Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 2 March 2026, 4:00pm

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 2nd March 2026 at 4:00pm

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Speaking:

Start of webcast

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Councillor Angus Jenkinson

1 Apologies

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Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Jon Wareing
Councillor Jon Wareing
Councillor Lisa Spivey
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Michael Vann
Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

2 Substitute Members

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Julia Gibson, Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

3 Declarations of Interest

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4 Minutes

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Minutes , 02/02/2026 Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Councillor David Fowles
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

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Actions from OS 2 February 2026

Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

6 Chair's Announcements

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Public Speaker
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Guest
Public Speaker
Guest

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

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11 LGR - Joint Scrutiny arrangements

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Councillor David Fowles
Guest
Councillor David Fowles
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Michael Vann
Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Public Speaker
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Andrew Brown, Officer
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Guest
Councillor David Fowles
Guest
Councillor David Fowles
Public Speaker
Councillor David Fowles
Guest
Councillor David Fowles
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Guest
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Jon Wareing
Councillor Lisa Spivey
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

7 Report back on recommendations

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Response to O&S recommendations on retail and hospitality

Councillor Angus Jenkinson

8 Public Questions

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Public Speaker
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Officer
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Clare Turner
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Clare Turner
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Lisa Spivey
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

13 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees

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GESSC Report

Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson

12 Infrastructure Funding - Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Policy

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Cabinet report March 2026 CIL enhancement programme (003) Cabinet

Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Lisa Spivey
Officer
Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson
Officer
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Clare Turner
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Fowles
Councillor Juliet Layton
Officer
Councillor David Fowles
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Juliet Layton
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Lisa Spivey
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Webcast Finished

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:00:03

Good afternoon.

It's helpful for us.

Yes, but it's helpful for us.

We might be focused on another thought.

Excuse me, sir.

We have started.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to this overview and scrutiny committee meeting.

May I particularly thank, if there's anybody online who might be viewing, and thank you

for coming along, those members of the public who may have joined us.

Can I take the opportunity at this point to let you know that Councillor Gina Bloomfield,

who is the chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, is unable to make it today, and

1 Apologies

so I will be chairing this meeting.

I'm very grateful for the help of Councillor Clare.

Clare Turner has agreed to be the Vice Chair and I'm sure she will do it even better than

I do.

May I ask everyone please, the members just to please say your name and where you are

from.

Good afternoon.

I'm Councillor David Fowles.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:01:23

I'm a substitute member and I represent the Colne Valley Ward.

Councillor Jon Wareing - 0:01:30

Good afternoon, I am Councillor John Waring representing Boughton Village Ward.

Councillor Jon Wareing - 0:01:36

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 0:01:42

Good afternoon, I'm Councillor Lisa Spivey and I represent the Abhiss and Hampton Ward.

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:01:49

Good afternoon, Tony Slater representing Aething and Grumboltash.

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:01:54

Michael van the Fairford North

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:01:58

Councillor Laura Hall Wilson I'm also a substitute member I represent Tepary

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:02:05

with Upton. Councillor Claire Turner representing Blockley Ward. And I as

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:02:12

Angus Jenkinson am the Councillor for Moreton East and Todman. We are not

expecting to have any fire alarms. I think all of you are familiar, apart from perhaps

a couple, with how to get out of here. In the event of a fire, however, there is an

escape down at the bottom of the stairs, and if that was blocked, then there is another

way out along this floor. You'd need somebody to open the door, but I'm sure that would

be secured very quickly.

We have what appears at first sight to be a relatively short number of matters on today's

agenda, but it has been known for a small number of things and not many pages of documents

to turn into a long one.

So, but we'll do our best to proceed through it.

Can we first of all look at the minutes of the meeting?

Unless we haven't done apologies.

Thank you. Are there any apologies? We've had apologies and we've got two

2 Substitute Members

substitutes which we've heard. Are there any other apologies?

We've had apologies from Councillor David Cunningham and also from Councillor Nick Bridges.

Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:03:32

Just to say that Councillor Laura Hall -Wilson is substituting for Councillor

David Cunningham and Councillor David Fowles is substituting for Councillor

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:03:49

Bloomfield. Are there any declarations of interest that need to be made by members

3 Declarations of Interest

4 Minutes

or officers? Then let's go to the minutes. In the first instance the question is

whether the minutes are correct.

If nobody has an objection,

Councillor David Fowles - 0:04:12

would somebody like to make a proposal

for them being correct?

I was just curious, Chairman.

I wasn't on the committee,

I was just attending the meeting.

Are the minutes written with the preferred pronoun

being used because I note on the item that your declarations interests on page one, Councillor Jenkins stated that they

had been active. Is that correct?

Because then later on

Councillor Neill's uses the pronoun her. So is that is that is that what we're doing? I was just curious.

Thank you.

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:04:55

Generally we try to keep them gender neutral

where it makes sense within a sentence but if putting they is confusing we use

he or her that's that's the general approach.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:05:07

Councillor Fowles you've actually reminded me that I intended to bring

this up as an issue since I have declared that my gender is not they but

he and so I would prefer it in future if it was so recognised in the minutes.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:05:21

Knowing you as I do that's why I brought it up.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:05:26

So nice to be well known.

Coming back then to the minutes, can we have a proposer for them?

Tony as the proposer and John Wearing as the seconder.

All in favour, can you raise your hands, please?

Thank you.

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:05:48

Are there any specific matters arising from these minutes?

Councillor David Fowles - 0:06:04

On page 18.

Sorry, no.

What am I talking about?

Sorry. Oh, yeah.

My apologies.

Sorry. Page 15.

No. Sorry.

Got that wrong.

Page 13.

Sorry. Page 13.

When it's talking about waste, I just wondered,

could someone sort of in layman's terms explain what those figures actually mean?

Because they don't mean anything to me.

The question was asked, you know, measuring how much compost we're producing

and the amount of carbon that's being captured in it

and its contribution to biodiversity, and then we get these four figures.

Is that something that someone brighter than me can explain?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:06:48

Well, if no one else had brought it up, I was planning to say that I thought it was

an interesting technical answer, but it didn't answer the question that was actually put.

So I think the question remains unanswered, in fact.

It's telling us something about greenhouse gas emissions, whereas the question was about

something else.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:07:15

Is there any outcome from the draught report that was on page 8 on town centre business at this stage?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:07:35

It would appear not.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:08:04

I'm referring on page 8 to the comment a draught version of the full report has been circulated

to the relevant town councils for comment and the final version would be published once

amendments were made.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:08:27

We'll be taken away, thank you very much.

We've had a further input income from solar PV at Trinity Road,

an answer to a question. Do members need a few moments to read that?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:09:12

Does anybody need to comment on this additional?

Answer?

Councillor F safe.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:09:18

I think I mean significant

saving. And that's terrific.

Far more than I thought would would be happening.

I just wondered how much the.

I mean we talk about this in the context of lots of our buildings

the cost of installation versus the actual saving.

Can anyone remember what could we find out

for the next meeting what they actually cost to instal

and what effectively the payback would be.

Letturna.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:09:49

I imagine that we'll be able to cover that

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:09:52

and scrutinise that when climate comes up.

It's not timetabled yet,

but we've got a meeting next month

to look at our forward plan,

so we should have it timetabled then,

and I imagine that's the kind of thing

that we can scrutinise at that point.

Let's cancel this later.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:10:11

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:10:16

There's a note at the bottom about continuing monitoring the system and the

potential business case for future on -site storage, presumably

batteries. I think I would be very reluctant to consider that given the

potential closure of the building for Council purposes within two or three

years. So we'd be spending a lot of money but the Council wouldn't receive a

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:10:46

benefit from it. Yes, Councillor Turner.

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:10:52

Making a comment, I think that's to be dated another time. We're just looking at

the, you know, did they, did the answer we requested come to us and I think the

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:11:03

answer is yes. The comments? In that case shall we move on to the chair's

announcements.

I think that's the next item on the agenda.

6 Chair's Announcements

I'd like to take the opportunity of thanking all

of the Councillors and officers who are attending

the meeting and to any members of the public who

are present in person or online.

This is a public meeting and is part of the democratic

process of the country and the Council.

Councillors receive an extensive package of

information normally to study and this enables a

inquiry whereby we act in a non -political, non -partisan way as a critical friend.

The aim is to help ensure that the Cabinet can be as effective as possible and Council

receive appropriate input that it needs.

This includes knowing that the content has indeed been properly scrutinised.

In this way, we may take both detail and strategic views as regulated by law and council rules.

Thank you especially to Andrew Brown and the Democratic Services Officers team who support

this process and the meeting.

Various officers have worked hard and carefully in preparing for this meeting in the reports

that they will be giving in person or in writing.

And this is supported, of course,

by the cabinet members responsible.

We are grateful to their expertise in today's content.

And it's, as I say, fortunately much shorter than usual,

but we'll see what we can manage to do with it.

We come in the next stage to two items.

the local government report on the reorganisation that would be taking place that would be given

by Jane Portman, the Chief Executive, and then a matter to do with joint scrutiny arrangements.

Because the visitors on the joint scrutiny arrangements need to get away, we've decided

to swap that order unless there's any good reason why anybody would object to it, and

Jane Portman, the Chief Executive, will be afterwards.

So may I invite those two?

We have Rob Aliff, who's the programme sponsor for local government reorganisation, governance

and legal pro - and the programme lead, Alice McAlpine.

Public Speaker - 0:14:01

Thank you chair, you're welcome members.

If you just give us a moment while we get the slides up and then I'll be able to speak

children. Welcome, can you just give your name and sorry I'm at the beginning.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:14:16

Guest - 0:14:18

So I'm Rob Aliff, my day job is monitoring officer of the County Council

but as the chair has said I'm here in my capacity as the sponsor for the

governance and legal workstream which is one of 11 work streams that we've stood

up to prepare for local government reorganisation across the county.

Public Speaker - 0:14:40

And I'm Alice Vekaupine, I'm the Governance and Programme Lead.

I'm also Modulating Ulster Strad District Council supporting this work programme.

Guest - 0:14:54

So it's, it genuinely is a pleasure to be embarking on this tour of Gloucester's district,

Gloucestershire District Council.

This is the second of these meetings Alice and I are doing and the third and fourth and later this evening

they're going our separate ways to Gloucester and Cheltenham and

It'll be interesting just from the point of view of getting to know how the districts work

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

I've already noticed the first thing that's thrown me is that you here we use the left button

Where's that the County Council use the right button which explains why it's been so confusing for newly elected County Councillors all these years

I've put together some

I've put together some slides with Alice to talk you through our thinking, but the task

we were given was, as you'll hear later from the Chief Executive, we are standing up arrangements

to deliver and prepare for local government reorganisation across the county.

And it's only right that we also think at the same time about how we put in effective

11 LGR - Joint Scrutiny arrangements

scrutiny for that process.

So Alice and I were asked to look at what options there were for setting up scrutiny across the county to mirror the arrangements we were putting in place for the implementation of the programme.

Let me just go to the first slide.

There are two aspects to that question. There's the kind of technical constitutional aspect.

What are the options available to us from a constitutional point of view?

But I've also tried to approach this from the point of view of what's going to work for us locally,

what's going to help to lay the groundwork for that future council or councils in Gloucestershire.

So I'm seeing this as kind of two strands.

There's the technical bit about how can we put effective scrutiny in place for the programme,

but of equal importance there's that question of how do we begin to build those cultural relationships and links

that will stand us in good stead, whether it's one or two unitary authorities going

forwards. But that said, there is a technical aspect to this and some of the factors that

I've had to think about while looking at these options are first of all political balance.

Depending on how we do it, it'll have different implications for the core membership of that

committee and that's a really important factor that we need to recognise and think about

in this.

I've also thought about the speed with which we could get something up and running, and

the next slide will explain a little bit more of the significance of that.

The cost of servicing those arrangements, scrutiny is really important, but we also

need to recognise that there's a cost associated with the different options, so we've borne

that in mind.

But also thinking about the flexibility of whatever we put in place, this is going to

It's been it's becoming a bit of a truism, but this will be a marathon not a sprint

And at each stage of the process the kind of scrutiny that we will need and will will be slightly different

So we want a model that's flexible and adaptable

As this council scrutiny committee you will be aware that one of the functions of

Scrutiny is call -in so we've also thought about what each of the options would mean

and as well what the frequency of meetings could and should be

in order to provide effective scrutiny of the process.

So next slide.

I said I would explain why the speed with which we can stand

up these arrangements is an important factor.

This slide tries to lay out at a very headline level the overall

timeline for local government reorganisation.

and you'll see that in May 27 we've got the elections either to a new continuing

authority if we're in the one unitary authority space or to two shadow councils

in the two unitary authority space. The significance of that date is that from

that time onwards scrutiny will become a function of those shadow authorities so

any arrangements we're putting in place at this stage for the joint arrangements

is relatively short -lived but absolutely critical in its importance.

So essentially we've got a window from now to May 27 that we're looking at

scrutinising and therefore any months that we spend in setting up those

arrangements and months when that scrutiny isn't happening, given that it's

a relatively short window, in terms of my thinking and my recommendations to each

of the councils, I've borne in mind that I'm assuming that we will want to

get this thing stood up as quickly as we can.

Next slide.

So ahead.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:19:35

Did you say that scrutiny passes after May 27

to the shadow councils, therefore the districts

that are continuing until vesting until April 28

no longer scrutinise, is that what that means?

