per council so it's 132 for the year so it's 33 for the three month trial and then we split that two ways so it's about 16.5 for each council it's paragraph 46 that needs to be corrected Okay, thank you very much Thank you very much Okay, Councillor Bradman Yes, good Thank you for letting me have a second go I think this is quite a straightforward question I hope Page 22 when it talks about paragraph 44 it just says initially these will be absorbed this is about additional vehicles with an inventory etc and then by retaining and extending our current vehicle fleet beyond the typical seven year lifetime etc I'm just wondering what the risk is there with them breaking down I know you'll have the Monday in which to service them and I get the impression that after two years should the four day working week continue that then the cost will arise from buying new vehicles Have I read that correctly? That's what that's about I believe so I'm just having a read of it now just to double check I think it's pretty sensible if hand over to officers to give you the detail on that Okay Thank you Chair Yes, you're correct Okay, and you've obviously kind of risk assessed this so like with the food waste collection vehicle for example it broke down but I understand that that's because it was 10 years old and on its last legs but you kind of Exactly that this will be working and the time period can be covered by the slightly older fleet That's the plan so the food waste vehicle we're able to use it for an additional three years and then it began to break down more right on the end of that year 10 so we're hoping that we get at least two and a half good year service from these vehicles before we then need to replace them Yes Great, thank you very much and Councillor Leaming your hand has gone up again Thank you Chair This is quite a this is going to page 27 appendix A is to do with the sort of imminent changes coming through the Government's resources and waste strategy I was interested in the deposit return scheme point Is that going to be something that will be a district council responsibility Will that come under our commercial waste set up or would that be something that was dealt with by central government or by county and I'm just wondering I mean it's such a big thing to introduce across the country what sort of infrastructure would that involve it's an incredible new thing to take on Thank you Councillor Huge bit of work that would need to be done and my understanding is it would be the collection authorities i.e. us that would need to that would bear the brunt of that but it would take a lot of planning but lucky that one isn't as imminent as some of the others but if Officers Bode anyone wants to comment further Thank you Chair Indeed just that to what Councillor Harry said it will likely be a district council district councils it's still a bit of a time off and the government is not quite prescriptive yet Scotland was going to be leading the way we were just announced last week, ten days ago Scotland has now postponed their own implementation the government has indicated that that we need for collectors so it's to be open to everybody but the people who already have the infrastructure the vehicles to make this happen will be the district councils I don't think the government intends to put obligation on us to do that but absolutely we see it as an opportunity and because we have quite an efficient trade business we'll be looking to get into that business of collecting DRS containers, yes as part of our commercial service but the framework is not yet finalised by the government Thank you very much for that really interesting answer I have nobody else on the list I have Councillor Stobart again, he's about to say that will be me but at the moment we have Councillor Stobart if anyone else wishes to ask any questions councillors please be ready Councillor Stobart Thank you for letting me in at the last moment it was just something around this discussion of ideas, concepts I think in the modelling process there was talk of quite a lot of variance of the model, this exciting thought of drones the waste and so on but I just wanted to be sure that those ideas however wacky we're going to be retained in the corporate memory somehow so apart from anything else there are the things that we didn't choose and we know why we didn't choose them or the things that we could go to in the future and say well that was exciting and now the time has come so I just wanted to comment on that maybe just ask for some feedback yes we've done that and it's in the corporate memory Quick feedback is there was nodding while you were speaking but we'll absolutely check Councillor Baxman So I think that has been noted and we are as a service always looking for new innovative ways to collect people's rubbish and as the drone ideas but now committed to film we are it's now on the record I'm sure officers can explain further but I don't think whether discounting anything is the truth if there is a new more efficient technologically appropriate way to collect rubbish then absolutely it will be considered Anything to add? No okay so I don't see any other hands up so therefore I will come to myself I have four sort of topic questions I want to ask I have a couple of very short questions to begin with which just need kind of quick number answers and it may be Councillor Baxman's issue may actually end up going towards Liz or Peter or whoever How many hours on average what is a full time contract for a waste operative in terms of hours? I'm going to handle officers 37 hours 37 What is a full time contract in terms