Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 1 September 2025, 4:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 1st September 2025 at 4:00pm 

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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Nick Bridges
  2. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  3. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  4. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  5. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  6. Andrew Brown, Officer
  7. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  8. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  9. Councillor Nick Bridges
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  2. Councillor Joe Harris
  3. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  4. Andrew Brown, Officer
  5. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  6. Councillor Michael Vann
  7. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  8. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  9. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  10. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  2. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  3. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  5. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  2. Councillor David Cunningham
  3. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  4. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  2. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  3. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  4. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  5. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  6. Councillor Nick Bridges
  7. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  8. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  9. Councillor David Cunningham
  10. Andrew Brown, Officer
  11. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  12. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  13. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  14. Councillor David Cunningham
  15. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  16. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  17. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  18. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  19. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  20. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  21. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  22. Councillor Tony Slater
  23. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  24. Councillor David Cunningham
  25. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  26. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  27. Councillor Michael Vann
  28. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  29. Councillor Michael Vann
  30. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  31. Councillor Nick Bridges
  32. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  33. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  34. Councillor Nick Bridges
  35. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  36. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  37. Councillor Nick Bridges
  38. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  39. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  40. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  41. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  42. Councillor Mike Evemy
  43. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  44. Councillor Joe Harris
  45. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  46. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  47. Councillor Joe Harris
  48. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  49. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  50. Councillor Jon Wareing
  51. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  52. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  53. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  54. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  55. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  56. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  57. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  58. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  59. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  60. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  61. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  62. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  63. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  64. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  65. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  66. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  67. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  68. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  69. Councillor Nick Bridges
  70. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  71. Councillor Nick Bridges
  72. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  73. Councillor Joe Harris
  74. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  75. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  76. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  77. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  78. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  4. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  5. Councillor Clare Turner
  6. Officer
  7. Councillor Clare Turner
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
  9. Councillor Clare Turner
  10. Officer
  11. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  12. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  13. Officer
  14. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  15. Councillor Mike Evemy
  16. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  17. Councillor Joe Harris
  18. Councillor Mike Evemy
  19. Officer
  20. Councillor Joe Harris
  21. Councillor Mike Evemy
  22. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  23. Councillor Nick Bridges
  24. Councillor Mike Evemy
  25. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  26. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  27. Councillor Tony Slater
  28. Councillor Mike Evemy
  29. Councillor Tony Slater
  30. Councillor Mike Evemy
  31. Officer
  32. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  33. Councillor Michael Vann
  34. Councillor Mike Evemy
  35. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  36. Councillor David Cunningham
  37. Cabinet Member
  38. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  39. Councillor Clare Turner
  40. Officer
  41. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  42. Councillor Nick Bridges
  43. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  44. Councillor Mike Evemy
  45. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  46. Councillor Joe Harris
  47. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  48. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  49. Councillor Mike Evemy
  50. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  51. Councillor Mike Evemy
  52. Officer
  53. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  54. Councillor Mike Evemy
  55. Officer
  56. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  57. Councillor Tony Slater
  58. Councillor Mike Evemy
  59. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  60. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  61. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  62. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  2. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  3. Councillor David Fowles
  4. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  5. Councillor David Fowles
  6. Councillor Gina Blomefield
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  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
Share this agenda point
  1. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. Officer
  4. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  5. Councillor Jon Wareing
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  8. Councillor Joe Harris
  9. Councillor Mike Evemy
  10. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  11. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  12. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  13. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  14. Councillor Mike Evemy
  15. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  16. Councillor Mike Evemy
  17. Councillor Angus Jenkinson
  18. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  19. Officer
  20. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  21. Councillor Jon Wareing
  22. Councillor Jon Wareing
  23. Councillor Jon Wareing
  24. Councillor Mike Evemy
  25. Officer
  26. Councillor Jon Wareing
  27. Councillor Mike Evemy
  28. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  29. Councillor Mike Evemy
  30. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  31. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  32. Webcast Finished

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:00:09
Good afternoon, everybody. A warm welcome. I don't see any members of the public here
today or not at this point, but there may be others watching online. Welcome to you.
I want to first of all acknowledge and welcome the cabinet members and officers who will
be giving their reports to all the members of the committee and also the officers present
from Democratic Services who support overview and scrutiny in its functions.
I also have to do the normal housekeeping, the loser outside there, and if in the event
of a fire, that is also the way for a fire exit should it need to happen.
Please put on silent any mobile device or turn it off completely.
This meeting will be live streamed and will be available to view later as well through CDC's website.
If anyone wishes to film the proceedings, this is permitted, provided it does not disrupt proceedings.
So now we could go on, please.
Apologies, do we have any apologies? No apologies, thank you very much. Therefore no substitute
members either. Does anybody have any declarations of interest on items to be discussed at the
meeting? No? Excellent, we move on. We now have the minutes of the 7th and 8th July,
They were on consecutive days.
First looking through the 7th of July, has anybody got any comments, corrections?

4 Minutes

Councillor Bridges.
I have three questions because I am new.
Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:01:53
On page 10 and 11, planning fees are going up by 1 .7 per cent, but inflation is 3 .8 per
cent.
I am surprised it is low given we are scratching around for money.
Sorry, this is only about the minutes directly, if there's any corrections.
Do you have corrections for the minutes?
Oh, okay.
Well, no, I haven't got corrections.
Sorry, if you...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:21
We can be looking at that and matters arising, if you wanted to bring it up there.
So the minutes being correct, correct reporting of those minutes,
but then we also have matters arising.
So maybe that might be a thing.
Thank you.
Kazuka?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:41
Hello.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:02:45
Just to say I have notified Julia about a matter on page 28 where I think that just
needs clarification.
It's kind of probably a bit like a typo, about the 1 .852 million.
And on the minutes of July the 8th, I'm not sure whether this is an error or not an error,
but I note that it says that the Morton Working Group would only meet if the bypass was considered
viable.
But it is meeting.
That may not therefore be an incorrect minute.
It may have been correct at the time.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:27
Does Democratic Services have any views on that as the needing correction?
Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:03:36
Can we take that away and cheque and you're pretty likely going to be subject to clarification
on that point?
That makes sense.
Lovely, thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:47
Well, what we'll do is we'll listen back for anybody out there, listen back through the
recording to make sure that it's accurate as to how it's being reported here.
And I think can we accept the minutes with those potential amendments if we find that
they need to be corrected?
Is somebody prepared to – can we take both minutes together or – okay, Councillor Jenkins
proposes who would like to second them, Councillor Slater, and could we have a vote on that for
For people who I think were all present at those meetings, for those who weren't present,
they have to abstain.
Can we have a vote?
Thank you very much indeed.
All right.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:04:34
Now, going through these minutes, the first one on the 8th of July, what was your comment,
Council division was on the 8th July.
The 7th, yes, it was the 7th, sorry.
I have gone over a page too far.
Would you like to bring up your comment?

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:05:00
So the first question really was related to planning fees.
It says on here that they are going up by 1 .7%,
Even though inflation is 3 .8%, it just seems that we have a missed opportunity there.
Point number two, I don't really understand about tablets, are these tablets usable for
something else, because otherwise they are a waste of time.
You are giving me a look.
I just wondered if I could find out more about what the tablets are and whether they are
reusable.
and my third and final point on this one is talking about replacement street signs.
Obviously I'm new here, my predecessor doesn't know which street signs are due to be replaced
and obviously I don't know either, so it says that there's a clear dedicated process and a written response and stuff.
Can we have that given to me?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:06:03
No, absolutely, thank you for that. David Stanley has been working with UBICO on that.
We did originally before you came have a list of the ones which are in the backlog and there
are a few, quite a lot of them, and we are waiting for an update on that. So that might
– he would have been in a better position to answer that one on that one. The tablets,
I can see Councillor Harris getting interested in this.
They were actually provided and they have to be returned.
So they're not kept by us.
And they are, it's a very good way of doing,
recording the voting process because obviously it's
automated and everything else.
But there are issues, as you can imagine,
in the Cotswolds because not everywhere do they get good
enough signal and there's also those sort of techy problems.
And they are quite expensive.
But they do save money in certain ways because they
do the process.
So I don't know whether you can't so Harris would like to fill you in a bit more
Councillor Joe Harris - 0:06:59
Yeah, David can pick up planning fees are set by government
So we have to charge what they tell us we can't set our own fees or that we do take the income
On the tablets is it was part of a trial. Yes
We have to front up the cash, but there's always another election isn't there?
So, you know we can we can always dust them off at the next election. There seems to be a by election over here
Every few months so they kind of parish council level. So, you know, I think you know often
you know, you've got to invest in order to see how it goes.
And, you know, it was a trial.
So I'm sure Sarah, our head of electoral services,
will have a view on that going forward and probably
answer that question.
So I think, you know, sometimes it makes sense to take part in
trials because unless you trial it,
you don't know if it's going to be a success.
I know that sounds a bit obvious, but I think, you know,
we should commend our officers for showing a bit of innovation.
I think that's a positive step.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:55
Andrew has got something to add on the tablets.
Yeah, I think I can come in on that as well.
Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:08:03
So I think the tablets worked quite well.
We don't have any scheduled elections
or large scale elections coming up.
And we've recently heard from government
that if it's shadow authority elections in 2027,
and they don't want us to be trialling things or using them.
So they're probably not something we're continuing
to look at using as things currently stand.
But they did work well and they were more efficient
in many ways.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:08:38
Right, did anybody else have any comments?
Councillor van.
Councillor Michael Vann - 0:08:43
Yes, bottom of page 10,
The capital, the borrowing and capital receipts, when will the review be concluded for capital receipts?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:09:00
I'm not the person best equipped to answer that. David Stanley got an answer at the top of his... thank you.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:09:11
Thank you, Chair. Just in terms of the review of the capital programme and the way we finance
that through capital receipts or prudential borrowing, that's part of our considerations
as an organisation for the 26 -27 budget setting process, and there's quite a complicated review
of the waste and recycling fleet underway that is the larger determinant of that need
to borrow in future years.
I'm expecting that to be completed during the autumn,
and it's as open -ended as that because there are a number
of different considerations in terms of the waste transfer
station contract that's due to be extended in the near future.
But also, the lead times required for some of those waste
and recycling vehicles are quite considerable,
but also LGR plays a part in that.
So I wouldn't expect any firm review to conclude much before the end of sort of November, December
time and feed into the budget papers in the new year.
Well, thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:10:12
I just had some comments.
The monitoring officer who's not here today said that she had sent out this town and parish
council newsletter in July.
And I think the issues in Meikleton was they changed their email addresses to their new
one which is a maybe whatever, they didn't feel they had it.
But I thought it would be really useful if in that distribution all of us as members
got a copy of that newsletter so we can actually see what the town and parish councils have
been.
And I just thought it was informative because we don't otherwise see it.
So that was just a comment on that.
I thought that would be helpful.
And I think there was going to be, we still haven't heard about the usage of the CDC electric
charging points, including Trinity Road.
So I don't know when that's going to be coming forward, but this is sort of a follow -up.
And now I've got some other things I've noted from the minutes of the 8th of July.
Does anybody else, before I go into the ones I picked up, have anything on the 8th of July?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:11:24
I'm sure it's all going to be followed up, but it's the printing and postage, we still
haven't got the full storey on that.
The Yubico, I'm very excited, I've seen it in the Camden Vale area recently, so it must
be working, but it is that thing, if it's out of service, what we do to collect the
rubbish in the areas where it is needed and the bigger vans can't get down.
And, well, I know that Councillor Jackson's mentioned the Moreton and Marsh Working Group,
and I know the meeting is postponed, but I think there is movement on this and it is
coming forward, so I'm very pleased to hear that.
The Freedom Leisure, it's noted in the minutes that a written answer will be given on page
The information on the service performance reports isn't quite
as much information as I already was looking for.
And I think if we could be looking into having a bit more
of a clear answer, it was actually how it was working
in each of the three centres.
In the service performance reports,
it just covers their performance over, includes all three,
but without a split between them.
And we look forward to seeing them in November.
And I just want to finally say that the retrofit roadshow came
to Camden in the middle of August on a particularly
wonderfully hot day when it was in the evening.
And sadly, we didn't get as many people there as I would have
liked to think the weather was not anything.
But all I can say, it was extremely good and extremely
informative.
I think Justine Magnussen is a very effective and knowledgeable officer and I would like
to think that she would be around for longer than the end of September.
So I thought it was, and it was very well received by those people who came.
Moving on, Chair's announcements go straight on to that.
So I'm very, well, I'm going to say I'm pleased.
I wrote this before changes happened, but they can come on later.

6 Chair's Announcements

The new work plan includes invitations to Yubico and Freedom Leisure to attend our meetings.
And a report is going to be coming through in March next year from our Economic Lead Officer
on the impact of the various tax changes on the vitality of the hospitality and retail businesses in the district,
particularly in relation to employment and to have, we don't want to have empty shops
or other places on the high street.
So that's coming forward.
Councillor Jenkins and I had a, the pre -scrutiny meeting with Democratic Services and the monitoring
officers were advised that the report on the new local plan is now added to the agenda
for O and S in October so that any comments or recommendations
we make can go to the Cabinet in the same month and will then
be brought to full Council.
Now, obviously, that's adding a huge, huge item
to October's agenda.
So what we have decided to do is to take out some of the items
there which are not so vital and don't have to go to Cabinet.
We are also going to change the normal order of the agenda, not completely upended, of
course we will approve minutes and all that at the beginning, but we are going to put
the local plan as the last item. The reason for this is that should we overrun our three
hours, because we will have started the topic before the three hours, we can have the opportunity
to go on. It is such an important part and whilst some people may think we do need to
cover that and we need to cover it thoroughly and I did get a hint that West Oxfordshire
took a very long time over when it was brought to them. So we do need to have that. This
has meant we are taking out the long -term empty and second homes report which is going
to come forward in October and also the public conveniences updates.
We have also, as a result of all of that, our November meeting is also quite full.
So the idea is to take the community safety partnership out of that and to, with your
agreement here, put in another meeting on the 1st of December so that we can actually
cover all these other things in the meetings that we have got in October and November without
having an additional meeting. So I am hoping that you can agree to that.
Bart, can I have anybody's view on it?
I will do it, but I'm here to...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:16:32
Right. Democratic Services, are we happy with the bargain for two o 'clock on the 1st of December?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:16:43
You can open the first thing on your advent calendar and get the chocolate out.
Councillor Bridget.
Councillor Spongley.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:16:53
Councillor Bridges, did you have a point to make?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:17:10
Could I have everybody's agreement that we propose that we're going to have an additional
meeting on the 1st December at 2 o 'clock? Can I have a seconder propose a proposal for
Seconder, don't all raise, oh, my, the cancer ban.
And could I have everybody's vote to approve that?
Lovely.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:17:36
And my final announcement, I just wanted to welcome
Tyler Jardine, who has joined Democratic Services
as a trainee, and it's very nice to see you here today.
So thank you very much for coming.
The next one is public questions.
I don't see any members of the public here, so I don't think we've got any public questions.
I've had problems with my computer, partly because of this Windows 11 thing, and now

7 Public Questions

my printer is insisting on typing things on both sides and I've tried everything to stop
it but it's not working terribly well. So my next item, members questions, we didn't

8 Member Questions

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:18:47
have any members questions. Matters arising or actions follow up?
I will bring it up later.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:19:11
I did have a thing on reporting back on the recommendations.
I attended the last cabinet and actually was there to present the two O &S meetings in July,
which you know was quite was helpful and I'm tending to go on this coming
Thursday also to report on the same about what we've discussed today the
recommendations sorry can we just confirm when the next cabinet meeting is
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:19:39
please so isn't the first of September as it says in this pack I've had that
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:19:45
corrected it's the fourth but you're up seats bright -eyed and pushy -tailed it's
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:19:57
the fourth. No, there was only one of our recommendations and that was on the enforcement
which was partially agreed and that is the enforcement officers keeping members informed
of what's going on in their wards and the issue is as ever around the squire law, sensitive
confidentiality and things sometimes so they can't always keep us totally informed but
all the other recommendations from ONS were agreed at that cabinet meeting.
So now we have, number 10, financial performance report.
I had to babysit this morning and then I got my husband to have things done in hospital.
not the most efficient start of the day. So who is the...
I saw Patrick Hillman was here and David Stanley. Thank you.