You will continue to have to have a role

in scrutinising your own authorities

Guest - 0:19:56

and the new shadow authorities may wish to set up joint arrangements for

scrutiny. So there's certainly still the possibility of you being involved,

but essentially the decision -making at that point shifts to those shadow

authorities and therefore it's not guaranteed the arrangements we put in

place will continue beyond that point at that stage. Essentially we'll have to

rethink do we want this to continue and that would be a decision for the new

authorities. In terms of the headline options for joint scrutiny arrangements,

there are four in broad terms. One is a formal joint scrutiny committee of the

seven local authorities and some of you will be very familiar with that model

because you sit on joint committees. The second model is a scrutiny committee

that's hosted by one of the existing authorities but which invites other

members onto it. And again, that's a model that we use in other places. You may not be

aware of the difference between those two models because effectively they operate on

a day -to -day basis in the same way, but it has different implications for the membership

of those committees and for the political balance of those committees that I'll go into

in a little bit more detail in the next couple of slides.

Option three is that we stick with what we've got at the moment, separate scrutiny arrangements

in each of the seven councils which effectively means each council scrutiny committee scrutinising

its council's input into the process. And the fourth option which I will, which is the one that

we are recommending is a scrutiny panel. The next couple of slides go through each of those in order

and try and set out why we think that the fourth option is the best one to meet the needs of us

collectively at the moment, but just to take you through the

weight of the thinking and working so that you could see

the process that we've gone through.

The first option is that we set up a formal joint scrutiny

committee that would require each of the councils to take a

decision to establish that committee.

We'd need to agree the terms of reference and the support

arrangements for that as part of that process.

But as a result, something like that is going to take a while to

get up and running in its formality because of that decision -making that's needed.

Political balance, the starting point there would be political balance across all seven councils.

So in the same way that the current police and crime panel has to look at the political makeup of all seven councils

and then work that through in terms of what that means in political balance,

this committee would be bound by those same rules.

Now, it could co -opt additional members on, but the starting point would be that political

balance that I've set out in a table on the right -hand side of this slide.

So that would be the resulting membership if, for example, we had a joint committee

of 15.

Because it would be a formal joint committee, the expectation, the requirement would be

that all meetings of that committee would be held in public unless it was discussing

something that was exempt. A joint committee could have formal powers of calling, but wouldn't

necessarily have to use those powers. And we'd also have to think formally about a chair's

allowance for that committee, and it would fall within the scheme of allowances that's

determined by the host committee, the authority that hosts that committee. So while that offers

the kind of the most formal option of the four, the downside of it is the time

that it would take to set it up and it's probably the more expensive of the four

options in terms of in terms of running and supporting it.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:23:43

Guest - 0:23:48

Just so I'm clear. So that's purely down to the roundings and so I've just

applied because I didn't want to lean on the figures in any size, shape or form, I've just

applied the straight percentages which results in one short. In reality, we would then have

to top up and it would need to be mutually agreed where the kind of extra place would

come from.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:24:11

Thank you. Can I ask members to hold their questions for clarification until the end

unless it's really important to get them in the meantime?

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:24:21

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:24:29

We've left the slides with Democratic Services offices so we'll happily distribute them.

You can keep those after the event.

And if you really wanted to, you could watch this back another seven times as I analyse

to all the county, but I won't wish that on you.

Guest - 0:24:43

The second option, if we can go to that one, is that effectively we set up a committee that's hosted by one of the councils, either as a committee or as a subcommittee of an existing committee.

and vampires.

with co -opting additional members in, it will give that sense of this is a

pre -existing committee with additional people joining and I think that

culturally may not be where we want to position a joint scrutiny but I'll say

more about that in a moment. It would be quicker to set up an option one because

it would only require a decision by the host authority. Each other authority

would then need to nominate on to it and so it still takes a little time to set

but not as long as a joint committee would. But the terms of reference and

ways of working essentially would be agreed by the host authority and that

doesn't prevent that host authority from consulting with the other six councils

and I'm sure they would want to but again it just leads to that perception

that this is somebody's committee being shared with the rest rather than the

true joint committee. Political balance for the committee would be determined by

host council. So whichever council hosted it, it would be that council's membership

that counted towards political balance. Now again, additional members could be co -opted

onto that committee to create political balance across the piece. But again, it just feeds that

idea of this is somebody's committee modified to do this wider job, which again, culturally

may not be where we want to start. Crucially as well, depending on which of our councils

hosted the committee, the political balance could look very differently. So I've illustrated

on the slide what it would mean if it was a GCC hosted committee versus what it would

mean if it was a Cotswold District Council hosted committee. And you can see that the

membership ends up being quite different in either case, and that's just two of the options.

Like the first option, it would mean that meetings are held in public and it would mean that the chair of that committee attracted allowance, though if it was an existing committee that wouldn't be an additional allowance.

And the host authority would be the one that was responsible for support arrangements, though may look to other councils for contribution towards that.

Option three is the easiest to describe and imagine because it is the status quo.

we each do our own scrutiny of our own councils as we move through this process.

That's perfectly feasible, it's perfectly workable, but I think is also a missed opportunity. At the

end of this we're going to end up as two councils or one council working collectively together and

this is a huge opportunity to begin to get to know one another to work in a more collective way

and I don't think this would that would be delivered if we were each scrutinising

the council. Equally for those of us that are supporting delivery of the programme,

having seven separate meetings scrutinising the process is likely to

get burdensome, is likely to mean a huge amount of office time and while

scrutiny is really important, it's not the only thing that we'll need to

deliver, even the main thing that we need to deliver during this period. So this

could be quite a cumbersome beast to feed. The final slide which I've already

previewed and sets out the option that that we are recommending is a scrutiny panel.

And I'm presuming you're familiar with scrutiny panels. They can be set up informally

by an existing scrutiny committee and because they aren't as formal as a full scrutiny committee

they are the quickest option to set up and get running.

Each

existing council has a slightly different constitution. So whoever hosted that committee

it would be that constitution that was followed in terms of how that committee was formed and how it operated.

But I think most of our constitutions will be similar in that respect.

And in all cases a panel is a more flexible model than a formal scrutiny committee.

Panels are not bound by the rules on political proportionality.

So it gives us more flexibility in terms of how we constitute and the membership of that panel.

And I'll say a little bit more about that in a slide or two.

And the terms of reference to that committee can be set up by the host authority, but also

would be able to be changed throughout the life of the panel to adapt to what it was

needing to scrutinise at each stage.

A panel wouldn't automatically incur a chair's allowance.

We would need to think about how it's supported and resourced.

But I think the beauty of this model is that actually that could be shared much more easily

across several councils. So you could have a situation where one authority is

the authority that set it up. So essentially the parent of

that committee in terms of the constitution of it. But you could have a

different council potentially providing the Democratic Service support to

that panel and you could have a different council again hosting it. In

fact it could move relatively, it could move very easily between councils to get

that county -wide perspective. One of the other advantages of a scrutiny panel is

it doesn't have to meet in public. Now I'm quite sure that the panel will want

us to meet in public for a significant proportion of its time because part of

this is about public accountability for the LGR process but it does mean that

it's more easy for less formal meetings, it will be more easy to do to have kind

workshop type meetings with officers that aren't as formal as the main meetings of the panels.

It offers that flexibility in terms of culture, ways of working, and I think more potential for

members to get to know each other. I do think that's an important aspect of this whole process.

It can still make recommendations back to the leaders and to the programme board. The one thing

a scrutiny panel wouldn't be able to do though is to call in decisions. Now that's not necessarily

a problem because the programme board and the leaders will not be making collective capital

D decisions as a programme board.

Any decision making at this stage of the process will fall back to the individual councils

and you as the scrutiny committee of this council would still be able to call in decisions

of this council through the LGR process.

In fact that is the only option available to you at this stage.

So the lack of that formal call in power isn't necessarily a loss as to what you might otherwise

have.

So that's that's the option that we're recommending.

As we go around the the County. We've also thought a little bit about what would the proposed membership and frequency of those panel meetings be.

It will ultimately be for each of the councils involved in this to decide who they want to nominate onto this panel.

It wouldn't be right for for the programme or for the County Council to say,

well, we want these two membership,

two members from Cotswold District Council,

and you'd be likely to kick back if we did do that, rightly so.

What we are doing is providing an illustrative membership here

on this slide, though, and that's if we were to have

a committee of 14 and to make a request of each council

that they nominated a member from their biggest group

and their second biggest group onto the committee,

the table on the right -hand side shows you

what the resulting membership of that panel would be.

And it isn't far off what would be the political balance

across the county as a whole.

So as a proxy for political balance,

it's a pretty good approximation

and not a bad starting point,

but recognising that because of the flexibility of a panel,

if we still felt that left significant gaps

in terms of membership,

or if one of the constituent councils decided,

actually, no, we're not happy to take that request

of nominating from the two largest groups, we want to nominate somebody else, then we've

still got the flexibility to adjust that and top it up if we needed to.

In terms of next steps, we've already completed steps one and two here.

The chief executives have already spoken to the leaders of all seven councils prior to

us coming out to cheque that they're comfortable with what we're proposing, and we're now going

through that second step of engaging with each of the scrutiny committees.

It's worth me mentioning at this point, because I haven't so far, of course, two of our councils

don't have the cabinet model, so don't have scrutiny committees.

So when we're thinking about who would host this, it would need to be one of the remaining

five councils.

If we get agreement across the piece that this is the best option, then we'll need to

do some work to agree who's going to host it, who's going to support it, and how we're

going to work as a committee.

But it would then become a decision of that host authority to establish the panel, and

be looking to do that in fairly short time for the reasons I've outlined.

That's all I intended to cover but I'm very happy to take questions about how this might work or

feedback and comments that you'd like us to take on board to feed into the discussions with other

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:34:26

councils. Thank you. Thank you very much Rob. Will you only be, will you be just answering questions

Alison, do you need to add something?

No, I will just be up.

To answer questions, I have nothing further to add.

Public Speaker - 0:34:39

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:34:41

So Rob, before we take everybody's questions,

can you just do two things, at least for me?

The first is, could you clarify the prime task of what this

scrutiny committee that we're discussing, what its prime task

or key tasks are, why does it exist in the first place?

And the second question is, what do you expect us to do,

and in a sense that leads up to what is the,

how will that decision be made between those,

and how do we contribute to that?

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:35:17

So the task of this committee or panel will be twofold.

Guest - 0:35:22

One is to, still getting used to that,

one will be to hold that programme machinery to account.

I've already said that formal decision making will rest with the seven authorities, not

with that shared machinery, but a huge amount of implementation will be done by those joint

programme arrangements, and it's important that scrutiny of that doesn't fall through the

cracks by virtue of it being split between seven local authorities.

The other thing that the arrangements can usefully do is help with that policy development,

help with the thinking, bring different perspectives.

I'm already acutely aware, as is anybody involved closely with the programme, we're having to

work at a pace and the danger that things get missed when you're working at that pace

increases.

So having a scrutiny panel that isn't involved in that frenetic, and it does feel frenetic

at times, activity to the same extent, that's able to take that step back, look at particular

aspects of that decision making and speak into that space will be enormously useful

I think.

In terms of what we're looking from you today to feed into it,

two things.

I think, first of all, we want to test your comfort with what

we're proposing.

So if you're looking at that thinking, no, absolutely,

panel is not the right option as far as we're concerned.

We need to hear that and feed that into the thinking

and decision -making.

But the second thing is what can we do to improve that?

What things would you want to see as part of the way

that panel works?

What are your thoughts about how that panel can work effectively?

So that when we are starting to develop those terms of reference,

if it is going to be a panel, we've got the benefit of your

thinking and ideas as to how we do that effectively.

Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:37:06

And will the decision be made by the, our Cabinet to put

something forward and all the others?

Or, and therefore what we produce would go to our Cabinet

as well or how will the decision be made?

Guest - 0:37:22

So the, informally what we're hoping is to get to a consensus between the seven councils

as to how this would work and then we'll need a discussion about okay who's going to host

it. If more than one authority is interested in hosting it then we will need to work, I

would have thought through the chief execs group in the first instance to try and work

through that and work out how are we going to reach a decision as to who's best placed

to and then it would require a decision of that host authority to establish that committee

to establish that panel under one of its committees.

So if Cotswold was to host it, then it would need a decision of this committee, I believe,

to set up a panel under this committee.

If it was another authority, it would be the equivalent for that.

And then the decision as to the membership of that committee would go to each of the

seven councils who then to decide by whatever mechanism is set out in their

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:38:19

constitutions. Thank you and Councillor Hall -Dalton. Thank you yeah I was just

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:38:26

thinking about the fact that under the two -tier model there's obviously an

increased balance of town and parish councils having a say about democracy in

their areas and I'm just wondering if there's any scope in this panel to have

representation from town and parish councils to have some say?

Guest - 0:38:47

Thank you for that. It's a really important question and one of the real benefits of Option 4 is that it gives us that real degree of flexibility as to who can be involved.

So yes, you could have a member of that panel who represented the Association of Parish and Town Councils,

or you could have a session of that panel that invited a number of parish and town councils in to give evidence.

you'd have all of those options at your disposal and I think that that's that's

why I think that model delivers a degree of flexibility the others don't you

could still do that within a scrutiny committee just as you've invited us

along this afternoon but I think this that the panel format lends itself to

that kind of approach particularly well

Councillor Felt.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:39:30

Several questions.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:39:34

First, I'm still a bit confused as to what, as we set up this under the shadow arrangements,

I did ask, does it replace the existing scrutiny arrangements within each of the local authorities

or not?

And if it does, then I've got a whole set of questions.

If it doesn't, the questions will differ.