of hours for an office member of staff at South Camson same okay and then my next little bit is on the paper regarding how the four day week for waste officers are being managed you referred a couple of times both in the paper and your explanation here that the waste officers would be asked to work an extra 30 minutes per day Tuesday to Friday isn't it because you're saying not on Monday Tuesday to Friday Will it be paid extra for that 30 minutes or is that 30 minutes effectively being taken off their Monday and put on to Tuesday to Friday Councillor Baxman So my understanding is there will be no change in salary so the pay would remain the same but there would be 30 minutes extra for four days of the week with the benefit of being a full day off So that brings me to my summation question in relation to that Would it be fair therefore to suggest that as successful and positive and good as this plan may well be that the waste operatives workers are not being treated the same as the office staff at South Camson District Council in the introduction of the four day week Councillor Baxman in the first instance Interesting thought I mean I will say that the waste operatives are generally quite in favour of this of the proposal and what has been put forward to them In terms of fairness I will say that the waste operatives when they learnt that the office based staff at Campbell will be going to a four day week their immediate question was why aren't we So I think the idea was always to trial the four day week in the waste service but at the same time as with the office based trial I think it is a question around productivity whereas the waste service is measured as we have been discussing today not wholly on productivity but also on whether physically it is more strenuous to them so there are the other points around that as well but if it is just a question of fairness I will say that the majority of the waste crews feel it is Liz your hand did go up I don't know whether the world is pointing towards Jeff on the screen or you were saying you wanted to speak I was going to volunteer to speak but I think Jeff is far more content to do so Jeff, memory Thank you Jeff because this is a trial it is acceptable that they are working a slightly different model because the whole idea of these trials is to test different models if this were to move to a permanent arrangement across the council then we would need to look to equalise the arrangements to avoid any allegations of unfair treatment but it is perfectly appropriate for two different trials to have slightly different models to see which works best in different arrangements Okay so in that case then I take that as an entirely fair comment at the end that as a three month trial if something has been different at that time back to the purpose of us as scrutiny looking at this report one of the things is related to recommendations to cabinet and it strikes me that what you've just said there Jeff is not covered in the report because the report does not say that at the end of the three month trial there will have to be a further review of the staffing the hours the rounds or anything else and one of the things that were said earlier by officers that is necessary to have the extra half an hour Tuesday to Friday because that is the only way that the four day week can basically be made to work I realise I'm slightly paraphrasing but that was basically what was said so therefore I would take it from what you've just said that assuming this trial goes ahead and is successful and it is then made permanent in order to ensure equalisation of treatment of all staff within the district council under the four day week is going to be necessary for a further report and a further re-optimisation of rounds and a further investigation of how to organise this in order to take away that extra half an hour that waste workers are being required to work Tuesday to Friday or it's going to be necessary to completely re-appraise the office staff's work to add an extra half an hour in order to create equalisation I'm both saying that and I'm asking that as a question and if anybody in terms of either councillor bachelor or one of the senior officers would like to say that what I've just said is wrong I am happy to be corrected but that is my interpretation of what I am hearing Jeff I understand the report on the asking for an extension of the office based trial refers to the fact that there may need to be amendments in light of the results of I think the understanding is this report today is just asking for an initial trial in waste but both in terms of of this trial and if agreed an extension to the office based trial we would need to continue to review how the four day week is progressing in both arenas and decide where it's appropriate to make changes to equalise if we were to become a permanent four day week employer but that could be in either area but just to finish off my point of relations what it does mean is that we as members of the council need to be aware of the fact that this is not the end point and I don't just mean it's a three month trial but what is proposed here is my definition not going to be the end point because if it's successful it's coming back to it my second point is I am struck by the conversation in relation to the fact that obviously though the waste operatives carry out physical labour whereas our office workers people such as myself who work in the school go back to an office worker do not so therefore by definition we are moving the four day week trial which based on the data that's been provided to us so far called a