10 Financial Performance Report 2025-26 Quarter 1

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:21:19
Thank you and welcome both of you. I don't know how, will you be, Councillor Coleman,
you'll be going through this first and then we'll ask questions or have you got a plan
between the two of you?
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:21:36
Madam Chair, is there a regular practise custom and order or are we allowed to improvise?
Given this first day of the new term, I'll break the habit of a lifetime and be content
brief.
But the thought I have for you today is if our national government or indeed any national
government pretty much in the world had this, the equivalent of this report today, they
would have trouble believing it.
It seems to me that in very many ways, despite the risks that we face and the uncertainties
and the challenges, we're in a somewhat better position than might be the case in other councils
of all types.
And this is not entirely due to good fortune but also to vision and careful stewardship
and professionalism.
However, I genuinely look forward to overview and scrutiny, adding their input and challenge
because I know, having served with you occasionally from time to time, that it's a professional
and constructive body.
Now, for real content, I'll turn it to David.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:22:52
If I may, Chair, I'll just do a very brief introduction, as I know you'd like to move
on to the scrutiny element.
So there's four recommendations on this report that Cabinet are being asked to consider.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:23:20
So there's four recommendations that Cabinet are being asked to resolve at their meeting
on Thursday, so these are here for scrutiny to consider as well.
So in terms of the first decision to review and note the financial performance as set
out in the report, as Councillor Coleman has said in his introduction, the budget for the
current year was prepared on the basis of a surplus on the budget of 637 ,000.
The first quarter's financial monitoring of the revenue budget suggests a 97 ,000 improvement
on that, so an overall surplus against the budget of 734 ,000 is forecast for the year.
Table ES2 on page 39 sets out the key variations, and do bear in mind this is Q1, this is the
first quarters.
It won't necessarily have teased out every variation in the year, but I'll pick on two
three of them. Commercial property rental income £61 ,000 adverse, that's a timing
issue when we prepared the budget. This working assumption was that the former
Wilkinson store in Great Bridge would be occupied in the early part of the
calendar year. Occupation has only started in July and under the terms of
the lease that's been signed. They're entitled to six months of rent -free so
that's just a knock -on effect of the Council being responsible for empty
property costs, largely business rates, for a period of time longer than we
assumed in the budget. $249 ,000 positive variation on development management fees.
There's quite a bit of detail in the report on that which we can answer
questions on. And then around the bottom is a couple of risks included in there
and also a positive variation on Treasury management income.
So, street service review, the budget was prepared on the basis that the Council would be able to reduce the cost of the service by £300 ,000 during the course of the year.
Whilst that remains the intention and is on track, I'm flagging it here as a variation because we are already in September.
Some might argue that we're almost halfway into the year, so it's appropriate to start
highlighting that as a potential risk.
On development management fees, whilst there is a positive variation on the amount of fees
coming through the door, some of those fees might be more speculative in terms of the
application and the Council may be required to defend a decision in the future.
So it's prudent to set aside around 50 % of those additional fees at this stage of the
In terms of recommendations 2, 3 and 4, they cover paragraphs 4 .8 to 4 .12 and paragraph
4 .22 in the report.
And that's seeking cabinet's endorsement of the approach that we're taking as officers
and as an administration to ensuring the budget remains balanced in the year, but also looking
forward to the financial challenges that this Council will have in 26, 27 and 27, 28.
So CLT, Corporate Leadership Team, have strengthened the oversight hazard vacancy management process
and is reviewing a number of vacancies that are currently in the establishment and will
be no doubt bringing forward to, through the Cabinet reports, the Administration will be
supporting that through changes to the staffing establishment as we seek to ensure that we
we're only funding the posts that are needed to support the council's
priorities currently. So taking that opportunity to where those posts aren't
required on a long -term basis to remove that budget from the revenue budget but
also seeking where there is additional capacity in future years, looking to
build a capacity building reserve to enable there's adequate resources to
cope with the challenge of keeping service delivery where it needs to be
for our residents, but also ensuring that resources are available to support local government
reorganisation and the financial challenge over the coming two years.
And particularly recommendation 4, which refers to paragraph 4 .22, is around setting aside
50 per cent of the forecast additional income on planning fees during the course of the
year to ensure it remains available to the court,
the council, should there be any planning appeal risk.
There is a correction to paragraph 4 .36.
So those of you that have read that far will notice
that says that there is two further rate cuts
expected in 2025.
We've had the first of those, so only one
further rate cut is expected, and that will be
around November time, where it will reduce to around
about 3 .75 % if the forecast from Treasury management experts remains on
track although those of you with a keen eye on inflation will notice with
inflation at 3 .8 % the energy price cap increasing in October those interest
rate reductions might become more sticky than they have been there is some risk
that there isn't a further rate reduction in the course of the year but
that's all I have to say happy to take questions with councillor Coleman.
I think we had Councillor Pritchard's...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:28:59
These are questions, not comments, yes?
Questions.
Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:29:03
So, on page 51, 4 .23, why do you use the word most in common with most commercial lettings,
the lease agreement includes a six -month rent -free period, you use the word most, why do you
use that when it should be some?
I know somebody who actually used to do lots of leaseholds and stuff like that, so he's
pointing that out.
Question on 4 .23, how did you come to use the figure 50 %?
It seems to be a bit random.
4 .22 is proposed to hold 50 % of the forecast additional income as a risk provision.
I mean, half and half, but is there a particular reason for choosing 50 % or is there some background
to that?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:30:02
So in terms of 4 .23, my experience at this authority and other authorities is by and
large a rent -free period is offered to a new tenant as an incentive, particularly in retail
properties. So whilst there may be some difference to how each land owner or
property owner approaches that, my experience in local authorities of this
type, that's the common practise to offer that rent incentive. And that was part of
the negotiations with the new tenant and we revised by Cartage owners that was
what was required to ensure that we could secure the tenant on those terms
where they took that rent on and the liability for the property on under the terms of the lease.
In terms of paragraph 4 .22, it is a prudent estimate at this stage,
given that there's £250 ,000 of additional income that's forecast for the year,
and given the experience this authority has had and other authorities have had,
where appeal costs are quite significant,
They can range from anything from a few tens of thousands
into the hundreds of thousands, if not further.
It seemed at this stage with 250 ,000 forecast,
a prudent amount set aside was about half that amount,
but there isn't an exact science behind that,
and that can be reviewed during the course of the year
as more intelligence comes through,
particularly on the nature of each planning application
that's delivering that additional income.
Thank you. Did you want to add anything further?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:31:34
I don't know about any research.
Okay. Councillor Cunningham, please.
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:31:42
A couple of questions.
Table 6, Treasury and Management.
Given that rates have been as stable as they have, we're about 10 to 15 % off budget for that now.
That seems a bit much, really.
And the other thing was the leisure facilities number, which is leisure in communities, which
is 16 ,000 offside.
I didn't think there was a great deal in there, so why are we off that much for that, you
think?
Thanks.
Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:32:24
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:32:29
Just to cheque whether I fully understood the question regarding table 6.
To me the comparison I think you are making is for the first quarter where the income
receives 349 and the forecast 1327 which is pretty close to four times the 349 because
It's the first quarter of a four quarter year.
So I clearly haven't quite got the point you're trying to make.
The Bank of England DMDAF is offside.
It really definitely is.
And the Insight Liquidity Money Market Fund is also offside.
Some of the others are doing better, but I can't understand why in such a stable interest
rate environment these aren't doing as well as they could be.
So I can talk about the forecast.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:33:20
I will need to provide a more thorough response on whether individual money market funds or
individual investments are on -site or off -site.
But in terms of the forecast that we made for the year when setting the budget, we took
a prudent, I think I'll use that term, cautious might be another term, view that as we entered
a period of interest rate reductions and as the Council was utilising some of its cash -backed
reserves with those investments that the amount available to invest during the course of the
whole year was going to reduce and interest rates would reduce. So the first quarter's
performance kind of reflects a slower reduction in interest
rates, and that's stable interest rate environment.
Money market funds tend to follow the Bank of England rate
and other SONIA rates more closely.
The pooled funds are slightly more difficult to predict in
terms of what those dividends will be, given the nature of
their investment.
But certainly Bank of England DMO, debt management office,
rate, which is where a significant part of our short -term investments are made, has been
more generous over the past two years than we have assumed when we've made that budget.
But I think I would sooner, in terms of reporting to members, be reporting a more positive variation
on Treasury management income, rather than an adverse position, given that we might have
overstated the income that was due in the year, and then the Council has to then take
corrective action.
But I'll look into the forecast we've got for the Bank of England and the money market
funds, given the more stable environment we're probably going to be entering where those
rates are going to be more sticky coming down.
And I think the voting pattern from the Bank of England at their last meeting indicated
a diversion away from everyone being agreed that those rates needed to come down, with
some saying those rates needed to go back up.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:35:30
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:35:31
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:35:35
Just on that, just because I prefer, what sort of actual percentage rate of interest
do you get on these different things?
I know that it will vary, which is why you're presumably put it in the figures rather than
so it's not, they're not stable.
But what would you be, and what are the percent?
That's how I understand it better.
Thank you.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:35:52
I shall provide a full response to that, but generally speaking, the Bank of England rate
is around about 5 per cent, the money market funds are slightly less than that, and on
the pooled funds there's quite a variation as to which pooled fund, but we aim for around
3 .5 to 4 per cent on the pooled funds, that's a much longer term investment.
But certainly where the Bank of England debt management office rate has been significantly
above our expectations and that's been as reflected also if you looked at
borrowing, borrowing rates are equally as high and have been very stubborn in
coming back down. Well actually I did have a question for you later on but it
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:36:36
says if we have to make use of prudential borrowing what would the
rates for prudential borrowing sit at at the moment? In terms of prudential
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:36:49
borrowing, we would usually, and most authorities use the Public Works Loans Board. When I looked
at that on back end of last week, 50 -year money, which is the longest you could borrow
for, was just about 6%. 30 -year money, which seems to be the most expensive borrowing rate
at the moment, was about 6 .2%, 6 .3%, but shorter term rates were down towards 4 .5%.
percent but it is then determining the most optimum position the council can
take because there are different types of borrowing you can do so you can do
everything that's effectively an interest only where you just pay the
interest and pay the lump sum back after the period of time you can do it on an
annuity basis which is the same as a traditional mortgage where you're paying
quite significant amounts of interest at the front and bigger amounts of capital
at the end, or you can do an equal interest and principal borrowing where it's smoothed
out across that. And depending on the period of time you need that borrowing for and the
reason you're undertaking that borrowing, that's where we will get advice from Arlene
closest to where the best point on that borrowing curve is.
But if I gave you the example of where our underlying need to borrow is in the capital
programme currently it's on waste and recycling vehicles. They have a very
short asset life and the cost of borrowing for those is quite significant
in terms of the way the council would need to account for that and an
alternative strategy would be to not borrow for those and use capital
receipts but that means if you've used those capital receipts anything that
comes after that you would have a greater underlying need to borrow and
And it's then understanding what the revenue cost is of that prudential borrowing.
That is built into the MTFS currently, so we've made that assumption prudent to set
that aside in future years of the MTFS.
But given the high interest rates that are charged on external borrowing, that might
not be the best position for Council to take.
Hence, the answer to the previous question earlier in the agenda was undertaking that
review over the autumn to ensure that when we're looking at the fleet replacement, we're
making sure we're only replacing vehicles that need to be replaced, but mindful of the
total cost of that can run into several million pounds.
Thank you again.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:39:22
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:39:24
Just to sort of reinforce the point, I think it's worth reminding ourselves of paragraph
6 .6 which remind tells us that we've been successful in disposing of the
Villeforma Visitor Information Centre in Borton for 242 ,000 and the old station
science test for 80 ,000 with the memorial cottages scheduled to complete
for 281 ,000 and right to buy receipts are in the 32 ,000. When you add that together
633 ,000 that's I regard that as really quite helpful for I suppose it's fair to
describe that as over a six month period rather than the court since some of the
money's not in but and I would just like to have my own personal concern for
positive reflection really which is that once again the number of empty properties
of a commercial nature in Cirencester with a big exception of the old Tesco
which is subject to a planning issue. There are so few empties that our
town centre management plan, I hope when it appears, will actively consider
ways in which our retail and commercial core can be expanded rather than as we
see in so many other town and city centres in this country a steady
contraction leading to empty properties of the sort we happen to own in Tipton
and Seaford and somewhere else.
So we're very, very fortunate and credit is due to the business
and commercial communities in the Cotswolds,
not just in Sire and Cestah, and also to the strong community
spirit of our towns and villages.
But every time I go into town, I think, gosh,
there's more shops here than I can ever remember, more outlets.
And how many towns in this country
can say that without being flooded with tourists?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:41:22
Thank you for that. I have got Councillor Slater, Councillor Van and Councillor
Jenkins. I can't put it down. You haven't put your foot down.
So it's Councillor Slater, please. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of quickies.
Councillor Tony Slater - 0:41:39
2 .6 and 2 .7 on page 40, the opening statement says heads of service should take steps. Are
their performance management activities in place to make sure they do take steps
or is that just a hope and the other one is fee income from not so much is no it
It was underperforming last year.
Is this just a thing that not enough people are dying in the area?
Or is it a problem with the service?
So have we got comparative figures for other crematoria locally?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:42:47
So if I may, Chair, just in terms of 2 .6 and 2 .7, the word should can be interpreted as
will, but you'll appreciate in a financial report it can come across as you will do this,
you will do that, and it's making sure that there is a little bit more gentle wording
in the report, but the expectation certainly from corporate leadership team is where a
variation has been identified, there will be action taken, there will be recommendations
in terms of what could be done, but it's understanding the nature of is it possible to affect change
and if it's not possible to affect change in that particular service, the expectation
is the head of service or director would then identify other ways in which overall they
can manage that variation, but clearly there will be certain
variations that are beyond an individual budget holder's
control, which links to your second point around cemetery
and cremation fees.
It might be quite difficult for an individual head of service to
indicate they can mitigate the full impact of that, but they
might be able to control the costs around that.
But, you know, the point, I think, and the careful wording
in the report is to indicate that at this point in time there is a adverse
variation during the course of the year as you would expect the death rate to
increase you will see more demand for that service but the point being we run
cemeteries we don't run a crematorium and there is has been anecdotally over
the last few years a move towards unattended cremations rather than
burials as a way of reducing the overall cost of death to a family but we did
review the cost of service provision about two years ago and the fees were
increased so they're much more in line with I suppose neighbouring authorities
we were effectively under recovering the cost of burials but it is a service that
Certainly the bereavement manager is reviewing to make sure that we're running that at the optimum cost.
It's very difficult to influence the other side of that equation.
But I take the point in terms of is that just an experience in the cost -wolds or is that an experience that's replicated elsewhere?
I'll follow that one up and get a response to the committee.
Sorry, Madam Chair, could I just ask for clarification?
Who is the CLT?
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:45:20
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:45:22
The corporate leadership team, that is the chief executive, myself, the monitoring officer
and the director of communities and place, which is collectively known as the corporate
leadership team.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:45:35
I think we have got Councillor van Voorhees.
Thank you.
Councillor Michael Vann - 0:45:40
I was already planning on page 41, 215, forecasting income variations.
Now, the juxtaposition of the two words underachievement colon cemeteries is, I feel, unfortunate.
And if it remains, I will be putting it into private eye to see if I can get CDC in.
Can we please have another word for underachievement?
Now, I've got another point, which is all in favour of reducing lawyer posts, but it's
the way of the wording. On page 41, the lawyer post remaining vacant, contract lawyer, then
A little bit further on, we find that that is not actually going to be ‑‑ where
are we now?
Thank you very much.
Which is not expected to be filled.
So if you take the two together, remaining vacant, not expected to be filled, looks as
though that post has reached the end of the road already.
It does provoke a supplementary question, is either we're going not to enter contracts,
which some people might think is a very good idea, but if we are going to enter contracts,
who's going to deal with them?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:47:32
In terms of 2 .15, income shortfall is an alternative to underachievement that we could move.
In terms of legal, I appreciate the intention in Section 2 is to summarise Section 4.
So, in summarising down to a few words, what's in a few more words in paragraph 4 .3 that
may not have reflected fully in the executive summary, I will liaise with Leonie, who's
the head of legal services that runs the shared service across the three councils, because
reading that through, there is, I suppose, concern this committee is expressing around
the contract lawyer being vacant along with the other vacancies in shared roles.
The other vacancies in the shared roles are in West Oxfordshire and Forest of Dean, so
they do have a bit of an impact on our share of costs across the shared service.
And the contract lawyer, I will get a response to you as to why that is not expected to be
filled.
I would expect a little bit more than that.
It comes to a bit of a full stop prematurely.
Thanks a lot.
Councillor Michael Vann - 0:48:45
Yes, thank you. Councillor Bridges.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:48:48
Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:48:57
Just a couple of questions really. On page 52 .4 .26, towards the bottom of that paragraph,
it says the service has also identified an opportunity to increase market share.
When will you be in a position to share that with us?
In terms of the opportunity to increase market share,
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:49:21
that is in effect that a competitor is no longer
in business.
So the wording here is deliberately opaque,
because what I don't want to say in a financial report
is a supplier in the market has gone bust,
Therefore the council can increase its market share. I mean I've said that out loud in a public meeting
But essentially that's what that is trying to say
And I think that was reflected in the service performance report in prior quarters that that was a known
opportunity that the building control service were
Seeking to be able to take advantage from from because there would be fewer competitors in the market and there would be a natural
Drift of customers for that service back to the council and to other competitors in the area
Do you have something to say?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:50:11
Sorry, there's three questions.
Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:50:12
On the next part, 4 .27, we're talking about public conveniences.
Is there a way that accountants like yourself take into account the impact of the closures
in a kind of subconscious way?
Because it's how do you put a financial value on the inability of people to use toilets?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:50:41
In terms of where the council's been with public conveniences provision, I think, what
the council is committed to is to keep at least one facility open in the localities
where more than one facility existed, and in Sire and Sester that's kept the forum car
park facilities open but has closed the facilities in London Road and in Brewery Car Park.
In terms of the financial modelling, what we looked at was,
I suppose, the impact that would have on the contract price that
we have with our contractor that provides the cleaning and
maintenance, also on the utility costs.
It didn't seek to assign a notional value on the use of the
facilities by individuals, but it did assume that if you closed
one of the two facilities that were nearby, it wouldn't have a material impact on the
number of users of that service.
But clearly, if you were closing facilities that were some distance apart, then you would
have expected a reduction in numbers because not everyone would suddenly think, well, they've
closed the facility here, I'll walk the half a mile to the facility at the other end of
town.
But we don't seek to put a value on the facility in that sense.
it was just looking at the cost of running those facilities, the income that's generated.
That left a net subsidy to the council of around about 180 ,000 and what this committee
through the public conveniences working group with recommendations into cabinet looked at
was ways in which that net subsidy could be reduced.
That was either through rationalisation of the facilities, the rolling out of charging
to more of those facilities in the introduction of cashless payment mechanisms by and large.
Sorry, did you have a third one? Yes.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:52:36
Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:52:38
For public review 5 .2, there seems to be a word or more missing at the beginning of that
sentence that starts, to the council was completed in July 2025. What are the words that are
That was referring to phase 2, so yes that is missing a few words.
So the services associated with phase 2 of the transfer were completed in July 2025.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:53:12
Before I, Councillor Jenksen is coming next, but I just wanted to follow up on the public
conveniences.
I understood that you wrote to some of the town and parish councils where these are and
said were you interested in taking them on?
And I just wondered what the response might have been to that.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:53:32
As far as I'm aware, and we have had engagement from at least one of those localities around
the, that opportunity to take that on, but would encourage the other localities that
into which was Tepsbury, Lechlade, Chippinghamden, North Leech with
Eastington to provide a response to the council as to whether they'd be
interested in pursuing that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:54:04
Hello sorry sorry I didn't see...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:54:14
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:54:23
In a moment you will be in. Yeah I just wanted to come back on that point. So
just for clarity, the Town and Parish Councils were consulted last year
where we were proposing to close facilities off the back of the review.
So where and also we went ahead and closed facilities in Cirencester and in
Tepere and in Stowe. What has happened this year is that we have finally
implemented charging across all the facilities which I know you know was
frustration among on part of the committee and also myself and colleagues
in the cabinet that we hadn't got around to doing that sooner and I think what
you're referring to Gina is what communications that went to the parishes
and towns obviously Chibin Camden being one of those we notified them that we
were intending to start charging because it's our service and it appears that
some were not aware that that was going to happen obviously it's happened later
than we anticipated and in one case one town council has come back to us and
would like to consider potentially taking on the toilets but that's
currently subject to discussion between ourselves and that town council but my
understanding is that the other three towns we are have already started to
charge at the toilets and the in Chipping Camden in Lechlade and in
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:56:00
I hope that's useful. Thank you very much for coming in there. That was very helpful.
Councillor Dickinson. Councillor Harris is going to take precedence.
Councillor Joe Harris - 0:56:09
Thank you. We've done a lot of the scrutiny of some of the detail.
I want to go to the overview. I think to be honest it's a joy to read this report
isn't it considering everything that's happening in local government
local government finance nationally.
And I think, you know, the report says that we're in a
stable and well -managed position.
We've got a small surplus, around 100 grand,
which is great.
Key services are performing strongly.
Planning income is higher than expected.
Car parking is bringing extra revenue,
despite the warnings at our budget meeting earlier
than the year that we'd have a plague and, you know,
the time was going to die.
It turned out to be total rubbish.
So actually, I think this is a really positive report.
On the capital side, we're on track.
We've got some underspends that reflect, as David has alluded
to, prudent project management, which is good.