So what currently, since we're talking about CDC, happens to this committee when you go down option 4?

Or if you go down option 1?

Guest - 0:40:08

That's very easy. It wouldn't make any difference to this committee.

This committee would continue and will continue up until the point at which the councils dissolved.

So even beyond the point of the elections.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:40:21

Second question. That works for the single unitary. What happens to the situation where we have two unitaries?

Would there be two shadow scrutiny panels made up by the political make -up that you described previously?

It's just times two as opposed to times one? Yeah.

Guest - 0:40:46

The proposal is that in that initial stage, and if you remember that slide, the first

slide that had the broad time scale, that initial stage takes us through the elections.

What we would be proposing is a single committee, a single panel for that first stage of the

process.

So, towards the middle of that process we will find out whether it is one unitary authority

or two.

But the programme machinery we have stood up is a single programme regardless of whether

it's one unitary authority or two. And part of the reason for that is that one of the

biggest jobs that we'll need to do if it is two unitary authorities is disaggregate

current county council services. So in order to scrutinise that effectively, in order to

scrutinise whether the county council is playing ball and cooperating and putting the right

steps in place to enable that to happen, you really need a single scrutiny process scrutinising

Now at the point you've got those elections, and if it is two unitary authorities, we'll have nine councils running at that stage, the seven existing ones plus two shadow authorities.

Those two shadow authorities at that stage I'm sure will want to think how do we begin to stand up our scrutiny functions.

So at that point, you may have some some divergence where you start to scrutinise some areas separately in the east and in the west.

I think there will still need to be some joint scrutiny over the programme as a whole though because there are so many there will be

so many

interdependencies between those East and West

Council and the question that you'll really want to be asking is are we approaching this in a coherent way?

That is in the best interest of both those new authorities and our residents collectively

the question

Councillor David Fowles - 0:42:31

In a situation where you've got the existing

over you in scrutiny committees in existence and you create this shadow panel.

Does it therefore mean that if there are members who have stood for election in the unitary

but are still members of the existing, can they serve on both or are they precluded from

serving on both?

So if they are on this committee already, they stand, become a unitary in the shadow

arrangement? Are they allowed to sit on both or not? Or doesn't it matter?

Public Speaker - 0:43:12

That will depend who is the majority party in the new unitary authority to a certain

extent because clearly if you become part of the biggest party scrutiny is about scrutinising

the decision of the executive so we go into a whole different set of rules. But you could

end up being scrutiny at Cotswold because this authority will continue until the 31st

March 2028 and we'll be making decisions,

shadow scrutiny of the new, shadow scrutiny of the one or

two unit tree model and on the panel.

But it will be up to each individual to decide whether

they think they can do that and bring value.

I'm not totally clear.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:43:54

I mean, I accept whatever happens with the political

battle, I mean, I'm not suggesting for a minute that it

may change, but you could have a situation where the existing political makeup, I mean

of course I would be delighted if that happened, if the existing political makeup is led by

the current administration here and in Gloucestershire, but it could be very, very difficult, very,

very different. And I'm just wondering whether the individuals forget the party from it,

whether the individuals can serve on both, assuming the political makeup is not an issue.

I would agree with what Alice has said.

Guest - 0:44:29

I don't think there is anything to stop somebody serving, somebody who was on the new authority

scrutinising the programme arrangements, but if somebody was elected to the executive of

that new authority, then they shouldn't also be scrutinising it.

So it's about separating the executive function.

The same rules apply.

Yeah, and the same would apply here.

and it was only when we presented this to my own committee last week

that we realised quite what an obstacle this could be,

but we've also said anybody who's serving on the executive

of any of the seven councils shouldn't be part of this scrutiny panel

in order to make sure that they're not marking their own homework.

And it was at that point that we looked around and realised that...

So would that apply the other way around?

Councillor David Fowles - 0:45:15

So if they're a member of this executive, get elected to the new one, OK?

So could they be a member of this executive but not a member of the other one

so they could then serve on the scrutiny panel, could they?

No, if they remember of any of the executives,

and bear in mind, as I said, we could have nine authorities

Guest - 0:45:32

and therefore nine executives operating minus the two that

don't operate an executive model.

But anybody who's on the executive of any

of the predecessor councils or either of the shadow councils

should not then be on the scrutiny.

Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:45:57

I would like to ask, and perhaps I'm a little bit influenced by my experience at county

level, so two questions at this stage.

The first is this.

Is a panel able to provide, it implied, it was suggested that you were suggesting that

it might be, is it able to provide the same level of

vigour, let's say, or force to its recommendations that it

would have in the other three cases minus the ability to do

a call -in?

And the second, well, I'll just ask that first of all.

Yes, it would.

Guest - 0:46:45

The same question came up on our committee last week.

What's interesting is that actually I think at county council level when we've

operated scrutiny panels they've often been better at making firm

recommendations and that have actually gone on to influence policy than when

scrutiny committees are meeting in a more formal way so absolutely I think

the strength of a panel is that there's something about the way that members

interact in a panel that means often I think you come up with better

recommendations, more concise recommendations, and more pertinent

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:47:21

recommendations. So I'd have a suggestion to you which is that from my experience

in the Gloucestershire Economic Strategy Scrutiny Committee and before that the

Growth Scrutiny Committee that there was a good deal of a lack of clarity about

the terms of reference of the body and what it could and couldn't do and what

it did and didn't cover and so forth.

So my recommendation would be, my suggestion, which we'll see

what others say about this, but my suggestion would be that

it's really important to get that super clear.

I do have a concern about the suggestion that there would be

a chair who would receive no allowance support on this,

or maybe a vice chair as well, because it strikes me that this

is likely to be quite a large task, and I'm also concerned,

would there be adequate officer arrangements to support the body

and how would those be organised?

Guest - 0:48:28

On the first point, I think actually you're likely to get

crisper, more pertinent terms of reference as well.

And the reason I think that's the case is because the terms

of reference for the scrutiny panel will be determined by scrutiny, whereas in the case

of the Joint Economic Growth Scrutiny Committee, they're determined by our Constitution Committee.

Now, that's right, it's a formal committee in that case of the County Council, so it's

right that it should be Constitution Committee that dictates its terms of reference, but

But it does mean that those terms of reference are being defined one step away from the committee

itself and having been involved in some of those discussions when those terms of reference

were formed, I think that has partly contributed to that lack of understanding, lack of ownership,

I don't know how you want to describe it, but a disconnect between the terms of reference

and the job the committee wants to get on and do.

So I think actually this model gives you more opportunity

to get it right and more flexibility.

If you want to change it,

it's a relatively easy job to change it

rather than having to go through

and pursue before more constitution committee

and council vote.

In terms of the allowances,

that's exactly the sort of thing we want to flush out

through these sessions.

So we can take that away and think about

whether there's an opportunity to address that.

In terms of supporting it,

Yes, it will be an additional burden and I recognise that all of our teams are stretched at the moment.

But as I say, the beauty of a panel is that we could share the supporting of that across a number of teams.

And while that doesn't necessarily make it easy, it does give us more flexibility than we might otherwise have.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:50:19

Thank you. So, Committee, did you have another question you wanted to ask, Councillor Fowle?

Are you going to suggestions?

Well, that's where I'm going, yes.

So if I put it like this, in effect we're being asked,

it seems to me that an interpretation is we're being asked to say

or the panel or do you have some other point of view?

That seemed to be a key question that's being put to us

and so I'm putting it back to you all as to where you stand in relation to that

and whether there are more questions you want to ask

before you could make a determination.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:51:03

You've used the language of suggestions.

Councillor David Fowles - 0:51:04

I don't use the language of another committee.

Can we make comments?

Yeah, OK, right.

The first comment I have is, whichever of the four

you go down, I think the word panel lacks authority, okay?

No pun intended.

I mean, it smacks of things like working group.

It doesn't seem to have the same authority.

I mean, whatever the makeup is and the process you're going

through, I think the word should be committee so that it has the

status that it needs to have in its scrutiny role.

That's just a personal view.

The second is when you suggested that it might help members get

to know each other better by not meeting in public,

I think that goes completely against the grain of what

scrutiny is all about.

It's all about transparency.

And this authority and this administration in its second

term has been very, very big on transparency.

That's not suggesting that the previous administration,

which I was part of wasn't, but transparency is key in local government.

There's so much change going on and so much uncertainty

that I think the meeting should be held in public.

And the third comment or observation is, personally, I have a big issue

with the political makeup of the planning committee and indeed this committee.

And I was delighted to hear this suggestion does not owe its origins

to the political makeup and then you went into making a suggestion.

It seems to me that as someone who's in a smaller political group, and there are smaller

groups than ours, I don't know why it can't just be divided equally between the different

political parties.

So if you're going to do away with the political structure,

then why not sort of divide it up more equally?

And it may help the process when it comes to substitutions as well.

Those are my suggestions.

But I feel really strongly about the public meetings,

as opposed to meeting in camera.

And the word panel, I think, doesn't really have what it needs to have

in terms of bite, but that's just me.

Councillor Jon Wareing - 0:53:49

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 0:53:53

Yeah, I've been through this a number of times.

I've stopped my first rodeo, as they say.

I just think it's important for us not to lose sight

of what this scrutiny panel or committee will be looking at.

And it is not, I think there is some conflation between scrutiny

in general and the very specific role of this panel,

which is to look at for a short period of time the work

which we are doing collectively as seven councils

across 11 different work streams on organising

and sorting ourselves out to be able to meet the government's very ambitious timeframe

on local government reorganisation.

And so I think that being agile, fleet of foot, not being too overly prescriptive at

this point is going to be really the critical point of this because we want to be able to

look at what the workstreams are doing.

There is a huge amount of work to get through.

and I think that even when we scrutinise it, what we just want to make sure is that things are on track

and that money is being well spent because we are, as seven organisations, funding this

and collectively funding the work that is going to go on and we want to be making sure

and I think what I'll be looking for, I won't be a member of the panel or committee because I am

leader of the county council so therefore part of the executive, but I think what I'll be looking for

and indeed even my role as the leader is to make sure that we are on target with the work

that's happening to make sure, and I think it's the Chief Exec of this Council has said

many times that we are, and as shared by others, is that we are safe and legal on day one,

which has got to be a real priority for the new authority or authorities. So I just wanted

to add that perspective, and whilst we could go down making sure that every single part

is perfect I think we've just got to make sure that the direct remit of that

committee slash panel is key in our minds and I'm happy to support yeah I'm

happy to support the recommendation from Robert Aliff.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:56:09

Thanks I think I would just echo what Councillor Fousa said about

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:56:16

transparency. I think this is a hugely complex project to most people kind of

you know outside of this room and I think that it's really important that if

people want to engage in the process and they want to learn more about it that

that opportunity for transparency and to see what's being discussed and what's

being talked about is there for them and so I would I would echo what Councillor

said about transparency and the meetings being open.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:56:45

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:56:47

Councillor Turner. And presumably that's those points all come down to the terms

of reference effectively because just because it's called a panel you could

still write into the terms of reference that all meetings are public. Yeah so

that seems like the key point for us and so my question back to us today would be

does anybody feel that going down a route that's not the preferred option

for should be pushed forward by us as a committee.

So that's what I think the question is.

It doesn't seem like anybody wants to do that.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:57:23

I'd like to suggest that there's a way of ensuring

that there is public disclosure and transparency

transparency on things, but there are also processes that

can be done which have a different quality to them,

ensuring that at the end of the day there's real transparency of

communication of what happened and the outcome at some level.

And I'm saying that because this, for example,

is quite a formal meeting.

And you talked about the importance of people mixing with

each other and engaging and getting to know.

I attended an excellent session last Thursday to do with the

local government issue.

I mean, not local government that, but in the local area.

And it was really important that it had something of that kind of quality.

It was chaired and controlled, but there was an opportunity for some free movement.

And that opened up many possibilities.

So I think that there's space for that kind of process, as long as it is not done in secret,

that it's disclosed that that happens as a process and outcomes are revealed.

I don't hear anybody suggesting

To I mean firstly I

Councillor David Fowles - 0:58:39

Bow to council Spivey's more detailed appreciation of this because of she as she says she's been through it a few times and

Totally support what she said. I don't think it disagreed with anything

I was suggesting one thing I failed to comment on was whatever the size of this

sorry, whatever the makeup of this panel is,

I would hope that it would be,

it would have some geographical representation

so that when you work out the maths,

that you find that you have at least one member

from each of the, in quotes, contributing authorities.

I mean, that may be a given, but you didn't mention it, okay?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:59:19

I'm going to put it to you that the committee is saying

that we are supportive of the principle of the fourth group,

which was declared, which was called a panel,

although we have questions about whether that is the right name.

There are certain suggestions that we've made already,

which don't need to be repeated, but they can be taken note of.

And I'll be checking in with you to make sure,

but that seems to be what everybody's agreed.

The matter that I would add is that I would have preferred to

have seen your report, studied it, and had a chance to think

about these issues and the rules behind them ahead of this

meeting rather than in the meeting.

And so if you have further meetings like this, I'd

recommend that they get the material in advance with a

little bit of explanation.

So with that in mind, I'm going to call this session to an end.

With thanks.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:00:25

Can I also say we have a member of the public here, and I apologise for not letting you know, but we knew that we were aware of the fact that these representatives needed to get away, and so we've reorganised the agenda a little bit.

and we should be with you very briefly.

We just have to cheque in on the recommendations

that we put some recommendations at the last meeting

and there were some comments

and we haven't double checked the response to that.

So can I?