success and we are transferring it into the waste operatives that waste service which is any more physical service I am struck by the fact that clearly there are in some ways greater problems of doing this because the questions that have been asked by a couple of other members Councillor Earl for instance, Councillor Hobro which have then been answered by officers in particular have referred to the fact that it's going to be necessary to ensure that we monitor in every possible way the potential impact on the waste operatives of asking to work longer and we had explained to us about the fact that it will be necessary to make sure that the excellent training which Bode and others have referred to in meetings before and I always think it's a really impressive thing about protecting health and safety of workers but I am struck by that so my question at this time to Councillor Batch in the first instance do we have a responsibility to recognise that we are potentially creating conditions for our waste operatives in which our workers are placed at greater risk by working an extra half an hour a day and because we are removing one of their working days and it has been accepted that they are likely to go and some of them are likely to go and take extra work on an extra day that we have physical workers who we are explaining the working day of and who are then going to choose as a result of that free time or their level of pay that they are going to work an extra day so would it be fair to say that we absolutely need to recognise that our actions are creating an extra risk for our employers Councillor Batch so my view on that is that I don't think we are creating extra risk I believe that if I ask the waste operatives to work half an hour longer it doesn't create any extra risk but obviously there is risk with the job so asking them to work more hours in the day is essentially extending the period at which risk can occur so I don't think we are creating anything extra by asking them to work half an hour a day but obviously the longer a crew works i.e. the longer they are out on the road lugging bins up and down the street the more chance there is for some physical damage in terms of what they do in their day off I don't think we as a council have much control over that so if they do choose to go out and do another physically demanding job I don't think that would be as a result of the district council asking them to work four days a week that would be a personal choice they've made in how they spend their time it's my view before I move to the officers I just want to come back on that one do we not have a duty care as their employer when we have chosen to change the way in which their working structure is that in terms of that duty care of the employer we have therefore changed their working time which creates the opportunity for them to go and work on that extra day I accept completely your point about his personal choice absolutely people should be able to make their choice but what I've heard from the conversation is we will need to monitor this and make sure that we are constantly aware of what they do so you agree that it will need to be monitored and as you've heard from officers and others that is part of the plan as we go through the trial in terms and you are right we do have a responsibility of care for all of our staff and you know specifically people in the waste service have a much more physically demanding job than the office based we do have a duty of care to them and as we've also heard from officers that the care that is given especially in occupational health to our waste service is in my view excellent at the shared service but yeah as I said I think my view is I don't think we're particularly adding to the risk we do have a duty of care I believe we're just what we are doing is extending a working day well actually if you think about it we are actually producing the number of hours they will be working in the entire week so I suppose there's two ways to look at it but I don't know if any officers want to say anything you want to add to that thank you chair I think I'm like the team I've explained we actually looked at quite a few main options and we've picked this not because it's the easiest by any means at all but because on balance we believe it's the one that gives off the best well-being for our colleagues because if we were to look at other options it involves working longer hours but also if you look at working four days over five it involves working longer hours as well so I think we've picked this because the primary reason apart from the benefits for costs, for retention, for recruitment the whole reason for four day a week is well-being of colleagues our opinion is that this gives the best well-being solution because they actually get a full day off and they are only giving back 30 minutes every day so that's why we've picked this option and I think on balance like Councillor Henry said it's almost impossible for us to control what they do on their day off but I think our duty of care has been fulfilled by picking what we believe is the best well-being option for them and yes we're trying to encourage them to do, not to do and work on on their non-working day but I think on balance we've done sort of we've fulfilled our own duty of care I think Lee wants to add something else Thank you Chair, I just want to do it elaborate because when Councillor Bradman mentioned about the health and safety concerns we just dealt with musculoskeletal type injuries and I just wanted to add some reassurance that even in the current circumstances our waste workers