And it's an area that I know we've improved on
in the last few years.
And of course, there are risks.
But overall, the messages of the council's finances
are in a stable position.
They're in good shape, which is great considering the national
backdrop we have and all the uncertainty at present.
So I think that's really good news.
I do have a couple of questions, if I may.
I think Patrick, you know, we talked about the risk in street
cleaning, an area that's particularly close to my heart.
So we've obviously got the street cleaning review
at the minute.
I'm sure as the cabinet member for finance you've been plugged into to that
I have because clearly it's being earmarked for a bit of a saving at the
minute so can you sort of be able to sort of give an update on that and
certainly in terms of the context of the finances and can you sort of reassure me
in the committee that we're not going to see any reduction in that frontline
service which is absolutely critical. I know members have got examples of where
actually it's probably not the finances but the processes we use around street
cleaning that need to improve because we've got instances where members have
reported things and months and months later absolutely nothing has been done
including myself. So Patrick just a view on that in terms of street cleaning and
potential savings as part of any review. Yes, thank you very much
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:58:43
to Councillor Harris, your very positive comments
at the beginning, I wouldn't go quite that far
because this is still only quarter one of four
and who knows what's in the other three quarters.
But turning to the street cleaning issue,
the report by APSI, which is a longstanding
public service body, I was able to watch that
some couple of months ago now, I guess, virtually.
I was very impressed with the response of officers and the difficulty in ensuring that
we maintain excellent standard without wasting resources.
You could argue, and I think I would, that means that we have to take a bit of time to
ensure that we make the right changes that won't go too far on one hand and won't be
irrelevant on the other.
And I think that's partly the reason why the expected savings in effect are slightly deferred.
Is that fair to say we're expecting to get half of it this year at the moment rather than all of it?
But I'd better ask for a professional view as well.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:59:56
So in terms of the savings, what I've indicated is a risk that it may not deliver in full.
However, as Councillor Coleman has indicated, we've received the report from APSI, the Association
of Public Service Excellence, who have made a number of recommendations as to how that
service could be delivered in a different way that comes at lower cost.
I think the important point to look at here is the way in which that service is delivered,
not the service that is delivered, because there will be particular ways in which the
service empties litter bins from across the wide district, and it's organising those
collections so that you're only collecting or emptying the bins when they need to be
emptied, but there will be certain pressures in certain towns and villages, for example,
Sarah and Cester Bolton on the water have a particular type of demand for that services,
but other localities might have a less frequent cycle of collection.
So that report has been looked at by Peter Johnson, will be liaising with the Cabinet
in terms of understanding those recommendations and what the options are before a decision
is made by the Cabinet in terms of what the service specification will be.
But certainly street service, the service specification hasn't been reviewed for a number
of years and that's where being clear on what the service specification is, the frequency
of collection, the frequency of emptying, that's where you will make the saving, not
necessarily by reducing the quality of the service.
Councillor Joe Harris - 1:01:35
If I may, thank you. I think Patrick, I think some residents would take issue with excellent
standard of service delivery. Some of our streets are filthy. Some of our members have
reported graffiti, for example, over a year ago and it still hasn't been cleaned. We've
operatives changing litter bins and leaving the graffiti on our CDC asset
totally untouched so I think you know yes absolutely a review is needed and I
hope it rectifies some of those I think for me we're looking at delivering a
saving as part of that I'm looking at the minute going I'm a little bit
worried because I don't think the service we've got at the minute is great
and if we take money away from it IRA reducing the resilience but that's one
we can come back to when um you know when the report comes back right quickly
swiftly so thank you for picking that up just on local government reorganisation
everybody's favourite topic at the minute. Can you just sort of give us a view on
LGR and the impact on the finances? Clearly there's some reference to it in
this report, mainly around the uncertainties created by LGR, but as we
go through the financial year what do you expect to be the some of the impacts
on this council's finances and yet how are we preparing for LGR? Well thank you
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:02:43
Councillor Harris and thank you very much reminding us that it's not just
about street cleaning but also about graffiti. I think whilst it's an oversimplification
to refer to the New York broken windows approach to, which goes back about 50 years now, nevertheless
if there's no graffiti in a place there's a reluctance to be the first person to graffiti
it and if there is some left there then it's likely to be added to. And I'm glad that you've
that is that is or should be part of our street cleaning service. With regards to
local government reorganisation I think my concern as a first of all as a member
is the effect of the additional workload and time pressures on our staff. We don't
get an extra batch of staff to deal with a significant new challenge. Now admittedly
there's a lot of time built in at the government end. They're going to take
quite a long time to decide on what's going to happen.
But what I've seen so far in terms of the supply
of the online, the, what's the word,
the screens that have been shared
by the joint team operating at county level,
there's a new jargon in there,
which I was pleased to learn about.
But clearly they're thinking ahead,
they're thinking strategically.
They're doing, as far as I can see,
what professional local government officers always do
when they get some unwanted problem handed to them
by central government, which has behaved professionally,
behave collectively, and identify the risks
and the responses.
So yes, I think there is going to be very likely stress
on our staff and we as members need to be aware of that.
There's gonna be some stress on you as county councillors,
particularly twin -hatted, having to deal with both ends
at once and with the somewhat more severe financial issues
that the county council faces, if I can put it that way.
But on the whole, coming back to LGR, nobody can say that this is an untried idea.
The change to Unitary Authorities has been going on for something like 30 years now and
nobody has ever asked for their District Council back.
So whilst that may be sad and unfair, nobody can suggest that moving to Unitary Authorities
hasn't been tried and nobody can say that it hasn't worked at least to some
degree in many places leaving out one or two blatant failures. Thank you for
reminding us of that issue and I wish you all the best in tackling the problem
from your end at County.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:05:29
Thank you for that.
Councillor Waring.
Yes.
Councillor Jon Wareing - 1:05:34
You mentioned the specific needs, let's say, of waste collection in Borton.
Can you provide a breakdown of what the costs, specifically of the waste collection on the
really problematic this summer. Our village green now has a number of TARDIS -like plastic,
black bins that are utterly out of character with the heritage assets of our village and
I would say with being part of the Cotswold National Landscape, to use the current terminology.
I have a view that the provision of waste collection three times a day is infantilising
our visitors who think that local people should be paying to mop up after them and that if
those bins were removed, whilst we might have carnage for a couple of months, we might be
encouraging people to take their waste away with them or to take it back to the places
where they bought stuff. Because the answer is not making our entire village green a waste
And that's what's happening. And it's terrible.
So, I mean, this is a kind of a general point, but I think we need to look at a different strategy for tackling waste,
specifically in a place like Borton that has so many people coming and bringing their own picnics,
but also buying food from one particular outlet that refuses to wrap it in the traditional means of paper,
but provides boxes that collect grease and can't be recycled and block not only the CDC -provided
bins, but the bins of other retail outlets on the high street, much to their frustration.
So we have the public paying for waste collection of visitors, and we have other businesses
paying for one particular outlet, probably generating the bulk of waste that goes onto
the green.
But it would be interesting to know what the proportion of waste collection for the district
is a burden on it, generated by Borton specifically.
Is that possible?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:07:52
I was just going to add in here, because I also heard about the binning problem.
It is actually looking at it of the takeaways, and we're not going to name anybody in particular,
but takeaways is by the virtue of the family takes their food in a container, eats it perhaps
on the green or anywhere else and then thinks where's the nearest bin and it has become
a real problem I know in Borton. So it is something which needs to be addressed in some
way. So any answers please. So I'll take that particular point away because
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:08:21
I think it needs a little bit more investigation. I was in Borton on the Water and Bank holiday
Monday and did see the state of the village green and the litter bins and the associated
issues that was generating. I was also in Stratford -upon -Avon on Bank Holiday Monday
and can say they had a very broadly similar problem there. I think there is an assessment
as to the frequency of litter collection from those bins and the proposal that Councillor
Waring has come up with will need to be considered in terms of the impact that has. But certainly
that is a key part of the work that we did with APSI.
I took the APSI representative on a partial tour
of the district, which included as the first stop
Bolton on the water, given the particular issues.
I know he made a comment on the number of litter bins
that were in provision and how they may not have been
as strategically placed as possible.
There was a congregation of litter bins
just over the river.
about three in one short place and then nothing at all. So I think that needs to
be a particular focus of the outcome of the APSI review in terms of
understanding how particular areas such as Borton on the water have seen that
impact and how that is effectively paid for. Is that paid for by council tax? Is
that paid for through the tourism levy? Is that paid through a different means?
or in the example that Councillor Arring was giving,
that by the removal of the litter bins,
it's ultimately the end consumer that is paying for that
because they're disposing of that waste
in an alternative way.
But it's an interesting proposition.
But I will speak with Peter in terms of trying to get
that detailed analysis as to the specific cost
of the frequency of Borton's collection
because it is over and above the standard cost
of collection of waste and recycling
in other parts of the district.
All right, thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:10:31
Councillor Jenkinson, very patient.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:10:35
First, can I echo the remarks others have made to the effect that it's good to see a
report which, although it's early days, has positive aspects financially.
Thank you.
I've got two other points to bring.
The first is that 2 .14 and 4 .22 and 9 .11, those paragraphs, all talk about various reserves
that are given in the event of savings.
Please. I would like to ask whether it would not be appropriate to consider the critical
issue of the area plan and associated aspects in that. And while I'm about it, I'll roll
in the matter of the legal question, which has already been brought up by Councillor
Vann. It's my experience in managing local situation that the problems of legal wording
in the past or legal monitoring have caused difficulties in later time. It's a really
critical issue to have really strong legal capability and a really strong resource team
for this critical speed that we need to achieve and the quality that we need to achieve.
So I'm wondering whether that couldn't be unfolded in the question of where, in the
event that we make these surpluses, where some of those reserves might go.
Comments please.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:12:30
So in terms of the reserves that this report sets out how any additional
surplus might be allocated, it is only making that recommendation at this stage
and there'll be a separate decision at the point of downturn as to how those,
that balance might be allocated, but this was in particular considering the
resources that may be required to support both running council services for the next
two to three years, supporting the corporate plan, but also being aware of the impact local
government reorganisation will have on the ability for those things to happen.
So it's only looked at three particular reserves, but in the agenda item nine in terms of responses
on the planning advisory service review and consideration of local plan the
council will be considering through the budget setting process the level of
resource that's available to support the local plan there is a reserve that's
already set aside for the delivery of the local plan it's just over a million
pounds there is also external funding that's come in in the form of a grant
that's worth two hundred and thirty thousand but the overall process that's
set out in this report around the management of vacancies and ensuring
we're putting in the right resource in the right way at the right time also
covers the local plan what I'm mindful of in terms of your section 151 officer
is ensuring that we're looking at everything in the round so right and
whilst I accept that the council will need to deliver the local plan within the time scale that was agreed, which was December 2026.
It needs to be able to resource that adequately for that to happen.
But I also need to be able to advise members of the in the round the balance overall.
So part of the approach we're taking around vacancy management is to build up that capacity
reserve that would then be available to support both the local plan, other corporate priorities,
LGR and so on.
So whilst this report is highlighting some particular reserves, what it hasn't set out
is that the capacity building reserve is around supporting council priorities, which includes
delivery of LGR, delivery of the local plan.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:15:05
Thank you David. That's somewhat reassuring. I think the point I'm just making is that
having lived with the consequences of not having had an area plan in the past and what
that does, I think we're familiar with that as an issue. And it's one of those issues
that becomes a long -term, extremely expensive matter, expensive on multiple fronts, financial
and wellbeing and so forth. So I really would commend that we make sure that we do the best
we can. Obviously things are limited. The other question then, on page 35 we are asked
to endorse various paragraphs. One of those is Itemised Paragraph 4 .8. I wasn't able to
find this paragraph 4 .8, so I wasn't able to assess what it was for the purposes of
in thinking about endorsing it. Could you point it out to me, please?
I can do that bit. That's page 48 at the bottom. It's relevant because I don't think we have
had a paragraph like this in previous reports. Yes, I have seen 4 .8.
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:16:15
This is to tell us that vacancy management will be managed with more care and scrutiny
and therefore it's, if not probable, it's certainly an option that some vacancies may
be delayed in filling or they may find themselves merged in some way or they may be filled.
I think it's entirely appropriate at the time of approaching reorganisation at the same
time as holding on to and valuing our overworked staff.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:16:49
Thank you, Councillor Coleman. I had actually seen 4 .8, I should have made that clear, but
it didn't have any, it wasn't bold like others that were being emphasised, and it didn't
actually seem to be something that was of the significance that it would be specifically
called out as a key item for endorsement.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:17:09
I could ask you why, just say a bit more about why you really think that this particular
one needs special endorsement.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:17:18
In terms of this particular paragraph, I suppose, with the majority of the cost of council services
being related to staffing, a strengthened oversight of how vacancies are filled will
by the outcomes, either say yes to a particular manager,
yes, you can have more staff and we'll put the resource there,
or we might say no.
I think the point this is in the report is to ensure
that members are aware that that process
where we're having a single consistent approach
to vacancy management may result in either a yes answer
and pause, not quite yet, or a no answer.
that may have an impact on service delivery in the short term, but that's part of the process,
is to understand what the opportunity is around vacancy management,
can that be delivered in the existing staff base, so if a post becomes vacant,
do you need to fill it, how do you need to fill it, is it a permanent appointment,
is it a time limited appointment, that may in the short term have an impact on service delivery,
because a manager may say to a member,
I've tried to get post ex filled,
CLT have not said yes to that.
I don't think that's the right answer.
It's to ensure member visibility of that particular approach
because it will have both a financial benefit,
but it will also have a service impact.
So it's ensuring a single and consistent approach.
Thank you, David.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:18:56
It seems to me that a consistent approach is always in general a good idea,
although consistent approaches need to have the appropriate flexibility as part of them.
So let's take that for granted.
My concern is that if I'm endorsing it, what I'm really endorsing is
we're going to postpone appointments, we're not going to appoint people.
What is so different from what would normally be good practise anyway?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:19:27
Nothing. So that is good practise and it is something that I think with the more regular
review of that coming through corporate leadership team and that being essentially a vacancy
to be filled is signed off by the Chief Exec, Deputy Chief Exec and CFO of the Monastery
and the director. That is best practise. That isn't the best practise that's been in the
council prior to that, so it's worth making that point that having that robust approach
ensures that we're able to identify the opportunities to reduce cost. It's also an approach to ensure
that we're putting the right resources into the right service at the right time. So I
was worth making that point in the report to highlight what was what
changes were being put in place by the corporate leadership team for members to
understand how that would flow through in terms of financial management of the
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:20:29
council's budget. You're doing a better job than before. Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:20:33
Yes actually I had noticed that myself and actually I was pleased to see you've got a
vacancy management process.
I went back to my organogram, which did show some vacancies.
I was very pleased about having the organogram.
Thank you very much.
And it's not so much just whether we're going to get new
staff or things, but we also have been using agency staff.
And so the situation on how many agency staff we're looking to
replace with more permanent staff,
I noticed the time is going on.
and I try to keep on touch on time,
but I do think it's a very important thing.
And I'll just ask you the other questions
I had at the same thing.
So one thing which I wanted to make clear,
which I happen to know what the acronym LIFT is,
which is the Low Income Family Tracker.
The people from there came and attended a meeting
which was organised in Camden.
It was very, very interesting,
and the work that they do is very, very excellent.
But I just wanted to know what the costs are
with being associated with that project and the final thing is that it talks
about a joint venture with Bromford which is still in the process but it
doesn't actually say where the blank process is. Is that confidential or
is it it's just not mentioned so that detail will be useful. Thank you.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:21:56
So in terms of the lift project the council paid around about twenty three
off the top of my head, it might be slightly different to that,
to run that service for a year from December 2024.
That we secured additional funding from the Integrated
Care Board to cover that cost.
There are other incidental costs arising from supporting the work
that Lyft identifies in terms of contacting a number
of individuals, reassessing their needs and the basis
of new information and so on.
And this report does highlight an increased cost in terms of postage and printing as a result of a number of letters.
And it's getting towards the small thousands in terms of the number of individuals that are being contacted.
In terms of the joint venture, that's Down Ampany. That isn't confidential. It's well known.
I think it's um we have slipped the delivery of down ampony for a couple of
years given infrastructure delivery issues with Thames water and that's
where the joint venture with Bromford is off track.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:23:11
And did you have anything to add on the agency staff? So in terms of agency staff
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:23:14
part of the authority to fill process is looking at how a particular vacancy
could be filled, so does that require a permanent member of staff?
Does it require a fixed -term appointment?
Is it appropriate to use agency staff given some of the costs of agency staff?
And there is some work being undertaken as part of a commissioning and procurement
exercise to ensure that we are getting the best value.
I think that's probably the best way to put it in terms of agency staff rates.
But the first part of that is to understand the cost of an agency staff, the impact that
has on your ability to deliver.
So for some service areas, having a vacancy in planning, for example, isn't necessarily
one that can wait several weeks to be filled.
They might have a requirement to get an agency member of staff to maintain a level of workload,
but for example in the finance team, there might be a way to absorb some of that work
in the short term, not get an agency member of staff.
So part of the process of the ATF is to ensure we're
understanding the nature of the workload that needs to
be covered and the options available to do that and the
impact that has.
So there isn't necessarily a vacancy turns up on the
Friday and we're racing to put an agency member of
staff in there on a Monday.
That's part of the ATF process to understand what
those options are.
Thank you, thank you. I thank everybody for their contributions.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:24:41
Councillor Bridges, I will let you come in in a moment.
All it was that as we're thinking now, is there any particular recommendation coming out of our discussion that anybody would like to put forward to cabinet?
I'm just asking that. I should ask Councillor Bridges to come in ahead of that. Thank you.
Councillor Nick Bridges - 1:25:01
Okay, just following up something on page 60.
It's due with the capital receipts and disposals.
You're talking there about selling the old station in Sheep Street along with the memorial
cottages.
Congratulations, by the way, on finding somewhere to buy the old station, because there's a
lot of work you're doing on it.
But I was, this is actually in my ward.
The memorial cottages used to contain basically some relics from the Second World War.
I believe those are now being stored at the expense of the District Council.
How would I find out how much that's costing?
And also I'd like to compare that with the cost of having them on display here at the
Trinity Road.
So I've noticed that there are quite a few offices, for example, Office 97, which is
empty.
So could we not just display them at less cost?
Because if nobody's actually renting our Room 97, then it could be on display and saving
us money storing it somewhere else.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:26:17
In terms of the cost of that I'll provide a response. There was certainly quite a detailed
conversation with Councillor Bloomer who was involved with the former tenants of the Memorial
Cottages, the Living Memory Trust, if I've got that the right way round, and we are providing
a short -term financial support through the storey of those artefacts for a
period of time but I will review that with council member back to the
committee with a formal response
Councillor Nick Bridges - 1:26:53
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:26:56
it's a really good point that Nick raises I think I just put in a request
Councillor Joe Harris - 1:26:59
as well we've got these amazing artefacts in the resource centre at
at North Leech, we've got hundreds and hundreds of bits
and bobs pointing to our heritage.
I visit councils up and down the country.
And when you go to their council offices,
they've got them on display in the council offices,
so in the public area, so the public can see them.
I think it would be, what a great thing, wouldn't it,
if we could bring some of those and put them
on public display, rather in a box on a shelf somewhere
that nobody sees.
There's all sorts of history of that resource centre
about this council, and indeed the whole civic offering
in the cox and it'd be great to hear about some actual Councillor Coleman you
find that fascinating wouldn't you and I think it would be and I think it would
be great to I think it'd be great to just have it on display and not have it
in a in a box somewhere let's get it in the public areas of this building and up
in Wharton as well you're gonna say insurance no I hadn't talked about
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:27:56
insurance chair but again I did wonder some scrutiny I think would be needed
to see whether it reflected best value to move artefacts under our control or certainly
our responsibility from where they've been for some time in large numbers up north leech
to this building which has an uncertain future beyond about three years because then they'd
have to be moved again or they might have to be moved again.
We know that we have a wonderful Carinean Museum which is very busy.
We know that, and quite a fault too, in its way.
So we knew that we were about to see the reopening of the old station, which I think is tied
into the second history festival, which is during half term.
So I'm going to have to miss it.
But it's certainly being mentioned as part of the history festival to see what I understand
to be creative space being created in the old station.
All wonderful good news for the Cotswolds.
But the serious point is, yes, we do need to find a better and more publicly accessible
location or locations than the current massive amount of stuff that's stored at North Beach
has happened to spend its time, because it's pretty much out of sight, out of money for
most people, and we could do better than that.
I'm sure if we don't find an answer that our successor authorities will.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:29:24
Well, I have to say, I find the idea rather appealing and I think actually as we go out
it would be lovely to actually have even an exhibition here in this building to celebrate
the years of...
So you were going to say an auction?
No, I did not.
And to recognise what has been done here in the past and to acknowledge its bar being
absorbed into whatever unitary it's going to be.
So I'm rather pro that idea.
So thank you.
Yes, OK.
Recommendation to cabinet.
OK.
OK, well, let's take that.
Opposed by Councillor Harris.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:30:00
Councillor Bridges.
I think that's up for me.
I would like the cabinet to examine that.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:30:18
Having had a proposer and seconder, could we go forward
and do you want to have an exact wording?
Quick show of hands.
Can we have a quick show of hands?
Lovely.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:30:33
And the whole thing is, I'm thrilled about that because the old prison was definitely looking much much better now.
And I think they're wonderful things that they've got there, I wish more people could go and visit them.
Right, we are now onto Agenda 11, just at half past five.
This is a Council Priority and Service Performance Reports.
I think we've got, oh we did have Mike over here.
Yes, oh he's hiding, you're hiding behind the dress, I can't see you.
And Allison, Gemma, oh sorry Gemma mooring you, yes you swapped about, we weren't sure who was on this, so thank you.