If I may say thank you, Chair.

No problem, this is my point of view.

I happen to be.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:01:10

So we have an item.

Where is it?

7 Report back on recommendations

Yes, the report back on recommendations pages 15 to 16.

And the question is whether anyone has something that they want to comment on or ask about

in relation to that.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:01:46

So may we please have our public question?

8 Public Questions

There's a total of 15 minutes permitted to this whole session, but that usually,

that provides for more than one person.

You will get notified about the length of time that you have for it, but I believe that

you're quite experienced in these things and are used to the situation.

Thank you very much for coming along with your question.

Over to you.

Could you say your name and so on first please?

Public Speaker - 1:02:22

Thank you very much, Chair. My name is Councillor Stephen Andrews.

At the moment I'm the Chair of Kempsford Parish Council.

I have recently had reason to engage with planning enforcement.

My experience indicates that things have regressed markedly since this Committee last looked at the process being followed over three years or so ago.

Last month, the local government and social care ombudsman issued a report highlighting

the vital role that local councillors can play in scrutinising their local planning

enforcement services, suggesting 13 questions that should be asked.

I see that a review of planning enforcement is suggested as part of the future work of

this committee at some time in the future.

However, given the present parlour state,

I would urge you later on in this meeting,

perhaps when you look at your programme,

to fix a timeframe for the answer to these questions

to be brought to you.

Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:03:44

It was very short and sweet. Thank you very much. That's a very clear question.

I don't believe that we are in a position to be able to answer it right now.

I think it's something we probably have to take away. Do you have a different view on that, Andrew?

Andrew Brown, Officer - 1:03:58

No, I mean there was an item on the work plan for planning enforcement for this committee to receive an update, which I think you're probably aware of.

So that needs to be reprogrammed and we will take that away to the officers and get something

to the committee at the earliest opportunity.

Thank you councillors.

Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:04:16

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:04:28

So we are, I believe, scheduled to go to the local government reorganisation report by

the Chief Executive.

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

Hello, Jane, welcome.

I hand over to you if you just take a moment. There's people moving about and so forth and let them arrive and then you can take over.

But thank you very much.

Good afternoon members. Lovely to see you all and be able to give an update on local government reorganisation.

just to say that Councillor Mike Evermay is here as the portfolio holder for local government

reorganisation. I've also got a couple of officer colleagues with me this afternoon.

So Matt is in the room with you, as you'll be aware. He's going to talk about the consultation

process, the government's consultation process. And Helen is also available to talk about

the progress that's being made on the neighbourhoods and communities work programme.

So Matt's going to drive the slides. My apologies for not being in the room today,

but you've got other colleagues there in the room. So yes, Matt, if you could do the next slide,

please. Thank you. So the last time we came to overview and scrutiny was I think in November.

So what we want to do is just give you a little bit of a reminder of where we were in November,

what the overall timetables are, where we're going, what the schedule is, and then secondly

to say what's happened since November, what we've been working on. A third point we want

to raise with you and share with you is a bit more clarity about something you asked

about earlier, which is about the financial arrangements for the LGR programme. And in

the fourth agenda item, Helen is going to talk about the neighbourhoods and communities

work programme. I would just ask if you could let us, all three of us, run through all of

that and then of course we'd be more than happy for any questions on any of the items

or indeed anything else moving forward. Thanks. Next slide please.

So just by way of a recap, which should be of no surprise to anybody, we've got a four -phase

programme. We've completed phase one, which was preparing for submissions of the LGR proposals.

They were submitted on the 28th of November.

We're now into phase two and that phase is about preparing to implement the government's

decision.

We're expecting the decision on D -Day as we call it, officers call it D -Day, government

probably doesn't call it that, which we've been advised will be before summer recess,

the government's summer recess. However, in phase two, a very important piece of work

is progressing. I'm very much hoping all of you know about this, which is the government

have launched their consultation that is live at this point in time and due to finish on

26th of March, more of that later. Phase 3 of our programme is about following the decision

day, then we have to implement the government's decision. And that will of course, and it

will be a very pertinent point to all of you, part of that is to elect members to the shadow

Authority and that is scheduled for May next year, 2027. And then, Vesting Day is scheduled,

according to the government's timetable, for the 1st of April, 2028. And then, after that,

is Phase 4 of this programme, where there'll be further transformation of services and delivery

of the programmes that we've set out because not everything of course will be done by investing

day. There'll be further work after that. Next slide please. So again I don't think

I need to remind this committee of the proposals but just in case for a refresh we've got three

proposals that have all been put forward by varying different councils about Gloucestershire.

Importantly, the government is consulting the public, our local residents, our businesses,

and our public sector partners on all of these three proposals. The first proposal is there's

covering the east and west of Gloucestershire. There's another proposal about one covering

a slightly expanded Gloucester city and a second option of the rest of Gloucestershire

and then another proposal is there's one unitary authority covering the entire county.

Next slide, please. We've done a lot of work between chief executives, senior leaders, and the leaders of the seven Gloucestershire councils, and we've agreed how we will work in the run up to that big decision day, which we very much are anticipating before the government.

of months recess and before the shadow authority period and the five principles that have been

agreed are set out on this slide. So number one, we'll continue to involve all our staff

proactively. It's very, very important. We've got thousands of staff who are going to be

directly affected by the government's decision. So we absolutely need to involve them moving

now and moving forwards. Number two, we remain aligned around our shared future vision that

was set out very clearly in the proposals that went to government that were submitted

on the 28th of November, which I'm sure you've all had the opportunity to read and digest.

Number three, we will continue with all our colleagues open and honest communication

and collaboration. Well, when I say our colleagues, I say our staff, our members, our MPs,

employees, our residents, our businesses, our public sector partners, our voluntary

sector partners, and indeed all organisations and individuals that are based in Gloucestershire

or have an interest in Gloucestershire.

Number four, aligned decision making and transitional support. And this relates very much to your

previous agenda item. The proposals that came forward that you've taken a view about, scrutiny

arrangements, are part and parcel of the future decision making as we move forwards. So we've

got the next phase of arrangements for decision making and support where we will have, hopefully

we will have an arrangement about scrutiny. We've got arrangements about the leadership,

which will come through our leaders steering group. And then moving forward into shadow

authority, we'll have revised decision making arrangements. And number five is really about

our staff who are absolutely the core to our improvement and future of the arrangements

in Gloucestershire. We're going to invest in our staff and make sure that we support

them through this transitional period. For some of them, that will be tricky. For others,

they will see it as an opportunity and everything else in between. But what we really need to

do, whatever their particular set of views, is we're going to invest in improving their

skills moving forwards so that they're ready for the future of local government in Gloucestershire.

Next slide, please. So last time I think we spoke about this at your committee meeting

was in November time. So just to give you a brief overview of what's happened since

then, we've put in place a governance arrangement of decision making. So let's just look at

from top to bottom in terms of the slide. The top of the slide is the political oversight,

as you might expect, and quite rightly so. We've got a political leadership group,

which we call the LGR Steering Group, which is made up of the seven Gloucestershire leaders.

They have political oversight of the whole programme.

Reporting into that group is the LGR portfolio board, which is made up of the seven chief

executives of the seven Gloucestershire councils, plus some other senior managers like Rob,

who you've just heard from, who are leading some of the significant pieces of work across

the whole council. Then we have a support group, which is the Portfolio and Programme

Management Office. They are the people who make the engine, they're the engine behind

all of the work and they make all of this work happen by keeping account of decisions,

programmes, milestones, progress, they manage risk and so on on our behalf and they report

to the portfolio board who then report in turn to the searing group of any issues that

are occurring, any issues that need to be managed, any risks that need to be managed

and report on progress. And then below that we have a set of programme boards which I'm

to talk to you about in a moment and then below that a set of project boards which have

yet to be established. Next slide please. So here are the programme boards that have

now been established. So we've got at the top there in the sort of dark green the future

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:17:42

the programme that is going to essentially design the new authority.

Jane, can I interrupt? I'm sorry to interrupt you.

No problem, Chair.

Will we be getting copies of these slides?

Yes, of course. Not a problem at all.

They'll be circulated following this meeting, Chair.

So, in the dark green future operating model,

where we will be designing the principles for the new authority or the new authorities.

And that will then, as you see by the arrow on the left, that will then feed into, once

that's been established, how to design the services.

And then in the sort of lighter green colour, you'll see the programmes that have been established.

So communications, engagement and branding, governance and legal.

Now you've seen and heard from Rob and Alice this evening, they lead that.

We've got the finance work programme, digital and customer experience, data and insight,

technology, people and culture, neighbourhoods and communities, property and assets, procurement,

contracts and commercials.

We do have a final work programme which is about devolution, but that is not likely to

be mobilised in the immediate future pending further discussions and arrangements as set

out by the government.

the government are currently consulting about devolution, so we don't anticipate

that that work programme needs to be set up at any point in the immediate future. Next slide, please.

So, just to say who's leading what and who's doing what. So, in the top box there you can see in the

portfolio and programme management office, Emily McGinnis has been appointed as the portfolio

director so she'll be the director leading this whole programme. Bella Chambers will

be supporting her and then there'll be an additional support officer yet to be appointed.

So, of the 11 programmes, the Communications, Engagement and Branding programme, I'm the

programme sponsor. Matt Abbott, who's with you this evening, is the programme lead and

we will be supported by a programme manager yet to be appointed. Legal and Governance,

you've met Rob and Alice this evening, they will also have a programme manager. The Future

An operating model which will be the design authority for the new authority or authorities

is being sponsored by Jo Walker who is the Chief Executive of GCC and she is supported

by the programme lead Alex Callard Finance. Nina is the programme sponsor and David Stanley

from CDC is the programme lead. Next slide please. We have a programme called Digital

and Customer Experience. Alistair Cunningham from Tewkesbury is leading that with Claire

Evans as the programme lead. Alistair is also leading Data and Insight with Emily White

as Programme Lead. John McGinty from Gloucester City Council is leading the Technology Work

Programme with Cheryl Holder as his Programme Lead. People and Culture is being led by Kathy O 'Leary

from Stroud, she's a Programme Sponsor there and Mandy Quayle is the Interim Programme Lead there.

Neighbourhoods and Communities which you will hear from very shortly. The Programme Sponsor is

Siobhan Farmer, but Helen Martin from CDC who's in the room with you this evening.

She's the programme lead and we'll be talking you through that programme in a moment.

Property and Assets Gareth Edmondson is the sponsor and Neil Corbett programme lead and

finally Procurements Contracts and Commercials Nigel Bryn is the sponsor and Benedict Lee is

the programme lead. Every will have a programme manager to support them moving forward.

Next slide, please. So what are all of those 11 programmes doing?

Well, we're working on baselining and collecting data

across all seven councils. We're working on deciding where the

key milestones are for each of those programmes about what we

need to achieve by when and developing project initiation

plans. We're kicking off meetings where all seven councils, including Publica, are involved

and appointing those work programme members. And we're working out how to understand where

the interdependencies come across the work programmes. In other words, which work programme

needs to do something first before the other one does the next thing because that's how

the flow of work needs to happen. Next slide please. I'm going to pass to Matt now who's

going to talk a little bit about the government's consultation which is currently live. Matt,

Thank you.

Officer - 1:23:51

Thanks, Jane.

Good evening, members.

I think I know most of you in the room, but for those that don't, I'm Matt Abbott.

I'm head of communications at Cotswold District Council and the recently appointed programme

lead for communications engagement and branding.

I'm going to really briefly rattle through the details on this slide.

Jane's covered some of the key points already.

So the government launched its consultation on local government reorganisation across

some number of different areas.

I can't remember the number off the top of my head,

but it's 20 odd that are going through this process

in the same, at the same speed as we are in Gloucestershire.

So they're running multiple consultations at the same time

of which Gloucestershire is one.

That consultation opened on the 5th of February

and will run for seven weeks.

So closes on March the 26th.

As Jane said, the government are consulting

on all three options.

So they've not excluded any of the options at this stage and

won't now until they make a decision.

They are asking to what extent consultees believe proposals

meet their seven criteria.

So for those of you that have done it, you'll have been on and

seen that you've been asked whether you or to what extent

you agree that any given proposal meets the key criteria

that it set out when it invited proposals at the beginning of 2025.

The government, this is government consultation, so the government has reached out to its own

list of named consultees, which is a substantial list.

But what we're doing is helping to amplify the consultation.

The remit we've had from Leaders Steering Group is to ensure that as many stakeholders

are able to and do take part in the consultation as possible.

This is a best endeavours approach.

It's a zero -cost approach, so we aren't investing in this,

but we are using every communications channel at our

disposal to ensure that as many people as I say see and take

part in this as possible.

We are being entirely neutral.

You'll note from perhaps some of the social media content that

we've seen or other content that all councils are talking about

the consultation and the options in very neutral terms and,

of course, in accordance with the publicity code,

the recommended publicity code for local authorities.

We've written to all stakeholders that were proposed

by council, so although the government has only reached out

to a set number of named consultees, we proposed a further

substantial number of consultees which were rejected by the

and we have therefore reached out to ensure that those consultees which are

considered important stakeholders across the county are engaged so that's things

like school groups other sort of significant community organisation groups

we've got a range of online and offline activity running to engage people in

this this week on Thursday, we're running a town and parish

Council webinar where there'll be a very brief update on where

we are in this process, but providing an opportunity for

lots of questions more than anything.

So there's an hour -long webinar which has gone out to every

town and parish Council in the county and we are as I say going

to do a brief update but really invite town parish counsellors

and clerks to ask questions of a small panel.