work unusual hours, they work to a task and finish arrangement which quite often gives them a significant amount of time in the afternoons to do the things that they want to do and some of those things are extra jobs so it's not uncommon for the staff to go and work for someone like Deliveroo or another organisation in the afternoon, in the evenings we'd even had colleagues doing taxiing and things like that through the night which is not beneficial to us in the daytime because we see trends in accidents and stuff like that but I just wanted to reassure you that those are the things that we look for especially those points that I've just made so we've actually found colleagues to be doing practices like that and they're not doing them for light reasons, they're doing them sometimes out of necessity but we do deal with that and we do speak to people and we do take their well-being into consideration for those things, we've found people who have been sleeping in the car and all sorts of strange arrangements due to their personal circumstances so just like the health and safety side of things people's well-being is at the top of our consideration so we do look out for those considerations and there's no reason under this plan why we wouldn't keep doing that Thank you, thank you to the three of you for that reassuring answer related to the work that I know that you do in terms of the thing My third question will go to councillor Baxter in the first instance One of the things when the four-day week was first introduced was the idea of cost neutrality and the fact that the four-day week would be a cost neutral programme and I can recourse it in the meetings and hearing this As far as I understand it with the qualification that came from councillor Baxter's question the three month trial will cost £33,000 The year one introduction of the four-day week for the waste service will cost £132,000 year two will cost £207,000 and within one of the paragraphs within paragraph 44 it refers to the fact that there is a £55,000 annual contribution to vehicle renewal and replacement fund related to the introduction of the four-day week so I just wondered councillor Baxter where these extra costs for the four-day week for the waste service should be interpreted related to the original suggestion that the four-day week would be a cost neutral exercise for the council So clearly for the waste service it wouldn't be a cost neutral exercise because you have to buy new stuff so I think the cost neutrality is probably referring to the office based trial of the four-day week clearly as you can see in the highlights in the paper there will be a cost to the service which has been budgeted for it is an additional cost so I don't know if that answers your question I suppose the answer is it wouldn't be cost neutral in the first instance Would you say that it is a valid investment on behalf of councillor taxpayers in South Cams for an overall improved service Yes My interpretation of it would be that that what's actually happening here is we are improving the lots as the gentleman said regarding worthy conditions hopefully with all the things that are in place and then hopefully we can improve the overall service and the environmental benefits as an investment Okay and my final part relates to 0.7D which is to do with the Cambridge City Council and their needing to approve it Now that's been tackled a bit during the meetings that's absolutely fine My final question in relation to that is what is plan B if on the 3rd of July which is the date I think I heard Bode refer to what is plan B on the 3rd of July Cambridge City Council doesn't agree to do the 4 day week trial in the waste service So we need both partners ourselves and Cambridge City to sign up to it as we are a shared service we can't do one without the agreement of both parties so I would sincerely hope that they as we are doing now is going through quite a robust process and is doing so at the City Council as well I know as the City Council aren't going through a 4 day week their office based staff there has had to be additional work done for the members of Cambridge City Council to get them up to speed as it were on how things on what the proposals are So my hope would be that by the time we get to July and it does go to the school committee of the city all the members will have the opportunity to ask any specific questions they may have obviously it will be scrutinised at the school committee as well and then it would then go to the city council's cabinet for a decision so my strong hope would be that it wouldn't fail at that stage but as you say this is politics and anything could happen in that at the end of the day so in terms of plan B if the city council decided not to go with it then my understanding would fall and we wouldn't continue with the trial and we'd just continue as we are now Would it be fair to say that the waste service and yourself as the relevant cabinet member would have gained benefits from the optimisation review and process that you've done? Yes absolutely I'm struck by the fact it has to get through it but listening to all the things that you and others have said this evening there's clearly so much work that's gone into this and I think it strikes me that collectively both yourself and the officers behind you have clearly looked at this kind of a fresh and perhaps a different way to which you would have done otherwise by trying to make it work the four day week and I feel that can only be a benefit to the service and to council taxpayers in south camps generally even if our city council colleagues were to decide