11 Service Performance Report 2025-26 Quarter 1

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:31:33
I'm sure you've got it in mind how you want to deal with this.
As you know, we've taken quite a long time on the previous item.
I'm not wishing, though, to hurry you through or whatever, but we would like the most pertinent
things and then a good discussion following.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I definitely wasn't hiding at the back.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:31:54
Maybe you couldn't see me, but I have been there most of the time during your earlier
discussion and I was listening with interest.
So I won't talk for very long because Gemma is here as the lead in terms of the performance
management reporting for the council.
So there's not a lot I think I want to draw members' attention to.
Obviously I anticipate members will have read the report.
Overall, I think in terms of you can see in section 3, we have got some series there of
performances where we are above target on that page.
Particularly welcome to see that council tax and national non -domestic rates, which are
critical picking up on the report you have just considered in terms of the income side
for the council are performing well and we're performing well in terms of
dealing with planning applications. There are a few where we're not quite there in
section 3 .2 and then obviously there are three that are particularly pulled out
where we're not doing as well as we would like to and that we're below
target. That being processing times for council touch support and housing benefit
change of circumstances. Planning appeals allowed and noting that clearly yeah we
were doing well on that metric last year and Q4 we had 11 allowed appeals out of
53 that were made so just over 20 % allowed. So far this year essentially
we've had half of them allowed but obviously it's only the first first quarter and
And then laterally then, and you were just talking about Down Ampere a few minutes ago,
we haven't delivered as many affordable homes as we would have liked to.
And obviously that's dependent largely as well on developers implementing planning permissions
with affordable housing within them.
But obviously we were hoping also to develop our own site at Down Ampere and that's been
delayed because of the issues with Thames water there. So I will stop there
and if Gemma wants to add anything to what I've said or will then we can take
members questions. I haven't got anything to add so just go straight to questions.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:34:29
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:34:34
Councillor Clare Turner - 1:34:37
Right we have Councillor Turner. Thank you. First I want to say thank you for the
reports. I could see that some of the things we talked about last time the
So thank you for incorporating our views on that.
I wanted to touch briefly on the leisure centres, which Gina referenced earlier anyway.
I think when we were last discussing it we had quite a lengthy discussion about cleanliness
and so on at the centres and in the previous quarter there was mention of a grading system
which relates to maintenance and staffing and cleanliness.
So I think it was those figures broken down by sight that we were interested in seeing.
The figures that are in there, the pie charts, I think that's quite a nice visual to see
the proportion of feedback, it's positive and negative and so on.
But given that there was only one contribution at Chipping Camden, I suppose my question
is are those feedback cards the only mechanism by which users feedback is
collected or is there something else because that's obviously not terribly
informative about what the customer experience is at Chipping Camden. So
that's the first question and I've got a question about waste as I'm sure you'd
appreciate so I don't know if you want to do that one first and then we'll come
back to waste. I will go back to the service to double cheque about that but I
Officer - 1:35:58
do know that they are looking, they do monitor the cleanliness and
They are looking to introduce something that is a bit more solid, they have more frequent
information that they can share with us.
I will go back to them and double cheque the progress of that one.
Councillor Clare Turner - 1:36:14
The second point I wanted to raise was on page 143 of our papers, or page 35 of the
report where residual waste figures are presented.
So first of all, the legend line, the dark line,
is labelled as percentage.
And I think that actually should be kilogrammes on the chart
itself.
So that was just the first point to pick up.
And secondly, in the text in the bottom right -hand corner,
it talks about figures around 30 kilogrammes per household
for that quarter, whereas it doesn't look like on the data sets it should be more like
80 or so.
So I'm just wondering if those figures in the text are incorrect or have I misunderstood
and they're presenting some different information.
I think I'm going to have to double cheque that one.
So if you leave that one.
It just looks like there's a mismatch between the kilogrammes per household and the kilogrammes
per household referenced in the paragraph itself.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:37:32
Is it possible that they're sort of moving averages, so that's the annual figure that
we're looking at there?
So we're looking at around about 100 and then that's how it's broken down across the year,
but you don't think so?
Councillor Clare Turner - 1:37:47
I don't think so because I think if you look at the green box in the top right hand corner,
I think that's correct where there's a target of around 100 for the quarter and the actuals
are around that figure or less which is great.
The data in terms of performance is all good, there just seems to be a contradiction in
the figures between what's in the text and what's on the chart in that top section.
Officer - 1:38:10
I'll come back and clarify that one.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:38:17
Who would like to ask the next question?
Councillor Jenkinson.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:38:29
Thank you very much for these reports.
I appreciate that it takes quite a lot of work.
And that's my first question, really.
It's a general one.
I'm aware that there are statutory requirements for the reporting of service performance.
I'm aware of the fact that scrutiny should look at it.
But my question is, I wonder if you could give us some impression.
I'm not expecting that you will know an exact sum, but some impression of the cost -producing
these for us, as distinct from what might be useful in general operational use.
That's part A of the question and part B, the extent to which this service monitoring
actually feeds back into improvements in operational work.
I would have to come back to you with a cost for that for sure, but it does take a considerable
Officer - 1:39:30
amount of time.
So Alison who does normally write the reports, it's probably about four weeks every quarter
to actually get everything collated and run, and that's having the meetings with everybody
and finding out if there's any fluctuations and why they might be. And the second part about
actually monitoring the performance and actually managing it on the back of that,
yes but it's not so much these reports, this is more of a quarterly overview to have to give
your information to you about what's been going on, but there's much more up to date, more frequent
dashboards that could be daily, that could be weekly about different services, so people are
much more on top of what is going on in the now kind of thing.
It gets highlighted at performance board to see what is going on, so if there are any
issues we let people know and likewise with the service.
Yes, they are aware of what is going on.
Thank you.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:40:22
I think it would be useful to note a bit more about how, not today, but some future time,
it could be scheduled to tell us more about how this process of monitoring and feedback
and so forth is actually operationalised for improvement. And I should let members of the
scrutiny committee know that I wrote separately to Alison about the use of standard deviation.
I'm very grateful. I think that's an improvement. I think it clarifies things. But I wrote to
her specifically on technical matters of how they might be used for the best way. And I
didn't think I would bring it to this session because I didn't think that would be the most
useful thing for us here.
I have a question on page 77, item 3 .1 to do with service performance above target.
I just wanted to, this is about bins, missed bins.
I am quite impressed to see that we are missing, we are improved on the missing bin situation
compared with the norm.
There is always a lot of noise about missed bins and here we are, we are doing better.
I think it is worth noting that what do we actually miss?
Somewhat less than our target is, somewhat less than one bin per thousand.
I think that's an interesting number to note.
Less than one bin per thousand is the target, and we've managed to do some 10 per cent better
than that.
And what this points to is I think bins are such an emotive issue that it's good that
we do get this particular one reported.
But in general, I'm concerned about us spending time noting things that are effectively just
part of the ordinary, small variation and flux of what goes on in things.
And sometimes it'll be slightly over and sometimes slightly under.
Every system in control, even well -ordered, will always produce variation, cannot not.
So it would be, it seems to me, really useful if what we were focusing on are the highlight items that actually need attention,
and then a general picture that all else is on target or better, plus the ones that we're doing exceptionally.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:43:00
Thank you Angus for pointing that out because I didn't and members of the committee who
were definitely on it last year will recall I sat here on a number of occasions and talked
about that when I had the portfolio responsibility and how we were missing a lot more than that
and so I think yeah obviously it's great that we're under the target that doesn't mean that
everything is fine. So I know that Councillor Bellagram together with Peter
Johnson and new officer Peter sorry are looking at that because there are also
service failures as well as missed bins which is where we fail to collect
because Laurie breaks down or we're full of cardboard or whatever which don't
count as missed bins. Missed is only the ones which are the office they've
missed as opposed to those that they couldn't collect so the customer of the
resident doesn't see necessarily a difference between the two so there is
still there is still work to do to reassure members on that and Andrea and
Peter are working on that but I think to your general point focused on those
things which are you know not performing as we would like I think generally the
report does that, because it spends quite a lot of time in terms of volume of information
for members on those where in 3 .3 where we aren't performing as well as we would like
to. But I take your point and thank you for pointing the bins out.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:44:34
Councillor Harris and then Councillor Bridges. Yeah, I think really positive, again a bit
Councillor Joe Harris - 1:44:38
like the financial performance report, you know, I think really positive, strong collection
rates on council tax and business rates that's great and high customer
satisfaction. Although if you go on Facebook sometimes that feels hard to believe but
when we ask people they deal with us and yeah I think there's some some really
strong stuff in there. Can I just you know shout out very quickly I haven't
met Peter Johnson I don't know what she looks like but she has been amazing in
my experience. I mean, you know, this mysterious person has come into my life
and things have started happening when I report them. It's great. I've been really,
really impressed with her and actually I haven't had any complaints about
mis -collections. So whether that's down to her or maybe I'm just not getting the
emails anymore, that's really positive news. So I think it's great.
I just wanted to give her a shout out publicly because, you know, I've
been really, really very impressed. Mike, can I ask you about delays in
benefits processing so catch the tax benefit change events take far longer
than target three to four times slower so is there a sort of plan to try and
fix that and we perhaps understand what the cause of all of that is you've asked
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:45:58
me just as councillor Coleman has left the room with responsibility for that so
I'm not over the detail in terms of council tax support obviously as I used
to be when I had the the portfolio. My reading of it was that we are expecting
things to improve. We'd had a position where we had a pause in applications and
that led to the backlog and that that is now on track to to get back onto target.
but I don't know if Gemma's got anything she can add to that.
Officer - 1:46:38
Just a little bit, yeah, so because this metric is cumulative though, it's not likely to come into tolerance until quarter three,
but as of July, it was the specific time for processing CTS change events was three and a half days, so well within the tolerance.
Councillor Joe Harris - 1:46:52
And then, Mike, you might know about this, you might not, and you probably want to kick it back to the county council,
but this whole spine road business, what is happening with that?
haven't heard anything you know an official capacity and is it still
something we're seeking to try and do or we just in there for you know old times
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:47:11
sake. Well I'm the ward member but I'm conscious that the County Council ward
member is sitting in the committee as well. He probably knows more about it than
she doesn't know either. Okay well my understanding is it we couldn't use the
funding we were hoping to use the government REPF funding one of the
funding streams to support it we couldn't do that because we couldn't get
it in the time so the answer is I don't know any more detail even as the ward
member than than is written in here and if Lisa doesn't know any more detail as
the County Council ward member I think what we'll need to do is ask the
officers who are not here in the room to to give us an update and then we can
share it with the committee. Thank you I think it was Councillor Bridges please.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:48:00
Councillor Nick Bridges - 1:48:02
Okay I'm new so I apologise if this isn't the right place to ask but on page 76
there's a Q1 update and we're told that the Waterloo car park is in
San Francisco is in the flood zone. How will that affect things because there
was going to be a multi -storey car park at some point in the past.
So that was question number one, the last question number two at the same time.
Further on, on page 80, we're talking about trying to deliver more affordable homes.
It strikes me that the Gardiners' site would be excellent for affordable homes.
Do we have any ability to influence that?
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:48:56
Thank you, Councillor Bridges for your question. So I can answer the first one
because that came to a meeting of informal cabinet and where we were given
information that the Waterloo car park is now in the flood zone. So we haven't
had any any financial resourcing for a multi -storey car park there for some
time. We've removed that from from the budget. Obviously there's work on the
Syrinsester town centre master plan so that's the appropriate forum for
discussion and the process for discussion about the future of that site.
Obviously as the landowner we are interested in that as a council but yeah
that's where the future of that site will be partly part of the discussion
and obviously we will we will come up and that will be discussed when it goes
into Regulation 18 consultation. The second point I'm sure there are
Potentially officers who look at opportunities for affordable housing
We have obviously a team, but I'm looking at the chief executive. We would have to
If a particular site may be suitable that is not under our ownership obviously clearly
There's a significant cost to doing that so we would have to acquire the site and develop it
And there would have to be a business case that would go through the normal process
I don't know if David can add anything to what I've said in terms of how that works if
There are potential sites for affordable housing and yeah, absolutely agree with you Nick
We want more affordable housing in the district, but it has to be affordable for us as well
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:50:50
Just in terms of adding to that I think councillor ever me summed up the issues quite well in terms of
identifying potential sites for affordable housing.
There will be a significant cost in acquiring sites
that the council doesn't already own.
That would then need to be fed into a business case
that can justify the overall cost of delivering
more affordable homes on that site.
There are alternative ways that that could be done,
but certainly Alan Hope, who's the head of strategic
housing and assets, is already working on ways
in which the council can deliver more affordable
housing through negotiation and discussions with other registered providers such as Bronford
but also looking at rural exception sites.
I know any site that comes up is under consideration but clearly that's got to be considered in
light of the resources the Council has available to deliver those.
So there is, I would suggest with that particular site, quite a considerable acquisition cost
for that that would then need to be looked at in terms of the cost of
delivering and the timescale for delivery which may be outside the life
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:52:07
of this council. Thank you for that. I've got Councillor Sleater. Thank you. I've got
Councillor Tony Slater - 1:52:12
some specific questions on planning enforcement cases which I don't expect
you to answer, but if somebody could. So the commentary seems a little bit out of date,
because in the July ONS meeting we had quite a comprehensive review of the enforcement
area, but there's no mention of the PAS review in the commentary or any of the updates, or
progress on any of the updates that, recommendations that were given, so things like new ITG, and
systems and processes, et cetera.
It will be really, because of the number of cases that are outstanding, which are going
up, so at the ONS we had 561 outstanding and there's now 600 odd, it would be interesting
to have a view of the age of the cases, so how long they have been clogged up in the
system.
And I don't know if the cases opened, just on the conveyor belt, or whether they have
triaged and the important ones are open and the others are put back in the
box for a later date. So I guess I need to speak to the planning enforcement
team to understand that specifically.
I think we can, sorry, we can definitely find out the age of the cases and I'd have to speak to the service about whether they get triaged.
Is there a system we can go to to see our cases or our ward cases that are open?
That would be really useful.
They tend to go into a black hole and we have never seen them again.
I have a second question which is general and observation.
Thank you, Councillor Slater.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:54:10
I mean, obviously, you discussed this at your last meeting.
We as a cabinet said that actually what we felt was required was an all -member briefing
on planning enforcement.
I'm looking to think that might have been asking that that comes forward in September.
So these sort of issues can be discussed because, yeah, I share the frustration of members and
I want members to understand the challenges and the frustrations that officers have and
vice versa.
And I'm hoping that we will, through that session, have a better understanding.
And yes, we also need to improve the information sharing that goes on.
There are some limitations on that, but I think it would be, I'm hoping that we can
get a better sharing of information than we currently have, which is not very much.
And historically, those members in particular were in the last council, and remember we
had it came alongside the large applications and the information about
paid applications and it was sent to us every month in the last council and that
hasn't happened more recently so we could see what was happening or if
anything that was happening in our area so one of the things we want to do and I
know that's part of the the response to the PAS review is to improve that
communication so I would encourage members to come along to that and yeah
I'm hoping that we will see as part of that as well that Jerry
Lacoy and her team will be able to improve the communication.
And also, you know, our understanding and their
understanding of the frustrations that I think that
we have, particularly when we're contacted by parish councils,
town councils, residents, what's happening.
And so that hopefully will be in, I think,
in calendars for this month.
Councillor Tony Slater - 1:56:01
Thank you and I get Councillor Stacey you had a further question.
Yeah there's more of a request and observation. On the council priorities report there's a
lot of words there. So page 107 for example a lot of it has been on there for ages it's
It is a bit stale.
The first paragraph, for example, mentions a scheme launched in 2024 and it is hoping
the application will be determined in the next few months.
I don't know if that is still current or not.
Can they be a bit more snappy and a bit more readable?
I know it is the portfolio holders that do these for you.
it's just a request to cut down the number of words and trees. Just to clarify we don't write
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:56:55