And we're working with partners and stakeholders from across the county to share this with

their networks.

So we've developed a resources pack which is online on the Future Gloucestershire website.

And we're working with them to promote this with their own networks.

So for instance, the VCSE Alliance have supported in promoting this.

I know that the GAAPTC have got some communication on their website and I noted that Simon's

City Town Council have promoted this as well.

So it's that sort of thing, reaching out to those different networks.

There are also printed copies of the consultation in council buildings across the county.

So far, MHCLG has reported that over 1 ,100, so this was a stat

that we received towards the end of last week, so over 1 ,100

people have taken part so far.

That's a pretty good number for us so far, with lots of work

to do it puts us above average versus other areas that are

going through the consultation process at the moment.

We're a relatively small area compared to some of the others

in this current phase.

So we are kind of middling.

MHCLG reported that some areas had 1 ,700 responses.

That's the maximum, but some have only had 450, and we sit

right in the middle, albeit as I say, with a smaller population.

I've touched on the pack of resources, and as I say,

offline and online activity to drive people to the Future

Gloucestershire website where there's more information on

proposals and it acts as a gateway to to the consultation itself. In case you are

wondering how you might be able to help, some members have been informed about

the consultation opening. There's been a couple of emails that have gone to you

but as ever we would really appreciate your support in spreading the word with

residents through your own networks. Share the link to the Future Gloucestershire

website where your residents can get a sort of deeper dive into the proposals

every proposal and then from there complete the consultation. Encourage town

and parish councils in your ward to attend our Q &A when are on Thursday and

obviously complete the consultation yourselves if you haven't already. And

Matt, next slide please. So I know the Ovian Scrutiny Committee have asked some questions

in the past about the financing of this. So this is information that was in the two proposals for

one unitary authority in the east -west two unitary authority, that the cost of setting

up these new authorities would be in the region of £21 million for one unitary authority

and £30 million for the two unitary option. What you can see in the yellow line on that

slide is what our CDC contribution will be in the event of either of those. So about

1 .6 million if it's 1 .2 unitary, one unitary authority and about 2 .3 if it's two. And

So, how will that money be spent? This is also in the proposals. These are the headlines

of how we anticipate that money will be spent, but I want to just emphasise this is estimated

at this time. It's unknown how things will move forwards in terms of a number of these

cost centres, but broadly it will, the costs will be about making some senior colleagues

redundant in terms of transition design and implementation support, internal programme

management, the people that we've talked about. There's a big amount of contingency, which

very much how we won't need to spend but we need to plan in. ICT is a big cost centre as well.

And then the shadow costs there, which is the penultimate line, is about the shadow authority.

There'll be some costs to ensuring that is put in place. And just the last line there, just to

highlight, because that one looks different. If there is one unitary authority, fire and rescue

Service will be part of that authority in the event that there's two Unitary Authorities,

there will be a requirement by government to establish a standalone Fire and Rescue Service

and that cost is estimated at £1 .1 million. So I'm happy to go into some more detail. If I'm not

able to answer your specific questions, I can take them away and come back to you on that.

But essentially that's broadly the estimated costs of establishing the new unitary or the two

new unitaries. Next slide please. So the important question for you as overview and scrutiny members

is well how will we manage that and how will we reassure you that any money spent is being spent

in a an appropriate and judicial way. So I'm going to go through these the boxes here top left to

bottom right. So we have a shared funding model that's been agreed that the all these programme

costs as I've just set out will be pooled into a single budget. The Gloucestershire

County Council will fund 55 % of those costs and the remaining 45 % will be paid for by

the district councils and that will be shared out evenly across the six. So we, CDC will

pay one sixth of the 45%. In terms of how we're going to govern and oversee the spend,

well you've seen on our governance slide we've got a portfolio board which is the seven chief

executives plus some senior managers. That board as a board oversees the overall budget

and we report to the steering group which are the seven leaders. We've got a

set of transparent rules which have been agreed across all seven councils. We've

got a set of eligibility criteria for spend which have been agreed across all

and we've got a really robust arrangement for making sure we've got a full audit trail

for all spend which will be aligned to our roadmap. In other words, we're only going

to spend against what we said we would and we will be able to provide evidence for that

in terms of auditing. Next slide please. I'm now going to pass for our final section of

Officer - 1:36:21

this agenda item to Helen Martin who I'm delighted to say was appointed to be the programme lead

for the Neighbourhoods and Communities programme in the Gloucestershire LGR programme and Helen

is here and she is with you this evening to talk about the progress that we are making

on this particular work programme. Thanks Helen.

Thank you Jane, evening councillors. I am just going to take you on a quick recap of

our proposals. Thank you Matt. You may not be able to read those top boxes on the slide

but they are a reminder of the two specific criteria that this programme is trying to

ensure that through this process we achieve. So that is local engagement and empowerment,

making sure we have a strong community engagement and we have civic engagement

and participative democracy. So we've obviously got to make sure through this

work stream we tick both of those boxes. We also want to build on some of the

really good existing practise that takes place across the county but also across

the country. So whilst some of our local authorities and some of our partner and

stakeholder organisations already do some of this stuff really well, we also

want to learn from those authorities that have already been through it and

and how they ensured that their communities were empowered and involved,

and how they set up their version of neighbourhood partnerships.

So it's very important in this process we are seen to and embed,

valuing our communities in terms of the geography, identity and interest by which we mean,

although this is a locality and a place -based way of working,

this is not just about geography, so this is not just where you live or just where you go to work.

People also operate in neighbourhoods and have communities which they're part of because of interest that they have or because of their identity.

So it's making sure that we're not just looking at this for a pure geographical basis.

It's also really critical to this work programme that we see the town and parish councils on the voluntary sector as key partners in this.

not just because they are a voice of communities and they can represent communities,

but they may also be in some ways and some models delivery agents as well.

So we want to emphasise people being part, taking part.

We want to empower our local communities and we want to engender trust with and for our local communities.

So you may recall from the bid document that the starting point of neighbourhoods is proposed to be between 20 and 50 ,000 in terms of population.

So we are still working to that presumption, but we also want to work on the presumption

of neighbourhood by default and delivery at the lowest feasible level that we can.

And we will be shaping those neighbourhood boundaries over the next few months by a consultation

process which will take on board the views of those communities, of those key stakeholders

and partners, and of course, very importantly, the views of councillors as well.

So in terms of next steps, there's, as you might imagine, quite a lot of work to do.

The first phase, as we're calling it, which takes us up to the decision point before summer

recess is about a lot of data gathering, evidence and baselining of information.

So we are mobilising our programme and as you heard from Jay and Siobhan and myself have

been appointed, we are currently reviewing that board membership for the programme.

We have reached out to a number of existing partners and other partners that weren't previously involved.

We have our first kick -off meeting this Thursday, but that doesn't mean the membership is now fixed.

It's an ongoing process.

Before we reach the pre -decision point, we have to understand clearly what our communities and stakeholders' view on what a neighbourhood looks like to them is, and have to establish clear baselines.

We need to understand what's going on already. Where are the gaps in terms of skills, capability and capacity?

Who's delivering what already and where?

We have to also recognise that we're working in imperfect information at the moment,

so we don't, for example, know if we're one or two unitaries, so that geography is quite important.

We also don't know the impacts of some emerging bills and Acts of Parliament.

So we have to be able to flex as some of those things become apparent.

There's also the wider context of some of our key stakeholders

and their change.

So, for example, the NHS is running ahead of us in terms of

their timetable with community working.

So we are in conversations with them.

We are aware of that.

We both know that we will at some point have to align.

And also this is not a day one, safe and legal,

and we'll be up and running.

It's a very long -term, potentially five

to ten -year programme.

So obviously we need to have something operational

at day one.

Obviously, we want to have as much as possible operational day one, but it will be an evolving

piece of work as other partners become on board, as other maybe towns, parishes and

organisations decide to deliver services themselves.

So we will have a day one, but it will continue for many years to come afterwards.

Thank you, Matt.

So there are a number of potential project groups.

You'll have seen from Jane's slide, we have the programme boards and then project groups

that sit underneath them. They're not fully determined yet for this work

programme but they are probably going to fall into those categories that you see

on your screen. So we are going to have to do an initial very early piece of

work on what those neighbourhood areas might look like. We need to work very

closely with other partners, as I said the NHS is already ahead of us in terms

of their timescales but there are other key partners in terms of police and many

others that need to align and work with us on this. We need to get a baseline

understanding of what funding there is in communities already, what are the

currently existing seven councils already put into organisations such as

voluntary sector organisations, how might we be a resource moving forward, how

might funding flow through some of those different structures when we move

forward, what as a council are we going to offer, so how will we in terms of our

services deliver in the locality and how do we support some of those decisions

with all the evidence and data that we need to make them in an informed way.

So who in the seven councils already works in this way?

Who could but doesn't currently work in this way?

And when we do operate a locality model, how will we ensure that that is governed and that

there is oversight?

And very critically, as I also mentioned, what is the role of our town and parish councils

on the voluntary sector moving forward to support this workstream but also be part of

the answer for this workstream?

So there are at the moment, as you might imagine, thank you Matt, more questions than we have answers because we're still in the data gathering and evidence stage.

What we need to ascertain reasonably quickly is what is the day one essential for the new council and what things might need to take a bit longer to develop.

We went to meet with leaders at a meeting a week last Friday. We've asked them this question.

I'm sure one of myself have offered to go and meet each leader individually to have that conversation about what does good look like to you?

What does day one look like to you? What are your minimum asks?

What do you think a good neighbourhood governance model would look like?

And as you might imagine, there's a lot of interest and also a need to understand to what extent

Councillors will be involved in this. So how will they leave, lead, drive and help us to make decisions in that neighbourhood governance model?

And equally the flip side of that is to what extent to local people and organisations need to be the focus,

and how are we going to work differently in the future with those other stakeholder partners.

And I think we need to also accept that in doing so, one size is not going to fit all.

Our towns and parishes are very different sizes at very different levels of what they currently do in their neighbourhoods and communities,

or what they may wish or feel able to do.

So there will also be a role for us, I think,

in facilitating and enabling some of those conversations

across those organisations, as we also, as an organisation,

decide what services we have that are important to localise.

And I think one of the things that I would finish on is it's

obviously got a lot of data -driven decisions that have

to be made.

There's a lot of baselining and evidence gathering

in this stage.

We will then move towards starting to form what that

might look like and then we will then try to trial that in the third phase

prior to vesting day so that we can make sure that we're getting this right and

learn from that experience. You'll probably have picked up as we've gone

through that there are a huge number of interdependencies with the other work

streams. So for example the future operating model will determine how the

council operates through this work stream we need to also work with them to

determine how we deliver services after locality and at what level those

services will be delivered out. It's got huge linkages with data and digital, it

links into finance, it links with colleagues in legal and governance, not

least because we will have to set up charters and covenants with towns and

parish councils. So I mean we're not unique, I think all of the programmes

have that to a degree, but we do massively underpin a lot of what is

going on in the other programmes and we'll have to tap into those other

programmes as we go forward. So lots to do, lots of questions to answer, but we

are up and running, our first board meeting is on Thursday and hopefully

things will start to get a little bit more detailed and we'll get the

membership of the board and we'll get those project boards sat underneath it

and we'll start to firm some of this up. Thank you Jane.

Thank you chair, very happy to take any officer questions from myself or Matt or

or Helen. And I'm sure Councillor Efremay is available should members of the committee

have any questions for him. Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:46:10

Thank you very much to all three of you for your presentations. A lot of detail in there,

or at least a lot of information in there, perhaps not so much detail. Can I ask, first

First of all, so we have Councillor Fowles.

Now that is a shock.

Councillor David Fowles - 1:46:30

On a personal observation, the way we're being asked to ask our questions at the end of the

presentations is actually quite difficult because I would argue that's probably not

the best way of doing it because you have to go right back and it's quite difficult

to remember the context, but I'm going to try with my four notes to do justice to it

if I could. So I'm going to ask questions of all three, or do you want questions to

Jane and then questions to her? How do you want to do this?

Like questions to be really important, worth asking and focused.

But can ask all three of our speakers. Is that directed at me or just a general comment?

Okay.

All right.

Right.

Questions directed at Jane, if I may.

When you went through those different work streams, Jane,

I mean, although I'm not suggesting you should

necessarily do it now, but if we're going to put these slides

out to, if it's just going to go over your scrutiny, that's fine.

But I would suggest they go to all members, I would hope,

Chairman, because I think it's a really useful thing.

useful update and certainly gave me a real insight.

But to me, when I looked at those work streams, three of

them seemed to kind of overlap.

You've got digital and customer service.

Then you've got data and insight and then technology.

And I sort of was scrabbling for sort of more of a

definition of what each of the work streams mean.

I mean, communications, I get that.

Governance, I get that.

But some of the other ones are a bit more complicated.

And I think we could all benefit from a bit more of an

explanation of those different work streams.

I'm sure they don't overlap, but they seem to where you've

got the digital customer experience on one work stream,

and then you've got people later on.

So I would like more clarity on that.

The second, I know it's very early days, but you talked

about four million pounds worth of redundancy and

suggested that they were senior people.

I mean, £4 million spread around people lower down the hierarchy could be a lot of people,

but I'd be interested to know what number of people we might be talking about at that

sort of level.