that it wasn't for them but as you say Councillor Batger let's hope that that isn't what happens Excellent so that brings us to the end of the questions in relation to the report which was 0.6 on the programme so therefore we moved to 0.7 on the work programme in the first instance if I can go to Councillor Stobart and ask for an update on the work of the task and finish group working on youth engagement Councillor Stobart Thank you chair so this is an update you recall from last time we were busily engaged in if you will interview discussion programme with various groups so I'm just going to say a little about that but I'd like to start this report with a comment on the methodology now for groups such as this we do need to have a methodology with the kind of things that we're learning in a rational way that we can explain so we are accountable for the kind of process that we're going to use but it will be fairly straight forward so on the advice of colleagues in the group that we kicked around at the last meeting what we'll be looking for is themes so those themes will be supported by evidence so things that people have said that have got reinforced perhaps through several different meetings or meetings in different context with different people we will be looking to in a sense identify what those themes are and associate evidence with them there may be themes that we expected that didn't show up and there may be themes which are rather thinly supported rather than richly supported but we will identify the difference between those but one of the first things that we will do once we feel that we've got the evidence to hand is to get together as a group identify with the help of officers themes and then associate evidence with those themes so that will become the, if you will, framework from which or within which a report will be then produced by officers so that was what came from our last meeting and perhaps invite comment from committee members in a moment two other meetings that we had we had a very useful quite brief but quite intense and informative discussion with the planning service representatives representatives of the planning service and just a couple of things that came out of that which I think are worth noting is that I think a more robust and direct engagement with young people who wouldn't naturally be drawn to consultation with the planning process would be appropriate. I mean we kicked that idea around a little bit and you could say that in some of the things the planning service has done then there has been a kind of useful interaction between the planning service and perhaps local schools in an area where a development is taking place something that has in a sense a richer technology strand and a more if you will robust presentation of the planning process to young people's groups. Now therein lies a big challenge and I think the planning service is already stretched and to add a great deal to their workload would be inappropriate so we've got some work to do in there to perhaps come up with some recommendations that are reasonable, actionable but reasonable. I think one thing area that we might want to explore is going from the specific in other words engagement with a particular group concerning particular development, something that's a little more generic and applicable that actually reduces the workload of members of the planning service and yields very good results. The other thing I think John Dixon mentioned was that I think it was the planning process as a series of consultations but some of them are quite rigorously enforced and statutory and so we have to understand I think in the way we deal with the planning service the way we interact and discuss that there are areas of flexibility in areas that are quite rigid so that I think was a useful piece of context. I did subsequently go and talk to Water Beach Action for Youth that's a quite well known youth club group and I spoke to the 14s to 18s with the help of a couple of the youth workers and a very helpful kind of discussion. They did sit down and they talked to me which I think was quite an achievement and we were talking about a whole variety of things but just to give you an idea the notion of hanging out is really a consistent theme it pops up in almost every situation where we've had the discussion with young people space to hang out which is initially perhaps retail space so where's the fast food where is, what kind of fast food so we had quite a discussion about where the five guys would fit with some of our new town concepts and one of the things they were saying about five guys was it's too expensive you know how much fries cost at five guys the questions and so that notion of a kind of healthy fast food if it's not a contradiction is somehow getting lost space to hang out couples quite nicely with a concern that we've been building about how young people build social capital and that leads on to other things like co-housing and some of the things we talk about in regard to development of communities and so on there are teams and tips coming out so we'll go back to work thank you for your leave at the end of the meeting was my intention to thank our waste services team for their time here this evening but as one of them is getting up to leave which is absolutely fine because we are done with you but I just particularly wanted to acknowledge the contributions this evening of Pode and Dee and Marco and Lee which was really really helpful and really appreciate your time but as you were getting up to leave the three of you are still here sorry councillor, stay by and interact with