these, our cabinet doesn't write this so this is an officer thing so I'm obviously we're about to
talk about a new an update to our plan but in terms of I think General McVear to give any more
thought I think when they first came in my observation would be it was very good to get
the narrative report but Tony you're right if the narrative doesn't change very much then
then actually we could save paper and space on your laptops and on the cloud if we made
them more succinct. But that's a matter for I guess, Jennifer, to respond on.
A point taken.
Officer - 1:57:31
Councillor Bailão.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:57:38
Councillor Michael Vann - 1:57:40
Yes, thank you. On page 79, the percentage of planning appeals allowed would be, I think,
It is relevant to know when we lose an appeal, is it after the planning committee ignores
professional advice from the officer and gives and rejects an application that the officer
has recommended acceptance?
because you this costs us serious money and I would like counsellors to know just
how much having a flight of fancy costs us.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:58:32
I think my understanding is that that is reported back to the committee and also
I've certainly seen as part of the updates one of the lists I was referring
to the others, one I didn't mention was appeals.
So we as members do receive, I think, monthly email with the list of all the appeals.
So you can see on there which ones, whether the decision was made by the committee or
whether it was made by a delegated decision.
Maybe it's not as clear if it's the committee agreed with the delegated decision, because
we're now obviously with larger applications, they're all going to the committee under our
scheme of delegation.
So, I think, Michael, to your point,
in terms of monitoring the performance of the committee,
the planning committee, which, you know,
obviously I think that's something as we get more
applications and more speculative applications,
it's something the committee I'm sure is going to be looking at.
I don't know whether it's appropriate,
and this is for you to consider, whether it's appropriate for the
OVN Scrutiny Committee to scrutinise the work of the
planning committee.
I'm not sure it necessarily is because it's there.
That's a regulatory committee of the council,
but I do take your point that, you know,
if the Planning and Licencing Committee
makes decisions which are overturned
and a large number of them, they cost the council.
And in the worst case, the council could lose costs.
So, yeah, that's why I think going back to the report
that we had just a little while ago,
The chief finance officer is asking cabinets who agree to put some more money by to fund
the cost of appeals because, you know, as members will probably know, appellants, certainly
if they are developers of a scale, house builders, will have quite expensive lawyers that they
will employ to argue their case at appeal.
And we obviously need to make sure that we have the relevant representations in order
to defend our decisions in those appeals.
So that will inevitably, given that we've had significantly more speculative applications,
it's likely more applications will be turned down and go to appeal.
So we will have to, we will inevitably be spending more money on appeals, even if we
them than we have been in recent times.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:01:05
I saw your hand, Councillor Colman. Were you waving to say something?
all.
Yes.
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:01:20
Cabinet Member - 2:01:25
Thank you. Just to say it's one of my specialist spare time activities is monitoring the planning committee.
To my recollection, there are no decisions of the Planning Committee which have been
overturned on appeal and led to costs being awarded.
There has been a little flurry recently of lost appeals and I think in all those cases
the appeals were against a decision made in line with officers' recommendation or most
of them under delegated powers.
One has also meant that we have lost an appeal on costs.
I don't know there's some involved.
But I do like to take every opportunity to remind members of the 86 ,500 pounds we lost
in costs when the committee was led astray by the most distinguished, now retired, Councillor
Julian Beale and ignored officers' advice not only did we lose the appeal, but as I
say we had to pay 86 ,500 pounds.
If we have got a budget for losing appeals and losing them on costs, I would be disappointed
I don't think we need to have a budget for that.
We shouldn't be seeking to lose more appeals.
The other point was the agenda has just been published.
I have never seen this before.
The first two applications, significant applications, are recommended for refusal.
They are speculative. It would appear at this stage.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:02:54
Since they are both in my ward, I won't comment any further.
but they are going to take a lot of reading and I do hope that our members
of the Planning Committee read them thoroughly and see why the decision has
been reached. I've got our Councillor Turner. Thank you. Firstly an apology and
Councillor Clare Turner - 2:03:10
a retraction and the numbers in the text that I was talking about the kilogramme per household
do add up to the quarterly figure so I don't know why I thought it was wrong
because I just re -added them and they are fine so there's no discrepancy there
just the chart with the kilogramme percentage issue still stands.
The other thing I wanted to mention was we don't have very much performance -related
targets or measurements or biodiversity, but one that we do have, so on page 86 we have
an indicator that relates to work with partners to embed the nature recovery plan for Cotswold
Lakes and it mentions that it will be reviewed every six months and there's no
it doesn't have a status assigned to it or any comment so I was just wondering
if we could follow up on that and find out what the situation is without and
whether there's anything to update us on that.
Officer - 2:04:12
Yeah I will follow that with the relevant officer. Right thank you. We have
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:04:16
I think what we'll do is we'll finish this I know we've done our two hours but
If we can just hold on a little and then have a break when we finish this and then go on
to the last thing.
I've got Councillor Bridges, please.
Councillor Nick Bridges - 2:04:32
Following on from what was just said, it's to do with planning, sensitive planning appeals
allowed.
There are quite a lot of appeals happening.
What are we doing to learn from that?
Can we have some case studies put together so that we can learn where we're going wrong
so that we don't keep making these mistakes because clearly whoever is overturning us
at appeal has a better idea as to how to move forward.
My second question, totally unrelated, is to do with homelessness in Syrinsester.
We're talking here about rough sleeping levels in the district remain low with zero to very
few cases reported.
Well, I live in Simon's sister and I'm regularly seeing someone sleeping in boots and somebody
else down by Marks and Spencers.
What am I supposed to do to change that?
Who do I report it to and how can I get that changed?
Thank you for that question.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:05:35
We did actually have this on an earlier one when you weren't, so you wouldn't have been
briefed.
I haven't got it completely to hand, but there is a system of
notifying when you recognise somebody's homeless
who needs support.
Does somebody else in the room have the...
We haven't got...
It's an emergency number on CDC.
There is an emergency number on CDC.
But I think what we could do is share the information that we
were given at that tour, I think it was a meeting about last
January on homelessness and share it with you again,
because if you are actually seeing it,
then it's very important that those people are looked after.
So thank you.
Oh, Councillor Devane.
Yeah, so I think Caroline Clifsold heads up that team,
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:06:22
Nick, so it would be useful for you to make contact with her.
So I certainly know that she's very responsive
and she'll be able to put you in the right direction
if her team will get her team onto it.
So that's the case with that.
And I think on the other point, it's a matter for the planning committee,
and I know you're a new member of that committee.
My understanding is that when appeals are lost,
the committee does have an item to be able to look at it
and understand and learn from the decision.
So my understanding is that that's within the remit of the planning committee itself.
and the officer team, clearly they all look at appeals when they are
unsuccessful, when the appellant is successful I should say, and take those
appeals on board and they're often argued. I've sat in Planning Committee
meetings where an officer has argued that something similar was lost on
appeal, not that necessarily in this authority and another authority, and
guiding members that if they were to make one decision it's likely they might
lose that appeal that that's often discussed at the Planning Committee as
I'm sure you'll find as you attend more meetings of it. Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:07:42
Ocasio -harris. Can I just pick up the point on housing as well I think you
Councillor Joe Harris - 2:07:45
know it's shocking isn't it when you see a rough slither and often there are
complex needs behind why they're on the street. Quite often they're known to our
teams, I think teams across the country for that matter, and it's usually because
there is a mental health problem, a substance of use problem, that just
getting home to somebody and putting them in it is not the answer. When
Councillor Spivey was the cabinet member for housing, she oversaw the
implementation of the Housing First initiative, which is a brilliant scheme
that we run here, which provides that wraparound support, you know, everything
from substance and mental health support through to getting them back into
housing. So I think actually I'm very proud of the record that this council
has of getting people in off the street and then supporting them through that
journey to to you know getting back on their feet. What I would say is it's hard
because you're talking about individuals and must be very careful when we
publicly comment on individual cases and what you're referring to Nick and it's
hard as well because somebody that's been on the streets they're usually not
the first people that want to talk about it and go, wow, the Council already helped me
and saved me. So it's a really tricky one because loads of really good work
happens but often it's behind the scenes and often, yeah, often you don't hear
about it. So, you know, I want to ratio it. Something I take as a ward member for the
centre of Syrins, so still like you, something I take a very real active
interest in. But if you are concerned about somebody, yeah, as Mike has said, make
sure you report it. There's also an app you can get, I can't remember the name of it off the top of my
head but you can yeah street linking down at the street link app and report
it via there not only in the Cotswold district but across the country so yeah
I think I think it's a really important issue but credit should go to our
housing team led by Caroline because they're brilliant
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:09:41
all right um how do you put cancer drinks the prison name poured again
Thank you, Chair. Yes, shocking, isn't it?
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:09:47
We've been talking a little bit about appeals and when we reject an application for development
and then it goes to appeal. It strikes me that in the normal course of things we've
used to a certain regime for how things might be judged by those who manage the appeal.
The government has changed the rules, so I imagine that the situation of how appeals
are judged is also changing. It's also the case that under those circumstances we are
a relative flood of applications coming forward, some of which are being considered as speculative.
I've got two myself, for example, and others have them too.
It strikes me that there's therefore, it may already be happening,
but it strikes me that there's an exercise required to form an evaluation of how appeals are being judged
and the criteria and how they look at it.
And we need a kind of policy so that we are not afraid to say,
no, we reject this, but not rash about doing so.
And that's a balance.
Now, we have some very competent officers,
but this might be something that actually I'd
like to recommend, that this is something
that there should be at least a consideration.
Are we doing all we can to be as competent as we can in handling this situation?
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:11:46
I think there's a slight danger.
Obviously I'm not the cabinet member for planning and licencing and she has that responsibility
working with the officers to make sure that our officers are providing best
advice to the Planning and Licencing Committee because ultimately we have a
scheme of delegations to officers but the committee has that overview on that
on behalf of the council. So I hear what you say Angus, I'm slightly reticent to
give more of an answer because essentially the Planning and Licencing
Committee is its own committee and as I alluded to earlier I don't think it's
the, probably is the remit of this committee to scrutinise that committee
because your role is to scrutinise the executive and it's a regulatory function.
but there are members sat on that committee who are in here and some of us
have sat on it and it performs a function. I think your role is to
scrutinise the executive and therefore the officers and the cabinet who are
providing advice to the committee. I'm sure I absolutely will take back this
conversation. I will talk to Councillor Layton about it and make sure that she's
aware of it and I'm sure similarly that officers will certainly, I'm looking at
the Chief Executive to essentially appraise the planning team so her
planning officers essentially of the discussion that we've had this evening
but I'm sure they're very cognizant of it and to your other point around yet
the goalposts have moved the planning inspector let's remember as a civil
servant who is appointed to make decisions on planning appeals so whilst
you know we know that and the public may not appreciate this always that actually
we the their locally elected representatives and the Planning and
Licencing Committee can make a decision that ultimately can be overturned by a
civil servant. Whilst there is some local decision making, ultimately it is all appealable
if the applicant doesn't like it. I know members understand that, but I make the point in public
because it is a really significant part of the decision making of the Planning and Licencing
Committee that every single decision they take, if it is to refuse an application, could
be appealed to an inspector who doesn't know the area necessarily and will be judging it
using the National Paralling Policy Framework
and the local plan ultimately.
So I think, yeah, planning is clearly a sensitive matter.
We're about to, you know,
we are embarking on updating our local plan.
We're getting more speculative applications.
There's likely to be more appeals
as a consequence of that.
Let's hope we manage to win them.
I think, you know, that's down to the good offices
of the committee and our planning officers that they make good decisions
that can be defended at appeal so that we're not in a position going back to
what the point that Councillor Coleman made that we're losing appeals that
really we shouldn't have that we should made a different decision I'm not saying
that that's happened I don't think it has in recent times but you know we've
We've got to be mindful of that as we go forward.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:15:35
I had also two questions.
The first one was about going back to the serious issue of the number of affordable
houses, homes being delivered being only two against the target of 25 and only 64 completions
against 100 expected in this council year.
And clearly many of the factors involved in this are beyond CDC's control.
But were there any expected affordable home developments cancelled for whatever reason?
I mean there's sometimes that developers squeeze the number down and things like that.
Or are we just suffering from delays in execution?
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:16:14
I can give you a sort of, well I know of it and then there might be other officers who
may be able to.
I know that our officer, particularly Alan Hope, was referred to earlier by Councillor
Paris, our strategic housing manager, worked very hard to get as much affordable and preferably
social housing in developments as he can on behalf of the Council.
And I know there are examples where developers come back and say, oh, we can't afford that
viability and try to argue the number back down.
I don't know if that's the reason here why we – potentially, I might – and maybe
Gemma will correct me if I'm wrong it's more likely we've got an arbitrary
target of a hundred a year there's the cycle has gone that you know we were
hoping things like down happening would have come in by now but even then that's
not massive it's looking at least I think it's 14 or 16 13 so yeah it's not
a massive number but that's social rented housing so that's you know in
terms of a greater benefit than just affordable so I think the difficulty and
raised it chair is that essentially we have a target over which we have little
control and where we sometimes have those permissions coming back and
developers trying to argue that the numbers back down again. I don't know if
Gemma or any other officer had anything to add to that.
Officer - 2:17:45
No just I can add that the the target actually came from the local plan from
in 2018 and since then I have actually got a little note about this here. So we've
actually averaging about 125 affordable homes each year. So even with this
there's a projected 64 completions for this year which is quite low but as such
if that was actually if it was only the 64 we'd still be around 119 average per
year since the local plan was introduced. So a bit of good news.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:18:18
My other one was the solar PV support. I just want to know how many houses or residences
or whatever you however you want to count them are in the district because I note that
the number of residents themselves, about 91 ,000, and 27 homes have had solar panels
installed. So it seemed that there was some way to go. I just wondered, I just was interested
to know actually how many obviously not all houses are suitable for it etc etc
etc and I'm aware too that Bromford has been putting them on quite a lot of
their housing and I don't suppose they're counted in this figure these are
the ones which came through the sort of CDC. I will give the data but I think
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:19:02
you're referring to the make my house green scheme so that's one where you
we have partnered with a reputable organisation to provide people who want
to self fund for solar panels so we wouldn't expect the numbers to be huge
but there is a pipeline I've certainly seen with bigger numbers on it obviously
always takes a little bit of time but what it doesn't say is how many solar
panels have we got in the district. I don't think we're gathering that
information unless Gemma's going to tell us otherwise that be something that may
we might want to know if we're looking at for our more general like carbon
targets but I don't I'm not aware of that but don't know Gemma can add. I'm
not aware either but I will have a look on algae in form because sometimes they
Officer - 2:19:49
have metrics they've gathered from some places like that. Yes because most people
have to have planning applications so therefore it must be able to because it
just makes it look rather small and I'm sure it's much greater than that and so
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:20:05
would be interesting to have that. Going... sorry... Just on page 162 it says the
Councillor Tony Slater - 2:20:10
council's help of residents installed 27 homes, further 18 on track, to
collectively save 450 ,000. There must be some data somewhere to support that
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:20:28
collectively saving number. I think that would be Make My House Greens equivalent
of how much those householders in total would save on their energy bills from
having a solar panel on their house that they're paying for presumably yeah that
because there are yet numbers around that but that's their their individuals
doing that on their own house
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:20:51
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:20:54
David thank you just in terms of the number of dwellings so on our council
tax base return for October of last year, 46 ,109 total dwellings on the valuation list.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:21:08
Thank you for looking up so quickly. That's very impressive. I don't think there's any
particular recommendations to go forward, but I know that a lot of the things you have
noted and will be followed up as a sort of thing. Was there anything that anybody felt
that all of you go through as a recommendation or shall we, I mean there is the recommendation
goes through to cabinet for them to look at and that's just accepted but with no particular
changes. Are you happy on that everybody? Right. On that note then, so thank you for
all of that, thank you for your work, thank you, it was very, very interesting. We will
have a break now and I know that Councillor Slater has also got to go off to
another meeting at 6 .30 and then we'll come back to do the corporate plan so
thank you very much.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:22:00
Do you say you always want 10 minutes don't you?
6 .30.
6 .30 okay, snappy.
...report now.