The third is, I know you probably can't at this stage get your head around it, but at

what stage do we start to look at the assets that the councils own, the buildings?

and because obviously we look at these figures 21 million pound cost for one

unitary 30 million for two unitaries but we've all got assets particularly

property assets and I wondered when when we're going to look at some money coming

in as opposed to money going out those are my three questions for Jane and then

I've got a couple of questions for Helen and Matt were they succinct enough? Thank

you. Councillor Fowles, thank you so much for your questions. Very happy to try and

answer those. I'll take them in order that you asked. All the slides that we've provided

this evening, we will make available to all Councillors. And then we will be invitational

to say to if other councillors were not able to come this evening, not member of your committee

or didn't listen in online. If they've got some further questions, very happy to answer

them. So we'll do that. Your second question is around three, what you described as potentially

overlapping programmes, which were related to digital technology, customer and so on.

I think it would be fair to say it took us a while to work this out about how best to

to work out what the programme was for this. You may wish as your committee to ask some

further details about these three. We'd be very happy to provide that. They have very

distinct and different terms of reference. I think if you'd like us to provide that,

we could do that and then you may have some further follow -up questions which of course

we would be very happy to answer. Your third question was about redundancy costs.

Now that's a very, very tricky and sensitive and very difficult area to discuss as I'm sure you

you all appreciate. There will be some redundancies in this programme.

Let's take the obvious point. There will either be one or two chief executives

from the 1st of April 2028. Currently there are seven. That's an obvious example.

you know, one can't get around that issue, there will be redundancies.

If you look at colleagues who are executive directors or directors that report into chief executives across seven councils,

I couldn't give you a head count at this point in time, but there are many.

There will need to be fewer. All of these posts will need to be reviewed. There will

need to be a new senior management structure for the one or the two councils. Those posts

will need to be job evaluated and costed out and agreed by the shadow authority. Once they

have been agreed, there will be an appointment process. Those current colleagues who sit

in senior posts where they will be eligible to apply for those posts, if they are unsuccessful,

or choose not to apply for those posts will be eligible for redundancy. £4 million is

an estimate but it will be circa that amount. Your fourth question was around assets across

all councils. Yes, absolutely, we need to do that. It's a very important piece of work.

it falls within the property and assets work programme which is one of the 11 that we set out

to you. Should your committee wish for an update on that particular work programme like you've had

the neighbourhoods and communities this evening we'd be more than happy to provide that for you.

Thank you chair. Thank you very much.

Councillor David Fowles - 1:54:13

Can I... Do you want me to shut up now?

Let someone else ask some questions and CFA ask yours and we can come back to you later.

Okay, thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:54:24

Councillor Waring has lead. So it's Councillor Slade.

Councillor Tony Slater - 1:54:33

Thank you, Chair. I've got two questions. On the... where shall I look?

On the ways of working slide, bullet number five was very big

on investing in core skills, which is brilliant.

Will there be investment in core systems as well, or is that

going to be a job for a future transformation programme?

The reason I ask is the cost is between 20 and 30 million,

depending on which option, but is that the total cost or are things like officer

time hidden in their day -to -day work as happened in previous transformations

migrations. My concern is if it's not done at this stage the will to do it and

the structures able to do it will be lost and it'll be just kicked into the

on grass and people will be carrying on doing the same old things that they've

done forever. The second question is around elections. Now obviously this year

there's been a bit of a hoo -ha on missed cancelled elections and if where if the

current councillors of CDC are to remain in post until 2028 is that going to

any form of disruption or challenges in the courts and otherwise or do we just carry on until 2028?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:56:12

Thank you. Would you like me to take that chair? Please. So core systems in terms of the

The IT systems, absolutely completely right, Councillor Slater, critical and absolutely

essential part of the work.

It actually links back to Councillor Fowl's question about the three work programmes,

but essentially the work programme that we're looking at this will be the technology work

programme.

So again, should you wish for an update on that particular work programme, we can provide that.

But that's essentially where that work will happen and you're quite right, it's absolutely crucial.

Secondly, in terms of elections, at this point as officers, I would say we have to work to the government programme and their town table.

and their timetable is shadow elections will happen in May 2027 and they will be

vesting day on the 1st of April 2028. We have no information contrary to that so

that's what we're working to and we will be keeping all members across Gloucestershire

informed should there be any changes to that. Thank you, chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:57:54

Okay. Councillor Fowles.

Councillor David Fowles - 1:58:02

Right. I'm doing it in the order of which the presentations took place. So just a quick

couple of questions at Matt, if I may. The figures you were quoting about engagement

in terms of consultation, you talked about 1100 engagements.

Well, slightly, you used the word we a lot,

and bearing in mind that you have a role

on the overall programme, is that we, the programme,

or is that we, Cotswold District Council,

where you are our head of communications?

Because that would help me on some of the other questions

I've got for you.

So who's we?

Officer - 1:58:41

So that is we in terms of colleagues across the county.

So on my work programme, I've got a lead from each of the different councils,

a comms lead from each of the different councils, so I'm talking collectively about

councils across Gloucestershire. The 1100 was out of 650 ,000 people, which is, it

Councillor David Fowles - 1:59:07

would have been hugely significant had it been 91 ,000. Yeah, okay. This webinar, I'm

process of getting town and parish councils to engage in that. Have you been, have you

contacted all the town and parish councils? Yeah?

We have, yes.

And what kind of, what kind of response have you, I mean have people been asked to RSVP

like we are?

They haven't, no.

So you have no way of knowing how many people could turn up to that webinar?

We don't, no. Not in the way that we've organised it on this occasion. It's a webinar link that's

gone out to the 360 odd clerks across the county.

We've asked them to forward that on to councillors

and attend if they're able to.

Councillor David Fowles - 1:59:55

The last question, which has been picked up by,

in fact what Tony was actually saying,

I mean I was staggered when the government,

well I wasn't staggered they did a U -turn

because that's what they do all the time,

But what I was staggered by was the response I got from some of my parishes.

One of them, I'll just use him as an example, he's a retired chief executive of an airline.

And he said, how does that affect Cotswold District Council?

Because he naturally assumed that we were going through some kind of election.

And I said, but I've sat in every parish council meeting and explained what's happening.

Don't you get it?

And he said, no, I don't get it.

So have we already done a body of work,

or do you think we could benefit from trying to crystallise

exactly what those, because it is very confusing,

because they've got their own elections in 2027.

We've got certain authorities that have got elections now,

and then of course we've got the whole thing,

the shadow thing.

And I really do think we could do a piece of work,

however that is, to clarify that it's business as usual here.

That's what I was just gonna say, okay?

I'm going to defer to Councillor O 'Brien.

Sorry.

Can I pick that up?

I mean, I don't think we can legislate for the government changing their mind.

I wasn't expecting that.

Yeah, and I think...

The implication is... Sorry.

Yeah, if you let me answer.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:01:24

I think they will have learnt from this experience, one hopes, with next year.

We have got this timetable.

There's 20 areas going through the same process.

We're one of 20 areas going through on the same timeline.

So we will know. Clearly the decision as the chief executives outlined is expected in July.

At that point there needs to be

Jane might want to talk through the timeline in terms of the statutory order.

But I think my understanding is there has to be some essentially statutory order to implement the decision

and essentially to set up the new councils.

So at that point, we will know that the new councils,

once the stationary order is laid,

are on timetable for the 1st of April, 2028,

with the elections at the start of May, 2027.

Clearly, if they don't meet that timescale,

we potentially, we know we're gonna have

Terrace and Town elections.

We might have a coursework district council election

in 2027 if the government doesn't move what they say they're going to do. But I

don't think we need to confuse people any more than they're already confused

by telling them that right now. When we've got a decision from the government

and we've got a timeline we can tell people that the elections of this

council will either be cancelled because it's going to be a new council or that

they're going to go ahead because it's been delayed. And my expectation is if it

delayed till 2029, the new start of the new authority, given what's happened thus

far, it's likely that the elections would happen for Cotswold in 2027 in that case.

Councillor David Fowles - 2:03:09

Can you hold those questions?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:03:12

Can I ask Helen questions?

Councillor Turner has a question.

Okay, um one of your slides a lot councillor Turner has a question

Councillor Clare Turner - 2:03:31

And so I've got two questions one one is directed to Matt and one more to Jane and

The first question is obviously everybody in this room is very engaged in this process

I'm sure we're all part of the 1100 that's already put our response into the consultation and

there's a

Quite a lot of, say, should we call it apathy amongst the general population about the value

of spending time on this.

I wonder if the government has given you anything to indicate how they'll use the responses

or why it's worthwhile people completing it.

So that's the first question around comms.

The second question, the whole process of going through this reorganisation is incredible

and it is hard to visualise every element of work that needs

to be done.

And thank you for the update.

It was very helpful to see how things are coming out.

And one thing that was evident from the ways that we're

working or you're setting up the working and so on is that risks

are being considered.

But there are a huge number of risks of all sorts of different

types in this process to get this kind of across the line

and the timetable required.

So I just wonder, Jane, if you could just comment on,

I think you talked about the programme boards managing the

risk, but as those risks move from sort of amber into red

and so on, how is that being managed and who has the sort

of oversight of that risk register and how it's being

monitored and mitigated?

If I just answer.

Officer - 2:05:13

Chair, are you happy for me to respond to that?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:05:21

Matt is wanting to say something straight away, perhaps you could talk to that?

Of course, thank you.

Officer - 2:05:26

If I just take your first question, Councillor Turner.

So, I mean the Government has told us that it will use the consultation responses to inform the decision that it makes.

I wouldn't say, and Jane's been close to some of the discussions

with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

than I have on this.

They've told us that they'll use the consultation responses

to inform the decision that they make.

I think there's a feeling among leaders, the steering group,

and Portfolio Board that it's really, really important

that the views that residents have

across the county are expressed to government.

And so our body of work really is in amplifying the consultation to ensure that we're giving

and signposting to residents every opportunity to take part.

And that's really where, you know, what I've been tasked with doing with colleagues from

across the county.

So that's sort of where we are.

And, you know, our ambition is for as many people to take part in this as possible.

And yeah, we'll work hard over the course of the next few weeks to ensure that that

happens particularly ensuring that through networks, through town and parish

councils and through some of our other partners that we reach some of those

hard -to -reach groups as well so there's a body of work underway to ensure that

that's the that work takes place and then we get as many people respond as

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:06:54

possible. Jane did you want to add something to that before the

Councillor Clare Turner - 2:07:03

supplementary or can? No thank you chair. So is there any expectation that the

submissions will be published in full so that aside from the decision -making part

that the government is going to make will that information be available to

all the councils to feed into the shape of what happens next? Sorry just to

clarify, so in respect of the consultation responses that are

Officer - 2:07:29

shared, I don't, I mean, Jane might know, but I don't know

that there's a precedent for them having published the

consultation responses for some of those in the

previous tranches.

So, for instance, sorry, I don't think that they published

the consultation responses.

There might have been a summary that they published, and they

certainly tell, have told those interested how many people took

part as part of the decision that they make, but I don't

think they published the responses.

but Jane I don't know if you've got any information that's different on that.

Matt, no I think you're right, they don't publish the individual responses,

they certainly will give us, following the closure of the consultation period, a summary.

What form that summary comes with, will, as far as I understand it, will only about the numbers,

rather than the content.

Dr. Evermeet?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:08:31

Councillor Mike Evemy - 2:08:35

Just to add to what Matt and Jane have said. Very, very good question Claire. I think

ultimately the government hasn't given how it's weighting the inputs that it's getting. So ultimately

a minister or a couple of ministers sitting down are going to decide

the future of 20

county areas and how our councils and how our decision -making is done within

our areas and we don't know exactly how they're going to do that. So all we can

do is encourage people to have their say as Matt is doing and we are doing and

obviously make any representations that we want to to support any particular

option in our own individual capacities. But yeah the the government decision

making is rather opaque in this regard. I think it's fair to say.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:09:25

Let us hope that it is better than the designs of train operating companies and water companies.

Councillor Fowles, can I ask you to hold your last questions, make sure that they are really

pertinent to this because we're already after 10 past by my watch and that one. So, past

and I have a few questions I'd like to just ask as well,

and so we need to move along,

but you might have a question afterwards.

Jane didn't come back on the risk question.

Yes, Jane, you have another answer

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:10:01

possibly to give to the risk question.

So the issue around risk management,

absolutely essential issue,

and a very pertinent question.

risk management will be through the portfolio board, which is the board of the seven chief

executives plus other senior managers, where we will on a fortnightly basis have a risk register

which we review. That will be a standing item on our fortnightly basis and in the event there are

risks that we feel need to have a political input to in order to manage, we will then

escalate to the steering board. But that's where the risk management work will take place.

Thanks, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:11:09

So, I'd like to ask a few questions, if I might, and mix questions with suggestions.

The first is, I'm interested in what level of study of mergers have taken place as an

forming basis for this work, both generally across enterprises, but also obviously in

local government contexts.

Because there's a good deal of history, and it's part of my background to have studied

this.

There's a lot of history about issues.

The remaining cultures of individual units surviving a long time because they never really

become integrated, and so forth.

So Cotswold District Council is 52 years old almost, so we have a lot of history.

We have a lot of developed identity.

Fortunately, it's also in the context of other such district

councils and the county.

So there's a lot of bonus that we have.

But that issue goes to a couple of other points.

One is there was no mention of a systems model in relation

to the different streams.

So there's a list of streams.

There's not much detail given to us generally all the way

through this about each of them.

But there's a list of streams.

and I'm sure there's a lot of detail available in the background, but how they are interdependent,

how they organise with respect to each other, how that functions hasn't been shared.

And I don't know whether you even have such a model and a competent way of working with

that, but that seems to me to be something that would be really important.