you yes nearly done sorry I'm taking it a little longer than I thought so I will and fellow members of the group are very welcome to join me I will circulate a date talk to the younger group so that was the 14s to 18s it's quite a challenging group to engage with but they have got a lot to say and I think councillor you yourself have had a lot to say that we are into the school group to engage with and then just on voting civics and politics we could have gone on for a long time talking about civics and politics and we get that kind of surprise on the part of that age group when you start talking about the real world of politics that kind of disbelief but that's something for another time just to finish off we've only had a very limited discussion on organisations and I would like to have at least one other for us to consider so Tracy Brockman and I had a chat about that and we've got a little action plan to see if we can find another organisation with which we can engage so that's a kind of update and I'm ready to take some questions I don't know if anyone has any questions this is usually the point to which councillor Heather Williams will ask us a question was I don't know if councillor Cain do you have anything? Just to say thank you for leading the task and finish group and all the work that you've put in so I know it's been quite an extensive project co-ordinating lots of people so thank you for doing that councillor Badlan, I saw your hand Thank you I was just thinking about engaging with young people in a commercial situation and I just thought one of the ways you might possibly consider doing that is strangely by the Farmland Museum because the Farmland Museum looks at the history of agriculture in our area and there might be learning modules that could be there might be a way of engaging with school groups for example who go there and actually thinking about how trade has changed over time might actually be a way in to engaging with those groups. I'm not saying it would be ideal but it's just a suggestion Thank you we are constantly looking at how councillor Slavarta ways to go forward Thank you councillor Bradlan and in fact the Farmland Museum may well be I know there are relatively few such cultural spots in South Cambridgeshire but actually a view of that kind of heritage education location and the activity around it may very well be helpful because there's a lot of youth engagement associated Thank you The reason I suggested that is that it is a part of the audience when they are there and it would also sometimes schools might appreciate understanding that somebody there might deliver something for their students that they can prepare in advance for but then somebody else can have an engagement with them. It could be useful both ways So in regard to that particular point I think we'll note it, we may not be able to do something for this first report but I think that's one of the things we should note that we haven't done and in a sense hold it for the next generation of stuff that we'll do and there will be a next generation Thank you very much for the update councillor Slavarta on all the work you're doing as councillor James said The other part of this item is just you'll be aware that the meeting on the 11th of May 2023 has actually now been cancelled and it's been cancelled because there is simply nothing at that point in the work of the council which it is suitable for scrutinising We have done postponements before but we have lots of items on the agenda but it simply doesn't actually fit in terms of where we are so that meeting has now been cancelled you'll see there's a meeting on the 8th of June with a number of items. The meeting on the 20th of June is specifically related to local plan at this point in time that meeting has been postponed as we are waiting that work to be completed that meeting will come back on to the schedule at some point hopefully it will come back on before we get to say the end of July but we will obviously await any work that needs to be able to be done at that point Yes sorry councillor Cone I'm not sure if your hand was up and you were just pointing and then obviously as you can see the meeting came by myself councillor Cone and in senior we have planned forward on meetings at the moment 3-2 January 2024 new things can be added but we are trying to work as far ahead as possible so that our work schedule and programme is done for that Our next meeting is on the 8th of June 2023 and that is at 5.30pm for when the new council year starts the timing of the meeting moves back by 10 minutes to 5.30pm after conversations with various people where it was felt that it would be more efficient and easier, it is only 10 minutes so we haven't done it as a huge great big debate but we haven't moved the meeting back by 10 minutes was implicitly and as everyone knows at this point I always turn to Ian and I check that we haven't missed anything Ian is there anything we haven't missed this evening that we need to do Indeed so Ian this is why I always turn to at the end of the meeting because I've forgotten the most important thing So based on the discussion that we've had colleagues and based on the points that have been made and the notes that Ian would have made for the report can I ask for affirmation that we agree to move the report forward to Cabinet with the comments that have been made I can have affirmation on that Thank you very much everyone as everyone I apologize for getting a very important thing and I hope that we will be 2 hours and we have done almost exactly 2 hours Thank you very much everyone Meeting is now closed