11 Service Performance Report 2025-26 Quarter 1

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:22:07
Not yet.
Yeah no because we're going to do it with changes so you don't even come back where you going to?
Thank you.
And also, Angus, if you want to do yours.
It's just that if we overrun later, then we can,
because we're on the same thing, rather than losing your reports.
Should Angus go first on that, then?
Fine. Are you happy to do that?
Are you ready?
I'm not presented in the.
Yes. No, that's fine.

13 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees

Are you happy there?
Thank you.
Thank you.
So, we've got a slight change of plan, just to enable us
to get through all the work in the evening.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:22:49
The last Gloucestershire Economic Strategy,
Strutiny Committee meeting was cancelled,
not the first time that one has been cancelled.
So I do not have a report, therefore it's quite short.
But I did circulate to you earlier today
a document that I've received just recently,
which is the draught fifth version of the county economic strategy on the basis
that although we haven't had a meeting about it and it's not a final version
since I was sent it you might find it interesting you might not it's up to you
Yes.
Thank you.
Short and sweet.
Short and sweet.
And I do hope that you'll have a meeting to go to soon.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:23:43
There's one scheduled in September.
Good.
Um, Councillor Fowles, would you like to give your one on the Hosk?
Um, Councillor Fowles, um, did as Neil was not able to go to the meeting, so he stood
in and I understand had a very interesting time.
Sorry?
You had an interesting time going to the Hosk.
Can everyone hear me?
Thank you, Chairman.
Councillor David Fowles - 2:24:19
As you quite rightly said, I'm the official substitute for Councillor Dillis -Neill, who
normally attends the Health, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and we're privileged to
have her because obviously she's a retired GP.
I didn't quite know what I was letting myself in for when I went and I circulated or got
permission to circulate all the reports to you, which is pretty heavy going.
I thought that because I was only able to circulate them on Friday, and I have tried
really hard to get the minutes from the relevant officer, but they're short staffed up there
and she said that she couldn't let me have it until the chairman had seen it, which I
quite understood.
So what I thought I'd do is highlight some of the things
from the report on the basis that you probably have all read
it in detail, but perhaps you haven't.
So I thought I'd give you a flavour of what's going on.
And I have to say I was absolutely overwhelmed with
the knowledge of our health practitioners at the meeting
and indeed the quality of the way it was shared.
So we had three reports, the introduction to the NHS
Gloucestershire, which looked at the work of NHS Gloucestershire
in relation to the committee.
Gloucestershire Integrated Care System and the NHS Gloucestershire
Integrated Care Board.
I also looked at the minutes of the March meeting to see if
there's anything that might be of interest to the committee,
and I was really interested to see that there were four reports
on campaigns that were run last autumn, which they're going
to rerun this year.
So I thought I'd start by highlighting those.
The first was the Stay Well This Winter campaign,
which was a multimedia campaign to promote key topics such
as COVID and flu vaccinations, staying warm, eating well,
staying active, protecting mental health,
looking after the vulnerable, not only your own family,
but also with friends, supporting carers,
and a particular issue for the committee,
which is in their work plan, which is using digital tools
to support health and well -being.
An awful lot of what goes on in the NHS is analogue -driven,
and it's very, very cumbersome.
The second is what they're calling click or call first,
which is to promote and convey simple measures on how
to navigate your way step -by -step through the myriad
out of different channels that you can go to if you need
healthcare support.
The third, and very importantly, is pharmacy first.
As we all know, there are, there's a situation now where
you can receive treatment for the seven key common conditions
from your pharmacy without having to go to a GP or indeed
to get a prescription.
Unfortunately, the report did not give me what those seven
were, so if you go into your local pharmacy and ask
for help on something, you may be let down.
I have an anecdotal storey on that.
There was an accident in the marketplace in Syrinsester.
I rushed into Hortons, and there was someone bleeding
in the street, and I kid you not, Hortons, the chemist,
did not want to get involved at all, and it was quite difficult.
At the end, I managed to persuade a taxi driver
to get someone up to Syrinsester Hospital, but I thought, well,
what price?
The pharmacy first scheme, but that was a personal experience.
And the last one is no place like home, which was
highlighting the benefits of trying to get people out
of hospital as quickly as possible with the proper
care, get them back into the home where that's
basically the best place for people to.
So I'll now try and highlight some of the
things which I found really, really, really interesting.
The population of Gloucestershire I thought
was 650 ,000.
It's actually 682 ,000 people.
But the really frightening statistic was that that's
That's going to increase to 732 ,000 by 230.
So that's going to put huge, huge pressure on all of us.
And it made me realise why we have to go through these
boundary changes, because the population does change very,
very dramatically, very, very quickly.
And not for the first time, I think we're all aware of this,
we have a lower proportion of naught to 15 -year -olds than 16
to 64 -year -olds anywhere else in the country,
And we have a higher proportion of people over 65,
which if you translate that into healthcare,
also brings all sorts of issues.
There are a number of changes affecting the NHS in terms
of the integrated care board, but essentially what's happening
is going to amalgamate Gloucestershire ICB with
Bristol, North Somerset, and create a much bigger cluster
for the integrated care board system.
In the documentation, it talked about Glostrure NHS being
streamed into six transformation portfolios.
I won't go through them in any detail, but it really did try to
divide up things from prevention and long -term conditions, such
as, for example, weight management, diabetes, and these
are things that are really with us now that I hadn't really
appreciated until I started to read the report.
This is a serious problem, obesity in Gloucestershire,
and also long -term conditions like CVD and diabetes.
Then the second big issue for us here in Gloucestershire
is mental health and how to deal with that.
And we've heard a lot of counsellors,
certainly counsellor Joe Harris, talk about the pressures
on mental health at all ages, particularly amongst the young.
And there are other work streams there.
We then talked about Gloucestershire hospitals.
We all know that we have a hospital here in Sirenstister,
thank goodness, but for how long?
The two main hospitals, obviously, in Gloucestershire,
are Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary and Cheltenham
General Hospital.
I didn't appreciate.
There's also a Stroud maternity unit and a regional
council centre in Cheltenham.
Highlights of what's been done recently in those hospitals,
there's a new stroke unit in Cheltenham,
which is good to hear, and MRA scanning has now been introduced
into both Cheltenham and Gloucester,
and these are really sophisticated pieces
of equipment.
The thing that's particularly dear to, I think,
a number of our hearts, given the rural nature
of the Cotswolds, is ambulances and hand -over times.
I was delighted to see that that's reduced from 122 minutes
from January 2023 to 56 minutes in January 24th.
And the stats, we talked earlier, Angus in particular,
was talking about some of the data that we get
in our reports.
But when you actually see it brought to life in these kinds
of reports and some of the staggering numbers and some
of the trends, it's really, really encouraging to see that.
The worrying thing for me, though, when they were looking
at improvements was what they now call corridor care.
A few years ago, we would never have had corridor care
as an issue, but they now monitor corridor care.
And the very name of corridor care suggests to me that
hospitals, and particularly in A and E units, have got
Ambulance is queued up outside, and people on trolleys
in corridors, and they're trying really, really hard
to process that.
The key challenges for our hospitals, if you manage to get
to that pain report, Cheltenham in particular is 175 years old
as a hospital, and they currently have 100 million
pounds' worth of backlog in terms of maintenance of that
particular hospital and elsewhere within this area.
They have to in order to meet their budgets.
makes your eyes water if you Patrick Coleman's because they have to achieve
savings in 2025 2026 of 42 million pounds which is just to balance the
books okay they also need to make huge improvements in the maternity services
and I didn't know what the tower was but many of you probably do the tower in
Gloucestershire that's in serious need of refurbishment and it's currently got
substandard fire systems.
So I caution you about finding yourselves in the tower in
Gloucestershire because it's got some serious problems in terms
of the engine.
However, moving on to more interesting things,
the actual broader picture for health and the Foundation
Trust, this operates from about 85 sites across Gloucestershire,
has a budget of 340 million pounds,
It handles a staggering 17 ,000 111 calls per month,
and actually has over 12 ,000 attendances across the same
period.
On the positives, we have one of the highest rated trusts
in the Southwest for helping and being a good place to work.
We have one of the highest figures in terms
of school immunisation, and we've been reading a lot
at the moment about the government's plans
for making sure children are vaccinated
against chickenpox.
But we are really at the top of the tree when it comes to that.
We are the top trust in England for following up when people are
discharged from hospital, which is encouraging to see.
However, we do have real problems with the service being
put under pressure for long waiting times when you get into
trying to get into a hospital.
We have continued problems with the length of stay and people
are not staying in hospital long enough to deal with some of
their conditions, potentially mental health.
I don't want to interrupt too much.
And that's just coming to the end.
Oh, I just saw rather lovely people.
But just to say that the report is well worth reading and I've
also got some more up -to -date reports, two reports that the
Office have very kindly circulated to me.
And what I would urge you to say, if you're going to ask me
any tricky questions, I'd much rather defer those to
Councillor de L 'Isle because she'll obviously know the answers.
If there's simple questions, I'm sure I can deal with them.
But I was just trying to give you a flavour of some of the
pressures we were under if you hadn't had a chance to read
the reports.
I'm sorry for the lateness of the reports.
Thank you, Chen.
Dr. Anne Pritikinath.
Well, thank you.
And actually, that was some really interesting facts,
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:34:36
figures, and I think we all, I don't know,
we don't always realise quite how much the complications of
running the health service just within Gloucestershire,
and that actually indicated a lot of things.
But it seems that even under those exercises that they are
doing remarkably well and some of their outcomes and things.
But, yes, it will be challenging times.
So thank you for coming back and telling us about that.
Did anybody have any, and I'm sorry that I might have appeared
to interrupt you.
Dr. David Waddington I'm very grateful that you let me go quickly.
There was one thing I did want to share with you which I found
Councillor David Fowles - 2:35:08
completely and utterly surprising was I hadn't
appreciated that there's been a 13 percent reduction in the
So we have real pressure on younger people.
People are leaving and migrating out of the county.
But, you know, we're looking at birth rates reducing from 6 ,289
in 2017 to 5 ,500 now.
So just new people, youngsters coming into our community,
it's causing all sorts of tensions and pressures.
That's all I really wanted to try and achieve today, Jim.
I thank you for allowing me to present to you.
Well, thank you very much and I think it was interesting and maybe there will be another
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:35:49
opportunity for you to go and deputise in the mosque because you obviously had a very
interesting and informal time.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity.
Thank you.
Before we actually go on to the very, very last item, I did touch and go through the
work plan in my chair's announcement and I'm just going to say that that will, a refreshed
work plan will be coming out to you and it will basically incorporate the local
plan having the meeting which we've now agreed on the 1st of December so there