And in relation to identity, identity is not just something superficial like some sort

of brand image stuck on top, but it's the actual way in which things work.

So things like culture come up, the financial models of things, process organisation structures.

It's really down in the working structure and organisation of an organisation.

So we're talking about collapsing seven organisations into one and doing a lot of the things that

those already do, but finding new organisation model for doing that.

And I'm wondering whether you've, what work you're doing on developing a new organisation,

you're talking about that as a model, but how is that organisation model being conceived?

How is it related to the fundamental identity that transitions what is and conserves the

best of it and puts it into something new?

And how is that being informed by a background of know -how about that kind of process?

Thank you, Chair. Are you happy for me to take those questions?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:14:02

Please do. Thank you. So in order, the first question was about a study of former arrangements.

I think you call them mergers, but I think in, and that is true in some organisations,

but in this context, these are not mergers, because actually what we're doing is we're

actually closing down councils, or if you want to be brutal in government speak, abolishing

councils and establishing a new council or two new councils. So just to be clear, what

we're trying to do is establish a new or two new councils for Gloucestershire. And I can

absolutely assure you that the work that officers have been doing has been informed by previous

and current local government reorganisation programmes. We learn. We are going to learn.

we are learning from previous sets of arrangements.

And we are fortunate to be part

of the Local Government Association family,

where they have been collating case studies

and information that helps us find out best practise,

banana skins, if you like.

But we have been learning and will continue to learn about that and feed that into our programme of work.

Your second question was about the systems model and interdependencies.

I would just refer you to the previous information I set out about the workstream that's called the future operating model,

which was the sort of dark green line on the slide of one of the programmes of work,

that is where all the systems and the thinking will go ahead. And during this

phase of work that we set out to you is where we will be looking at interdependencies

between work programmes and that future operating model. Again, I just suggest back to you,

should you want some further information, like we've done the neighbourhoods and communities

work programme tonight in a bit more depth, that might be a work programme you'd like

to hear a bit more about. Just a suggestion to you. And thirdly, you were talking about

identity and culture. That work is absolutely critical, quite rightly so. And that work

is happening in the culture, the people and culture work programme. And Angela, who's

sat in your meeting tonight. Angela is our CDC representative on the People and Culture

Work Programme. And again, should you wish for a further detailed input onto that work programme

at a future meeting of yours, no doubt Angela would be more than happy to provide that. But

I just want to reassure you that all that work is happening around making sure that

people develop their thinking about the identity of the new council or councils and that we

support colleagues moving from the culture and the identity of the council they're currently

working in of the seven and moving into the one or two new ones going forwards.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:18:25

Thank you very much, Chief Executive.

While I take it that legally it's not a merger, but the establishment of a new body, I think

that the de facto reality, because of the transition

of various people coming together, there will be all

the elements that belong to a merger that have to be dealt

with at some level, as indeed you've already referred

to in some ways.

I do think it would be useful to hear more about the operating

model at another stage, and there may be others that

members of this committee want to recommend.

but thank you very much for your answer.

And Councillor Fowles, it's 20 past six and we still have more on the agenda

and we probably need to take a break.

So is there anything you think is critical for this success of this programme?

I do, if I may, Jim.

Councillor David Fowles - 2:19:29

It's more, I can't comment on other Councillors' experiences with their parish councils, but

I can comment on mine.

They see themselves heading towards a sort of democratic abyss or void where we've got

this unitary or two unitary debate going on and what's going

to happen to them as a result of that.

So when you, Helen, were talking about neighbourhoods and

community and there's a chart there that says to what extent

should empowerment of people and organisations be the focus,

for me, that's the number one thing.

And it's buried on a chart, item four.

What really concerns me is the structure in terms of the

programme board. Is it the intention to have that programme board made up of parish councillors

as well as other people? Will there just be one programme board or will it be broken down

in terms of the Cotswolds having representation feeding into that programme board? And you talk

about the neighbourhood partnerships being between 20 and 50 ,000 people, well, without

being facetious, the District Council currently represents 91 ,000 people. We do have a model

that already exists around which we are looking at the democratic process, which is the divisions

of the County Council, which went through a boundary review. So we have got some natural

relationships. We have got the current wards and we have got the divisions. Are those in

some way a building block for the neighbourhood partnerships, as I'm just curious to know.

So I really want to know where the Cotswolds are going to be in the parish town and parish

councils in terms of being part of this process, and whether or not the existing democratic

structure is going to form a basis of the way we could structure our partnerships going

forward.

Officer - 2:21:36

The programme board at the moment has representatives who represent town and parish councils.

That's not to say there won't be further memberships added to that.

Underneath it will be a number of project groups and there is scope for more membership in those groups in terms of delivery.

It's quite possible one of those groups will be for the voluntary sector, one of those groups will be for town and parishes for example.

So, to answer your question, no decision made but yes, there will be representation.

The 20 to 50 is what went into the bid.

It's not necessarily fixed.

We are aware of the divisions and we are going to do a lot of

baseline working and geographical mapping to work out

what is the most appropriate boundary to put around a

neighbourhood.

So it's not fixed, but we obviously can't have too many

because it has to be workable and manageable.

And you may remember in the bid there was that triangle that

shows the levels of operating at level three is roughly where we

see this in terms of scale of population,

but open for discussion and open to evidence.

Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:22:37

So I would like to ask if there's anybody who wants to make a recommendation before we conclude this item.

Councillor David Fowles - 2:22:52

We note the update and that's all I think we need to do, Jim.

I was going to propose.

So I wanted to thank the officers who brought this and also the leader.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:23:00

Thank you very much for bringing these items.

I think we've got to spend ten times as long naturally on the subject, but it's given us

some overview.

I think that in terms of discussion about the work plan, we could perhaps think about

something that we'd like to ask when it comes to the work plan coming forward, and that

can come to this committee in principle at any point,

although the plan gets made.

But at the moment, it's only running up to the end of April.

There are several points that have been discussed.

I'd like to just request, if you can in future,

to share the report in advance of the meeting

rather than after the meeting.

I think most members prefer to read it through.

And then we certainly think it's valuable to have

reports that really pick up key salient points, but then we can spend more time

on questions and less time on going through the detail. I'm going to ask,

thank you very much, I'm going to draw that item to an end. I think it's

necessary to have a short break. There's been a request for it already. We

normally have a 10 -minute break. Do we need a 10 -minute break? Right, so it's a

five minute break, which means we'll start in six minutes.

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:24:30

We come to the last sessions of the meeting.

We need to complete, we need, whatever we are working on at 7pm, we will complete, but

we will not start another item after that.

It's likely that the work plan is not something that we need to give a lot of attention to,

and if we don't deal with it, it's not the end of the world.

The Economic Strategy Scrutiny Committee report that I submitted, but you only got today,

I believe.

The report itself says something about that, is what we'll take up because it's likely

to be very short, and then we can move on to the substantive item of the sill, which

is a big question potentially.

So may I ask, are there any questions on the report that I submitted or comments that anyone

wants to make?

Councillor Spivey is aware of the fact that I wrote to her separately on one of the matters

in the report. I can update on that because in fact I raised

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 2:25:53

that with Rob Aliff who was just here and have received information from him. Are you

talking about the access to, yes, well I think just for context, I think members should be

aware that there was a very serious incident in December of 24 at the County Council in

the reception area. I won't go into detail on that, but needless to say there was a full

review done of our security after that very concerning and distressing incident. Therefore,

I think it might be that perhaps in some instances we have been overzealous in allowing people

through. I can only apologise for your experience, but the matter has been dealt with by myself

as you've raised it and that will be changed and we will ensure that those

district councillors who are like you attending meetings at Shirehole who are

indeed on a list and even those who are not but with their own pass from

their district council will be ensured to be issued with a visitor pass which

will allow you access to the areas you need.

Thank you Councillor Spivey. I'm sure that there will be councillors very grateful to you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:27:07

Is there anything else that anyone wants to bring up on the report?

I do want to just say that this whole development of the resilience strategy across the county

and this particular initiative, how successful it will be remains to be seen, but it is an

13 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees

interesting and important step that there has been a decision to support the creation

of this studio, which the details of which aren't entirely clear, but effectively it

seems to imply that there is a more hands -on supportive consultancy process.

And part of their economic model will be that they will be receiving income from the members

of the studio.

But if you can go from, if you can add 30 % even though it's going to be on a small base of success anyway,

but if you can add 30 % to that and that 30 % is significant, that can be very substantial indeed.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:28:21

So, firstly Chairman, as is characteristic of your reports, it's very interesting and

Councillor David Fowles - 2:28:26

very thorough, so thank you for that.

Just an observation about the growth hubs.

A lot of work and effort went into creating the growth hub from all sorts of partner organisations,

Cotswold District Council, Town Council, Chamber of Commerce here in Sirencester.

And I know that the funding is coming to an end.

And for those of us that have been up there, it's gone through a sort of subtle rebranding.

And it used to be the Allison Centre named after the tragic death of one of their lecturers.

And it seems that the growth hub element of it is disappearing.

And it's becoming more and more an RAU building.

And in fact, I think someone said to me that effectively it's

on RAU land and all that government funding has gone in,

but essentially it's now there.

Is that the right assumption or have I got that wrong?

Perhaps Mike would know.

I don't know.

But my understanding is it's no longer technically a growth hub.

It's...

I'm afraid that wasn't discussed at the meeting,

so I can't comment.

Do?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:29:27

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:29:33

They are, I think there are a number of gaps in the growth

hubs, the funding for it is limited.

They make a difference and there's a lot more to it,

I'm sure.

So we'll move on then to the question of the CIL.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:29:47

If there's anybody watching, CIL or Community Infrastructure

levy. It's a charged mandatory levy that's paid at the onset of the development. It's

12 Infrastructure Funding - Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Policy

based on the type of development and the scale of it, and it's intended to provide resources

for essential infrastructure at a more strategic level in relation to what that development

would be adding to the local settlement.

The rates can be set based on economic viability

of the development.

A portion goes directly to the local community,

and that's like the town or parish council.

And it's alongside section 106 agreements,

which are focused much more on the local development itself.

So, with that preamble, just to give a sort of very brief positioning of it, may I invite

the officers to and cabinet member.

Councillor?

Thank you, Angus, and thank you for that little overview of CIL.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 2:31:02

We're not looking at the procedure of CIL tonight, but just as you said, it's collected

from developments.

and the funding that's collected is split up. Five percent is for

administration, 15 percent for towns and parishes without a neighbourhood

development plan, 25 percent for towns and parishes with a neighbourhood

development plan and those both have five years to spend their sill. The

sill money that the council has which is a strategic fund to deliver for our

residents needs does not have a time span on the spend.

But what this paper we're looking at is going to go

to cabinet just because what we want is the process

of how we ask people for bids for that for SIL.

So SIL came in in 2019 and within that time

we've run two full strategic bids rounds.

It was, we didn't do it in 2019 because we were only just getting the money, the money

needed to build up.

So that has happened.

The experience alongside stakeholder feedback shows that the system is working, but it can

be improved to better support sustainable growth across the district.

And at present, we operate a short but challenging single annual bidding window, which is just

from March to May, and bids are assessed by an officer panel

using high -level scoring framework.

And whilst this has provided a clear and consistent route

for allocating funds, the review highlights opportunities

to make the process more transparent,

more strategic, and more collaborative.

And the proposed CIL enhancement programme,

that's such a good sentence,

It will sharpen alignment between still spending and our corporate plan and our infrastructure

development plan.

The bids window is going to be extended to year round and will be considered between

October and December.

So the locals, the towns and parishes or whoever wants to bid has got a much longer time to

do that and put evidence in with their bids for our consideration.

This will improve transparency and communications with parishes, community groups and infrastructure

partners.

It strengthens the assessment process so that bids are prioritised against clear strategic

criteria.

And it ensures we continue to allocate SIL legally, responsibly and accountably in line

with regulations.

and it also enhances monitoring and reporting so we can demonstrate impact

more clearly. It's not a change to the SIL charging schedule, it's about

improving how we allocate funding so that infrastructure delivery keeps pace

with development and supports thriving communities. And what I will be

asking Cabinet is a recommendation that we delegate authority to the Assistant

and Director of Planning Services in consultation with me

to implement that enhancement.

And that's basically what we're asking.

Thank you.

Helen, did you want to say something before at this stage?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:34:40

Not at this stage, but happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Officer - 2:34:44

Could I just ask for the purposes of helping us

to respond further?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:34:47

Thank you for that introduction, Juliette.

Presumably, we can provide recommendations to the delegated officer and cabinet member

on this at this point, or members can at some other point.

But you're looking for recommendations that might be relevant to your redesign process.

That's the first question.

And would that apply also to the second round?

So, having come up with a design, will it be coming back to us to take a look at?

And should we note that the scope of where this can go, could you just clarify for us

to help us in how we respond?

Who can gain the benefit?

So it's not available for ordinary commercial organisations for profit.

It is, for example, something that a town council can apply.

What about something like a catchment partnership or some other local organisation?

What kind of bodies, therefore, can apply for it and what kind can't?

I think you'll be able to see information.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 2:36:09

I can't list off the top of my head what has been bid for.

The County Council has bid for things.

We've just recently approved the football school at Fairford

for a big football pitch and rugby pitch with,

I can't remember the name of the graph.

It wasn't called Astroturf.

It was something else.

So we've approved bids for that.

So it's for the community.

It's got to benefit the community and the residents.

And it's got to be part of our infrastructure development plan.