14 Work Plan and Forward Plan

are quite a few changes is there anything that anybody else wanted to
mention on the work plan going forward
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:36:29
nope if we're not that that's our thing so now we'll go back to agenda item 12
of, which is the corporate plan update. I have got Mike Everny and Jane, Joseph, thank

12 Corporate Plan 2024-2028 Update

you very much. That's Joseph Walker, for everybody listening, I'm not sure he has
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:36:54
name up but Joseph Walker is the officer supporting Mike Everny. Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:37:04
Thank you chair very conscious of the hour but this is an important document
and it will be coming to full council later on in the month following
discussion and hopefully agreement subject to any modifications by the
So what members I guess will have seen in reading the report is that we've had
some work with it within the cabinet including while we still had the former
leader with us back in May to update the corporate plan because we recognise that
circumstances have changed and I know it's only it's less than two years since
we last did this but quite a lot has happened in that time and yeah
particularly the potential abolition of the council in local government
reorganisation being obviously the most significant of those but obviously we've
also had the transfer of services back from Publica since we last updated our
corporate plan and yeah so there's been quite a lot that have changed and we
recognise given that we now have a finite timeline although that might move
depending on whether the the government can deliver LGR on the timeline so
you'll notice from the plan we talk about vesting day for the new councils
Council on the 1st of April 2028 that assumes therefore that this council
ceases will cease to exist on the 31st of March the day before at midnight so
that's the working assumption within the plan and in particularly the action plan
that you've got here I'm certainly slightly sceptical of whether the
government can deliver 20 reorganisations to that timeline which is
what it appears to be trying to do at the moment having delivered sort of one
earlier than that in Surrey or due to deliver one earlier so but civil
servants are saying that our ministers are saying that's the timeline so we
have to work on that basis and I guess if we if it does extend out a year which
it may do and would still come within the term of this Parliament assuming it
goes to the end, which is what the government stated they wanted in the White Paper, then
we will obviously review that in terms of the timelines.
But we wanted a document for the Council which recognised the change in terms of the circumstances.
The plan that you've got before is very much evolution, it's not revolution.
Obviously this isn't a new administration, there's a new leader to the administration,
but it's fundamentally the same administration that we've had for the last six years.
What we have done, though, is we've got a new priority to add to the other five, and
that's about planning for the future, and I'm sure you'll have seen that within the
report.
And we've got, you know, robust, I think, and achievable timelines that have been put
together.
Just to finish off to say I will see this work.
I think it was the first thing, not the first thing, but certainly in the first conversation I had with the Chief Executive was appraising her that we had started work on this.
And that basically we wanted it to come forward to the September cycle of meetings.
Which after a little bit of intake of breath, she and the officers have got on and done the work that brings the papers before you this evening.
So happy to Joseph to add anything that he feels is
pertinent that I haven't mentioned.
And then obviously to take questions and listen to the
committee's views.
Thank you Councillor me I think that's a fairly comprehensive
Officer - 2:41:11
summary of both the purpose the background and the process we
followed.
It might be useful just to sort of highlight the structure of
the document and how that's evolved.
So as with previous, there's a sort of text context section
that sets out the priorities.
And as Councillor Avami has mentioned,
there's now a further priority around preparing for the future
to reflect LGR and the council's transformation agenda
to make sure services and finances are
in the best possible position
as we move forward into that future.
The sort of context and text is then backed
by the action plan. That has evolved from a review of current actions in terms of
rolling forward those actions, those outstanding priorities that we're still
delivering upon as a council. There has been a little bit of culling of
business as usual in order to keep this document sort of to task because
we've got new priorities around LGR as well and I think it also reflects
the change in circumstance that this is now the corporate plan for the council, as opposed
to it had a life as a kind of commissioning document in terms of the work we're public
at and we've moved forward in terms of this being the sort of priorities for the council.
We haven't had to then pick up on quite as much of that detail in this document.
So I'd like to suggest that it is a little bit more focused on fewer actions to make
sure it's proportionate to our ability to deliver in the next two and a half years.
We've presented it as a text -only version at this point to really focus people on the
content. Clearly the final document will be designed up to make it a little bit more attractive,
a little bit more accessible, and that will obviously be shared with members in due course.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:43:11
Thank you both for your introductions. I will now open it up. Has anybody got any questions
that they wanted to raise? Councillor Waring, please.
Councillor Jon Wareing - 2:43:23
I have a comment and a question. If I do the comment first, on page 156, the values, the
third one, you talk about being business focused, ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and good
value for money. Do you mean being business focused? Do you mean being
commercially intelligent, efficient and professional? And I'm making this point
because I'm rather triggered by the phrase business focused. Sorry to bring
this back to Bourn on the water but we have a parish council that is accused by
its residents quite vociferously as Facebook keeps melting down. Business
focus means a council is just pursuing the interests of local businesses rather
than residents. And I think when you say efficiency effectiveness, it's about professionalism,
it's about ethics, it's about being commercially astute. So just to kind of change a phrase,
if I could encourage that, that might be helpful. That's a comment. The question I've got, though,
is in preparing for the future, having attended the Town and Parish Council Summit and hearing
quite a lot about the changes in moving to unitary in Chippenham. What seemed very evident
was that towns have a critical mass that this move will be very favourable to for. I wasn't
given any confidence that this was going to be good news for rural communities and the
North Cotswolds I think is going to be particularly vulnerable and I would like to see greater
emphasis on the preparing for the future section, recognising the rural nature of
Cotswold district and looking out for those rural communities. Is that
something that you can consider?
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:45:11
Yeah thanks, thanks Councillor Waring. I'm not sure I understand why you have
that concern important on the water. I hear officers often talk about the
business away from the business so the term and but yeah obviously it's not a
profit -making business we're a local authority I think what we're trying to
and we'll take it away and see whether we can come up with words that are in
line with the sentiment that you're you're suggesting that are maybe a bit
more succinct because he chose it for the team have done something which is
about saying look you know we are about making sure that we're going to be
efficient effective deliver value for money we want to hand over that and I
guess we've used that terminology so pick up that point I think on the LGR
point we there are we've had a couple of sessions for members here one virtual
one face -to -face where we talked through this and that's available to you John as
well to have a look at the I think we've shared the virtual one in terms of what
we are talking about but totally take on board your point I say myself I'm in a
lot of meetings senior offices are in a lot of meetings as well at Tristan
Wilkinson is working closely with me on this as my deputy on LGR issues within
the count of the cabinet and we're very mindful that you know obviously
Gloucestershire is a large area.
It has two large urban centres.
The rest of it is largely rural.
So that plays out in the discussion.
So, I mean, Lisa's not here now, but I can praise her in her absence that she's chairing
that on behalf of the seven councils that are working together.
And so there are four of us there who are leaders of largely rural authorities and two
who are leaders of urban authorities,
with Lisa as the leader over so.
So I think absolutely your point around how do we make LGR work
for rural is one of the challenges because,
but I guess it's an imposed change.
We haven't got a choice.
There are other examples that the government would point
two of rural areas that have unitary local government,
whether that's one council or two or three.
So, we have to make it work.
I think we are currently, you know,
talking about neighbourhoods.
The government has talked quite a bit about neighbourhoods
and their neighbourhoods are probably rather larger
than you or I would think of our neighbourhoods.
And one of the things we, you know, need to,
and this will be coming back through, obviously,
as we go through the process with documents.
And there are a couple of seminars that are being held
for all members of authorities across the whole of Gloucestershire,
I think, online next week,
which if you could get to one, that might be useful.
But totally get your point around it's not all
about large authorities.
And yet, we obviously took back some feedback about the event
that, you know, it was useful, but we could have done more
around smaller councils, smaller areas,
smaller as in fewer people,
not necessarily smaller geographically.
But we're very mindful of that
and how we look to develop structures
that means that with the absence of a district councillor
that they don't feel sort of isolated away
from the new authority.
So that's a challenge because, you know,
The number of councillors is by definition being reduced radically, a 65 % reduction in councillors.
So the numbers of us who are close to our communities will be a lot fewer, whoever they are.
So it's the challenge.
But yeah, keep plugged in, John.
I'm happy to have further conversations, but it is something that we are going to need to...
We'll be talking about it quite a bit probably in the next...
in the rights of 28th of November which is the deadline day for the documents
thank you I was I would second it too because I think that's a concern I've
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:49:35
had and actually the town and parish councils pretty parish councils have had
concerns on this Councillor Harris thanks yeah I mean on a similar vein
Councillor Joe Harris - 2:49:46
it's a bit of a mixed picture isn't it across the consoles with respect to our
town and parish councils some you'd be quite comfortable hunting services over
tomorrow others there's potential and I think as John has alluded to they're
gonna be some that go oh my god what do we do I think the council's got a key
leadership role to play in that and I think that's kind of what it all comes
down to there's the leadership of well actually town and parish council this is
the art of the possible isn't it there are lots of examples run across the
country of town and parish councils doing really exciting things but I think
quite often they're quite parochial. Who knew? And I think actually you know I
know from my experience you know as a ward member with parish councils
that actually just telling them about things that they can actually do. They do
have you know they do have power of competence. They can actually put their
council tax or their share of the council tax up to pay for things and you
know you think I was telling them you know things that they've never heard
before you know it for me it seems obvious but a lot of our town and parish
councils they haven't been trained they don't particularly understand the
function and I think that's a key point and it's all very well to point to their
local county associated GA PTC or whatever but actually that's not their
role so I think for us it's a key thing around leadership and showing a lot of
our town and parish councils the art of the possible which is why I think the
town and parish council forum they had in the summer was such a successful
event because I think we started the journey so I hate that term but we
started that journey so I think we need to have you know I would like to have a
bit of an explicit mention of you know showing that leadership and actually
we're going to provide a bit of a pathway for some of these councils. I think
you know the other key point and what we're seeing what's in Somerset certainly
is that well actually the districts gave a load of stuff up to the County Council
I should say that the the new council took a lot of those non -discretionary
services from the district councils and what's happening well they're either
cutting them so they don't exist anymore or they're asking the town and parish
councils to pick them up so I quite like us to get ahead of a curve on that so
when the new Gloucestershire Council in three years four years vesting day
whatever the first budget and we're announcing we're having to close all the
toilets in the Cotswolds or we're having to cut the the leisure offering or the
culture and offering, I think there's a real opportunity now actually to start discussions
with our communities about taking those on and putting it in very clear terms actually.
Take it on, are you going to lose it potentially in a few years' time?
And that kind of does need to be the, I think that needs to be the message and it needs
to be, maybe we could put it a little bit more softly than that, but ultimately that
is the message that we need to get across.
So I think from my point of view, just having, being clear about what we're talking about,
that community leadership role in showing town and parishes after the
possible and then on that second point I was making around actually this is a
this is a discussion about transfer of services that do we really want the
County Council away you know County unitary running and they'll probably
just cut them in a few years anyway I think that is what it's about we need to
be clear on that and start this discussions now so yeah that would be
that'd be my comment I don't know Mike you might love I'm sure you do want to
and offer your view. Thank you Joe. To your second point I made that
Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:53:18
point in slightly more couch language at the summit. I made it clear you know and
we had people from Chippenham there and talked about how they'd taken on services
from Wiltshire that you know essentially they were safeguarding them. So I think
there is that challenge that backdrop drop of local government finances, non
statutory services which we all are cognizant of and that when you merge the
budgets of the district and city and the borough councils together you know it's
dwarfed by the budget of the County Council and you know so the services
provided you know in terms of adult children social care highways all those
you know the difficulty and I know this having been a member of a unitary
authority quite a long time ago is that once unitary authorities form those
services inevitably dominate and in the time available for members particularly
to engage on the services that we might talk about here is much less because
you're dealing with you know massive issues like children's social care or
adult social care or children's services. So I think in terms of but I think we've
got to be I'm a little more cautious than you and I look over at David sat
behind you in terms of one I don't think I think if you precipitate for us to
have detailed discussions now that's not to say we can't talk to people like
the Sirencester Town Council and indeed we are talking to Sirencester Town Council.
I've got a meeting with them I think in a couple of weeks time.
So those discussions can happen theoretically,
but obviously we don't know whether there will be one or two unitaries.
We don't know the date that's going to happen on.
And you know, we have duties, David has a duty,
Patrick and I have duties to the council to make sure that
So we do our best by this council and that clearly means that we've got to be mindful
of our spending and any sort of capital spending that we make and we've already had a letter
which sort of reminded us that from Jim McMahon, the minister, although obviously we're not
in the process yet of changing to a new authority.
But you know they're watching the fact that we don't just sort of give all our
assets away for next to nothing or nothing. So we've got to be mindful of,
I totally get your point Joe, that ultimately we represent the people here
in the Cotswold district and we want you know the count there will be still be a
council serving them after whenever it is in 2028 or 2029. And I think what I
would say in terms of preparing for the future bit
is about making sure that whatever services
that we hand over, or the services that we do hand over
to the new authority, are viable in the longer term.
So, you know, where, and this comes back
to some of the discussions we had earlier.
I was out of the room, I think,
we just started talking about toilets again.
You know, where's the viability of that service
in terms of the funding for it?
So, you know, we need to be mindful of that and making our services as fit and robust
for the world, the unitary world as we can, because they won't, honestly, won't get a
lot of air time once we're in a unitary authority because they'll be very much smaller.
But they often matter most to people because they're the things that are very local to
them.
I don't know if officers want to add anything to what I've said.
Shakes from the back.
Thank you.
If there's no one else to put themselves forward, I have some questions.
Anyone else?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:57:30
Councillor Jenkinson, please.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:57:40
Firstly, I'd just like to say, I hope we all agree, that I think it's a good addition to
at preparing for the future, so I endorse that.
I think it's important, and we've discussed that.
Thank you also for confirming that the final version
would have graphics, images, whatever,
so I don't need to ask about that.
In your vision, preparing for the future,
five items are listed on page 155.
It is quite clear that it is important to us and you have made it clear that sorting
out the area plan and so forth and putting ourself in shape on that is a really critical
focused strategic area.
I don't know why it wouldn't be part of preparing for the future, maybe it is somewhere else,
but I may have just missed this as a key objective
that would be included in the cabinet plan.
So I just ask you to consider that particular item.
I'll carry on with the questions, if I may.
I was just wondering whether we ought to be taking a vote
because we've now gone to the three Rs.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:58:59
We have already started this subject, but whether we should ...
We don't need to. We don't need to.
So we can continue.
I just thought we might have to do that.
Sorry about that.
Not a problem.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:59:15
You will be aware that we just had the farming motion and looked at the whole question of
farmers.
As part of the assessment, we worked out that 90 % of the land in the Cotswold or more is
farmland and the farmers are a major part of our economy and a major part of a much
bigger economy than simply the financial money. They contribute in many different ways. Also
critical to that is the recognition that recently reported that the mitigation methods by removing
carbon from the atmosphere and so on is not going to be fast enough, it's not going to
be effective, that's international report.
What we know, as you've heard me before and you know about it anyway, is that farming
has this massive opportunity to turn around climate and ecology.
I have regular meetings with Councillor McEwen on both of these matters, especially the climate
aspect.
And we recognise that there are possibilities in which one could work with that particular
community to help them follow the transition pathways that this country has signed up for
at United Nations level.
So I'm wondering if we could explicitly recognise the farming community, and this goes to the
point that was made earlier on about our rural communities, whether we could explicitly recognise
this as a key community and a key transition and it's also critical to planning for the
future, wherever you want to put it, because we have a whole global future that we have
to prepare for and every year counts. The last one, and it also relates to the conversations
I'm having on a regular basis with Councillor McEwen, is the Fleet Replacement Programme.
programme. I'd like to recommend or request whether you would be prepared to consider
modifying the words to something like a fleet transition programme. And the reason why I'm
proposing fleet transition programme rather than fleet replacement programme is that if
you put fleet replacement programme then you're kind of stuck with having to replace them
And there are alternatives.
There are several alternative strategies which have significant impact on cost
and significant impact on climate effects,
because these beasts that you buy, in the long term, over the long period,
do pay for themselves, but they don't in the short term.
They are a big hit.
And in the future when we do move to a unitary there will be all kinds of opportunities, no doubt, for rationalisation, larger, more bang for buck in terms of we'd be larger so therefore we'd be able to get better prices and so forth.
And there are alternatives to just replacing them in the short term.
So, I'd like to encourage you to consider further evaluation on that rather than going
hell for leather for a replacement programme.
I'm happy to explain that further, but for the moment, because time is short and you've
got a cabinet coming up, just give yourself room to think about it some more.
Thank you, Angus.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 3:02:56
Just on that last point, I just want to reassure you we're definitely not going hell for leather
on a fleet replacement programme. I've got David at the back of the room. It's five million quid.
We're not going hell for leather at it. We're taking our time thinking about it. And you know,
as and when we get to, and Mike is key as part of that discussion. So you know, we're looking at on
a full cross cabinet basis. It's a massive decision. Ultimately, obviously, it will come
to Council, so the amount involved. So I'd want to reassure members, I'm not sure about
the terminology because ultimately what we're doing is saying we've got some waste vehicles
that are coming towards the end of their life. We're looking at ones we can, you know, do
we have to replace them right now? Can we make them run a couple more years till the
technology is better, you know, which ones are we going to need for the service?
Do we going to, what we don't want to do is, you know, despite what we talked about earlier,
improvement in the missed bins and the service, we don't want that to go back the other way
because we've got ageing vehicles that keep breaking down, costing us lots of money.
So it's really difficult, a finely balanced, lots of things to consider.
There's the finances, carbon effect, LGR, all thrown into the mix.
So we'll think about the terminology,
but essentially what we're saying is
that members need to be aware that, you know,
we have an ageing now fleet,
because it was largely purchased in 2020,
and they're typically got seven years life in them.
So, you know, we, and they typically have a lead time
of a year to get another one.
So, you know, we're very mindful of that as part of it.
In terms of your second point, I'm very loathe to add in new priorities when we're essentially a council coming to an end.
I totally take the point about farming and its import in our area and our district.
I know you personally have done a lot of work alerting us and Mike to that.
I need to probably think about that in between now and Thursday.
I guess in terms of and talk to officers as to whether there's something there that we felt we could put in.
But I'm mindful of not wanting to, looking over at the Chief Executive, ask officers to do more work when we're basically trying to pay back a little bit.
But we can have a, I can have a conversation with the officers about that.
And then the third point, or the first point you actually made was about the local plan.
So what we've done here is we've seeded it
through each of the priorities rather than have its own priority.
And you'll see when you look at the action plan,
we've got a line in every one.
And the Office of Joseph has tried to sort of say
why it's relevant for that priority.
So more successfully than some than in others.
But as I said, I think when we took that through Cabinet
in July in council that it would be a priority of this council and we felt the
best way of reflecting that was to seed it through the the priorities because it
is about preparing for the future and it does underpin so much of what we want to
do so that's how we've how we've dealt with that.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 3:06:25
Is that sufficient? Do you get the focus? Because when I you know when I stood as
as a councillor and in subsequent conversations with the town council and with various
vociferous individuals and groups who've been making propositions, it's been a regular, almost
like a mantrum, to point out that the town in its present situation is an outcome of a long period
without an area plan. So I am just super sensitive to what happens when you don't have one and
we know the situation now. And sometimes when you actually name something and put it there,
it gets more focused than when it's distributed. I'm glad to see it's there, and I suspect
there's no chance you'll forget about it, but...
To clarify, we do have a local plan. The only policies that are out of date are the housing
Councillor Mike Evemy - 3:07:21
policies so all our other policies are still in effect if anybody's watching
out there the things that we haven't got a local plan we do it's the housing
policies that have been moved out of date because the government have changed
the goalposts and said we've got to have a thousand houses a year so I take your
point but we thought about that quite carefully and rather than introduce
another so go to seven and talk about the plan we felt the given the import of
local plan seeded across. We've got an oversight board that's going to be
meeting monthly. We're going to go to regulation 18 consultation this one. I
don't think there's any danger that anyone's not going to know that we're doing our
local plan but I take your point. But it is you know in terms of the projects
that we are delivering the local plan and local government reorganisation
whatever that ends up being will be the two biggest projects that we are
delivering to Council in our remaining few years.
Noted, thank you.
So yes, if I could come in.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 3:08:24
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 3:08:27
And just to point out, sort of, I suppose in response to that,
Officer - 3:08:29
but also for members benefit more generally,
that clearly as a corporate plan,
it's not a full sort of catalogue of services and
priorities of the Council.
We have focused really on those sort of projects and key
challenges, so there are things sitting behind this that will
be picked up in service plans. So the sub -projects that are fundamental to delivering on the
local plan or the specifics on how we are actually going to commit and tackle our climate
change priorities will be picked up in those service plans which will underpin the delivery
of this strategy.
Thank you. Councillor Waring.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 3:09:08
Councillor Jon Wareing - 3:09:12
On page 167 in supporting the economy, it mentions managing the opportunity in the
heart of the visitor economy and there's also a section on supporting
communities and Borton and Bybury are suffering excessively from what I will
turn over tourism and there's a definition for over tourism from the UN
World Tourism Organisation, which calls it, describes it as the impact of tourism on a
destination or parts thereof that excessively influences perceived quality of life of citizens
and or quality of visitors' experience in a negative way. Until such time as the District
Council and the County Council and indeed our Parish Council will name the problem that
we're having, we're struggling to do anything about it because there is a
blanket avoidance. There seems to be a taboo subject around tourism that you
can't say it needs to be sustainable, it needs to be balanced. And if you're
really serious, both in terms of supporting community but also supporting
economy. I would like to see some emphasis on naming the issues in those
two particular communities that are really destructive. We are seeing
real conflict in our community because it's such a binary issue and there I'm
getting letters about from people who want to move away, who've lived there for
decades, can't bear it anymore. An elderly person who's now going to Upper
to the pharmacy because you can't get to the pharmacy in Boughton.
People who are being threatened physically, verbally,
because they're trying to get to their homes through the village.
You know, stuff that the sense of what being in a community means
is totally lost to residents in Boughton.
It's profoundly depressing.
I've been considering whether or not to raise this in this meeting, but given that it says
encourage community health and wellbeing, support our residents in crises.
We've got elderly people who feel so isolated.
They loved COVID because they could walk in the village and see people they knew and say hello.
They can't do that.
These are things that normal people in normal communities take for granted.
We don't have it.
So it's a real plea, because this won't get any attention from a unitary in three years time.
We as a district council have an opportunity to put a marker down and say this is a challenge.
And it's a part of a global challenge, obviously.
There are other places, locations around the planet where they're struggling to manage tourism.
But we've got to make a start, and the start is, acknowledge there's a problem.
And I don't mean just look at Facebook and say, oh yes, it's melting.
It means public bodies accepting we need to do something different.
So I'm making a plea, would you consider putting something to that effect in this documentary?
Venice over the top of Venice.
Councillor Jon Wareing - 3:12:41
I've been reading quite a lot about Venice, given the comparison, because we're always labelled as Venice at the Cotswolds.
And there's some very interesting things, but the most shocking one is that by 2050, they reckon there'll be no Venetians living in Venice.
And the numbers of Venetians leaving, the population of Venice is now 48 ,000.
It's dropped by something like 50 ,000 over 50 years and they're losing a thousand people a year.
Imagine what that does to your community if there's nobody left.
Councillor Jon Wareing - 3:13:13
And the real economy of Borton is on the industrial estate.
It's in agriculture around the village. It's in services. It's in trades.
it's not the high street. So there's a big systems approach needed to look at
really supporting and sustaining our community.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 3:13:43
Thank you John for that contribution. I am familiar with Borton and we've
talked and particularly some of the issues around coach parking, I've heard
earlier with some of those and parking issues and I don't shy away
from the fact that I think, don't deny anything that you've said in
terms of the impact, obviously you live there, you know the people who live
there and the impact on the volume of visitors that visit the village and
and more recently we've seen that in Bybury as well, haven't we?
Where the numbers of people coming,
often for a 15 -minute photo stop and nothing else,
that has a negative impact on the people that live in Bybury.
We've lost Councillor Fowles, the ward member now,
who was here earlier.
I'm sure he would echo the comments that you've made.
Obviously, it's a smaller settlement,
and there's different issues.
I think we are limited in what we can do.
As you know, what we've done is,
we put a levy on the car park to help the village deal
with some of the, to raise money to help the village deal
with some of the issues that the volume tourism creates.
We don't have levers to stop people coming.
We don't actively encourage them to come to Borton
or Bybury through our tourism team.
We try to encourage them to go to other places,
which I know sometimes the businesses in Borton didn't appreciate when they were
told that but that's the reality we don't we don't actively encourage people
to come to Borton because you know there are enough people are coming already to
your point more than enough and I think the challenge and I guess it's not
really I would say it's probably not for a corporate plan but happy to have a
conversation about what it is that you might perceive that we might be able to
to do to help Baughton, Ivory, any other settlement.
Because I tell you, it's the community,
so maybe Joseph might be able to add something
in terms of his role working with communities
and we're very familiar with Baughton
and the teams that we have,
particularly I was struck by what you said about
people being isolated in their own home
and the support that we give
to some incredible voluntary organisations.
I think in a Cotswold Friends based out of Morton to help people but I don't
know Joseph if there's anything that you want to add to what I've said in terms
of responding to what John is saying. I'm certainly happy to try so and thank you
Officer - 3:16:27
for raising that. I mean I suppose looking at how we've we've couched it we
have been trying to be clear you know a corporate plan is generally phrased in
quite some positive language but we have talked about trying to sort of manage
the opportunity and impact of tourism because actually for large parts of the
Cotswolds it is a positive in terms of keeping our village shops, our pubs, our
communities vibrant with that kind of economic input from from tourist
footfall. The problem is that isn't evenly felt across the district and as
mentioned, vibrant importance to bear the brunt of that to some extent.
I think you know that there is things we can do in terms of supporting that
community well -being and for all your comments around Borton, I know that Borton has also
got a very vibrant self -supporting community.
You know, our Strengthening Community event there was one of the most successful we've
run largely because of the input and the involvement of local people.
So you know, whatever we can do to continue to foster that sense of community within the
to counteract those challenges which we struggle as an authority to have the levers to address,
we will continue to try and do.
We have got that, crossing the themes here from supporting the economy through to supporting
our communities, there is quite a strong thread around supporting those more vulnerable people
in society, those that might be struggling with the cost of living, again, in somewhere
where prices are rising because of that external push.
So I think in so far as we have levers to deal with this,
I'd like to think that this plan tries to balance that,
but I do understand your frustration.
Really, I just, you know, such a big step forward
Councillor Jon Wareing - 3:18:16
would be to acknowledge formally the nature of the problem,
because people are denying it,
and people with vested interests, right?
You know, small traders who've got a golden goose.
You know, it's very nice for a few people.
Not many of whom actually live in the village.
But if we could at least have an acknowledgement
of the scale of the issue formally,
that would be such a massive step.
People, and I mean, I had a letter this morning,
it'd been emailed actually,
saying how residents feel totally let down, not represented by any of the councils, by the police, by highways,
because they're under siege. They're not protected. They don't feel looked after. They don't feel listened to.
This is the basics of what councils are there to do, surely.
I could do a digest of something like 30 emails I've received.
Next Monday I will be holding a meeting for residents to establish a formal group to give residents a voice.
Because they don't feel that their parish council is giving them any attention whatsoever.
And I've had a lot of positive feedback saying,
and finally somebody's standing up to the bullying of what goes on in Borton.
And it's about time we had a voice, and we do need to be organised.
And then you hear this litany of sort of pain.
And I'm shocked and stunned by it.
So really, whatever you can do, the smallest thing would be just formally acknowledge
Borton is suffering from over -tourism by that definition that would be amazing
and I don't see how anybody in this room can deny that that definition does not
apply to Borton and indeed to Bybury. I think without doing that off the fly John
Councillor Mike Evemy - 3:20:26
I think obviously I'll take that away and discuss that with officers but I
think what you've heard in my response and I get it is that you know there are
too many people visit our villages and the impact on that, on those particularly,
and the people that live in those places is deleterious to their
well -being. And so, you know, as an authority we have to look to what we can
do to support the residents in that situation. So yeah, we'll take that away
but yeah, keep me posted on how your meeting goes.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 3:21:06
Well, thank you, and I would just add that Borton, we used to live at Clapton on the
Hill so it was my place where we did all our shopping and everything else, it is a place
which historically has attracted some older people, some more perhaps people with some
disabilities and things because it's one of the most level places in the Cotswolds and
for a lot of these people they really do struggle because they can't even walk along the pavements
let alone anything else at the moment.
And my dentist is still important on the water
because we still go to the same one.
But I begin to think, am I ever going to make an appointment
in the summer?
No, because I can't park to go to the dentist.
So I do understand absolutely the challenges you've got.
I myself have got one main question.
It's also with housing.
With the new developments, they have
to include their level of affordable housing allocation as is required. And then for the
rest of the development they go, whippy, I'm going to build a whole lot of three to five
bed executive homes and then sell them at exorbitant prices. Is there absolutely nothing
we can do to encourage for the houses going on the open market, I'm not talking about
that, that they would build more houses which local people might have the aspirations to
forward not these extraordinary expenses. So it's because it's not just about
providing housing for people that wish they're going to rent or they got shared
ownership and they've got various other schemes but you know we just aren't
building houses and they're just too big too expensive and you know too many of them.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 3:22:48
Thank you chair. Obviously we don't have a planning officer in the room and
I'm not the portfolio hud for planning.
But so I'll give you my view.
And I am aware that, you know, obviously this is something
that our planning officers are aware of
and are trying to, you know, get fewer four
and five bed homes and more two and three bed ones
on the open market parts and saying to developers,
because the developers want a big,
that they make a bigger profit on the bigger houses.
But that doesn't then meet the needs,
as you describe, of our communities
who can afford to buy a house,
but they can't afford a four or five bedroom
and don't need a four or five bedroom house.
So I think it's a matter,
I think you will see this,
and we can't get into the detail
of individual planning applications,
but of our officers being aware
that that's the view of members
that we want you know developments that are not excessively stuffed with four
and five bedroom homes that actually there are homes that people who
currently live in the district might be able to afford to buy even at the high
prices that people have to pay here so you know that's obviously a matter
normally for discussion in the terms of a planning application but yeah totally
we have one of the things you know with I mentioned Alan Hope earlier in his
role is often in helping the planning officers with those discussions with the
developers to back them up or to you know to make those points to them that
actually we want no more smaller housing not small housing we want good quality
housing two and three bedroom houses largely you know there's obviously a
need some larger houses but not normally to the extent that the developers want to build.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 3:24:52
My feeling is that some of the affordable housing is terraced. There's no reason why
you don't, then they can not take up too much of the footprint so therefore their profitability
is not necessarily going to be as effective. And you could provide more housing, I just,
it's one of the things which I would love to see and if anything we can do to encourage
I would thoroughly recommend.
Thank you.
I've turned myself off.
Was there anything else anybody wanted to add?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 3:25:15
And, well, then I think thank you very much for all overstaying.
Gosh, it's got quite late, but thank you.
It was a lot of things to go through, and particularly that financial report which people
wanted to go through in depth.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you very much.