So it's strategic to what we are looking for in terms of what we'd expect for a development to provide.

Can the design come back to ONS? If you ask for it to come back to ONS, yes.

I have not seen the new forms yet that they're going to do or how we're going to engage.

What I want to do is have a much clearer and much clearer picture of what the bids looked

like because as cabinet members we don't get to see that yet.

We just get the final what we're going to approve.

And sometimes we refuse them if they're out of, you know,

if they don't quite fit the remit.

And I'd like a clearer picture of that, and I think that will

happen when we have a validation form before they come in,

for bids to come into.

So evidence will be provided.

And I think the timeframe will give us a much clearer and

longer time to look at reports and see what the bids are.

Did you have another one?

Recommendations, yes, I think I answered that, didn't I?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:38:04

Helen, are you in a position to answer, just to clarify, because it's legally defined,

I think, there must be some legal rules as to who this money can go to and who it can't,

and it would just, I think, help the members to be clear about that.

I would have to provide in writing the legal answer to that, but yes, you are right, we

Officer - 2:38:20

would expect them to meet certain criteria.

I think part of the purpose of the review is for us to also look at that for our local

criteria.

For example, it is normal practise to expect an organisation that is bidding for funds

to be properly constituted, to have accounts, and there is an amount of due diligence that

can be done.

What we are proposing on this is that is all up front, so that is very clear at the point

of making a decision.

So yes, there are rules and regulations.

We're happy to advise outside of the meeting of the nuts and

bolts of that, but part of this review is to make sure we're

clear on who can benefit and what criteria that you have to

meet so that it's fair, transparent, and open.

Chancellor Spivey.

Yes, thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:39:03

I really welcome this report and the planned enhancement

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 2:39:09

of the programme.

I think it's absolutely excellent.

I think it's really obviously listening to communities and I think that this will, from

what I can see from the report, absolutely seems to tick all the boxes of what is required.

I think, you know, the number of many number of parish council meetings that I sit in,

as do many colleagues here, that we know that parish and town councils in particular are

always saying, how do we get this money?

We've had all this development.

How can we make sure that we can benefit, our communities benefit?

I know that when I first became a Councillor back in 2019, there seemed to be about four

things that were all highways related and quite random, but weren't actually really

going to deliver community infrastructure, which I think absolutely when we see in our

communities that have perhaps not welcomed development, that this is one way of mitigating

that impact of development, not just actually physically, but also from a community and

from a psychological perspective.

So I think to understand that you can get a new football or rugby pitch, and in fact

I've been lobbied quite heavily by somebody in Fairford, Michael just sent you another

email on that.

But I think to really make sure that those impacts can be mitigated at a really local

level rather than a roundabout in Sire and Cessna which is going to be upgraded in order

to mitigate something that is happening in Fairford or in Downhampton from my perspective.

So I really welcome this.

I think making sure that we can make it as accessible as possible, especially for town

and parish councils is going to be absolutely critical and especially as we move through

what is a very, very difficult time in the local plan, we have got to make sure that

building trust with our town and parishes so that they know that if and when development

happens in their communities that we are genuinely listening to how we can help to mitigate that.

And sometimes it is about making sure that you've got a better community centre, you've

got a better football pitch, you've got some sort of services and infrastructure which

will just really help. So I really welcome this. I think crack on with it and let's see

what we can do. My only question would be, we normally have an annual report on the

SIL, is that nowish? I just wondered how much money we had in the SIL pot.

So we have had some reports relatively recently, we had one on the infrastructure

Officer - 2:41:40

funding statement and there was one that did summarise, there's a huge number of

tables and an appendix, so I can find out, I think it was a couple of cycles ago

wasn't it, that we have that, but we do report annually, we are obliged into, so

In fact, this report talks about some of the complexities of the reporting.

So we have to report on silver seats and spend for the current financial year, so up to the

1st of April.

But obviously there's a lag then in when we report because the data has to come in.

So there is an obligation to report, but we do.

I can dig out the most recent one to give you the figures.

I'm sure I can look it up online.

It was just in case you knew.

And I know that we have to do because we pay out twice a year, don't we?

Yeah.

In October or whatever.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

that's fine but yeah I really think this is excellent I'm really glad that you've

come forward with this I think it will really address a lot of issues so I look

forward to you implementing it and absolutely my recommendation but I

fully support the recommendations. Councillor Spivey I think there's a mention of

five million somewhere in the current pot and Councillor Hall will speak.

Thank you very much. First what Councillor Spivey said I think this is really

important in the context of the local plan which obviously is a situation

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 2:42:54

that's sort of being slightly imposed on us it's not something that any of us are

particularly embracing but I think if we can offer some sweeteners for our

communities for some of these houses and that can be clearer through the

programme I think that's really good. What can we do about accountability once

that money has been handed over? Who's responsible for making sure that it is

actually spent in the way in which it was intended and that the project is

fully delivered upon? That's my first question. The different types of

people that could apply for CIL when you're talking very specifically about

you know a football pitch or a rugby pitch you've got a club you've got a

constituted body that can apply. When you're talking about things like

pavements and street lighting, things that are the responsibility of local

authorities, who should be the driver of that application? And obviously that's

probably going to change when we've got, you know, one or two, whether you've got a

unitary authority or not. But should that be the Town and Parish Council, should it

be the District Council, should it be the County Council? So that's my second

question and the third question is in relation to local government

reorganisation will Cotswold District Council's sill money be ring -fenced for

Cotswold District Council and remain in the district or does it form one big pot

once we form our new unitary authorities?

Officer - 2:44:30

the first one which is about accountability so when we hand the money over, we don't just

hand it over, they have to sign a legal agreement and there is quite a lot of financial due

diligence that has to be done to make sure that it's appropriate to hand over, not just

that we like the infrastructure, but the body is set up to deliver it.

In the report we talk about the fact that in 2024 we introduced an infrastructure tracker

in the team.

So the team within this council is responsible for tracking, monitoring, reporting, so they

will stay in touch with those organisations to ensure it is spent, it is spent within

the time limits and on what they say they're going to spend it on.

But they are legally obliged to do that.

That's signed up in the legal agreement.

In terms of who should apply, so the money is then through a legal agreement in effect

transported to the delivery agent.

So those people are the people delivering or commissioning the delivery of the infrastructure.

So if it's a county council function, they would apply.

If it's a parish town council function, they would apply.

So there's some of those things we do in partnership, but we are handing money to people to physically

deliver infrastructure.

And in terms of local government reorganisation, I don't think there's an answer on that yet.

that will be part of the design authority decisions. If it's section 106

it's obviously quite tightly legally tied up and it's much more locality based

so if it's for that library it will be for that library still. Still is as you

are aware a bit more of a grey area because it's not so geographically

constrained and I don't know is the answer there could be a transition

period where things stay or there could be an immediate overnight it's one one

big pot with a new process to bid into but I suspect it will take time to set

up those processes. Not my decision. I suspect it might not even be a day one decision because

there will be more urgent things. So it might be that there is a transition, like we will

continue to have our local plan before it moves into something else, but those decisions

have not yet been made.

Thank you.

Councillor Slater.

Happy with what is going on here. It seems perfectly sensible and reasonable. I have

Councillor Tony Slater - 2:46:37

I just got a question. The word stakeholders appears a lot, which seems to relate to people

or organisations applying for the funds, but I don't think they'd actually be stakeholders

until they've applied for the funds. My view of stakeholders would be the people that manage

the funds and divvy it out, but that's, if you can answer that. And just an observation,

I don't think I've ever seen the word stymie in a report before, or 7 .1.

Say something on that?

I'm not going to comment on the stymie, which is an excellent word.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:47:18

Officer - 2:47:19

In terms of stakeholders, you're correct in your interpretation that what we mean is really people who are delivery agents,

people that might apply for funding, like the county council, like a school that's putting up a football pitch.

that's the context in which we mean it but I accept your point. Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:47:36

They're already a stakeholder or they wouldn't be applying in another sense

but I have Councillor Turner. Thank you the report is quite clear that the

Councillor Clare Turner - 2:47:46

process has not been ideal and sets out some good solutions to that so I think

we've probably all agreed that it's a good idea to make the changes. It's

seek delegation for those changes that we made.

So my only question is, have we got the skills and resources

to do that within the team at the moment?

Yes, we do.

So we currently have a lead for infrastructure.

Officer - 2:48:16

We have a couple of other people that work in that team

and they obviously sit within the wider planning policy team

so yes, we will make sure that it is resourced.

I think if we propose as we are to ramp up the engagement with organisations

then that will obviously have to be done in a way that is manageable. We're

currently very busy with the local plan but as you've seen in the report we're proposing

to allow the bid period to be a lot longer and the assessment to be in one

quarter of the year. So as it stands yes happy that we can. Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:48:52

Councillor Fowles. I think my question was asked a slightly different way by

Councillor David Fowles - 2:48:55

Councillor Laura Wilson.

I was looking at conclusions where it says could add value,

transparency and greater opportunities.

I'm assuming these changes will speed up the process

because I was hoping that we'd be able to spend

that five million before we get to the unitary

so it wouldn't be an issue.

But it seems that there could be a situation

where there's money left in the pot.

But is the intention with these changes

to simplify and speed up the process.

There's money being left in the pot.

There will be, because there's going to be development

Councillor Juliet Layton - 2:49:34

and there will be still money coming in.

As I said, we are opening up a window

so people can apply all year

and we'll be looking to be delivering,

you know, making a decision on that money between October and December.

So I think that, yeah, we could well be spending that money.

I mean, some people put in huge amounts of money, which would actually annihilate the

whole pot.

So that could happen, except it doesn't, because we need to, you know, they don't always meet

the criteria on the matrix, and that's what we're working on.

I don't know whether you've got anything to add to that.

Officer - 2:50:21

The council is absolutely correct. In the last bid round that we had, the bids, if you

total them up, exceeded the pot that we had. In fact, one bid was virtually the whole pot

in its entirety. And some of that criteria moving forward probably will recommend that

you can't be successful if you take out the whole pot in one piece of infrastructure.

So it is quite possible, I think, in the rounds that we will have left at CDC, that that money

could be substantially spent if those bids meet the criteria and if we're so

Councillor David Fowles - 2:50:51

minded to approve it. Will there be comms to support these changes so having if it

goes through cabinet will we then be communicating it yeah through the comms?

Yeah great. Yes the intention is to communicate it very widely one to

encourage people to bid but also in terms of case studies best practise and

Officer - 2:51:04

and good examples of where funding is being spent.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:51:13

I have some, what I imagine will be the concluding questions.

I'm also supportive that you, it seems to me it's an indication

that we're learning and we're trying to improve things,

and that's got to be a good thing,

so I'm totally supportive of that fact.

I think that as the very fact that you're having to redesign is indicative of the fact

that it's not a straightforward thing to design.

And therefore, the question that was asked just now by Councillor Turner is very relevant.

I'm asking the same question in a different way.

It seems to me that when you look into the detail, there's a lot of value judgements

and trade -offs that you have to make decisions about.

And how are those, do you have a framework that constitutes the

guiding principles for how CIL should be allocated and how

decisions should be made?

And the absence, that's really critical in this process.

So I take, for example, that we have an area plan which does a

and determines that there are strategic needs for infrastructure if development is to go ahead.

Can Cotswold District Council at the moment itself say, that's a strategic need,

we want to put money into that infrastructure because that infrastructure is critical to what is needed?

Can we do that?

Do we have to ask, do we have to get, can we be more active in promoting that kind of thing?

Another kind of question is how do you trade off at different levels?

The medical, I can only use examples I know, but the medical facilities in Morten, the space for doctors is inadequate.

That's a fundamental block for the town.

But it's a substantial multi -million pound solution.

A bypass is a substantial multi -million pound solution.

The request for a play park for children is a much more modest affair.

Syrinsester has £860 million worth of infrastructure that is at risk of flooding.

A project could be developed to prevent that flooding.

How does one, how do you propose tackling the decision -making structure to

determine where money should go from what is inevitably a limited pot?

I'll do a little bit and Helen can correct me afterwards with your planning hat on.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 2:54:01

A lot of those really big things that you're talking about, the major infrastructure,

the floodings, the doctor surgery and everything.

I think that goes well beyond the remit of what CIL that we

have in the council is.

That's what we'd be looking at when you're looking at big

developments, and that's what county would be asking,

and we'd be liaising with them.

So that has to be from that.

There is a framework.

Can you just interrupt?

Can you guide us then on that?

Because, I mean, for example, very substantial amounts of

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:54:33

money have gone to develop a schooling facility in

Chipping Candle in the past and it's not it's quite chunky

Councillor Juliet Layton - 2:54:45

It's it's to do with the community not just the school if we if we talk about the the the

Recent Fairford one is a rugby pitch, and it's a world rugby pitch, and it will bring in lots of other a lot of other

People using it lots of other schools

It's going to be for the community and a wide a much wider community than just Fairford

I suspect that the Camden one is similar to that.

But I don't think we can ask the SIL to do the major infrastructure that we would be

asking developers to do.

That comes under 106 and we've got to do that in collaboration with GCC.

And one of the GCC SIL bids that came in was for cycle post parking posts, which was for

substantial amount of money and we didn't think was going to be... when I say

we, I don't mean members, I mean the officer panel that they looked at that

and they thought that the money could be much better spent for much more wider

use for residents by giving it to another bid. That's what we want to

change is we want to have a bit more sight on those bids so members can get

engaged in it and know if there are bids in their area. There is a framework,

there is a metrics, and there is a quite, well not quite, there is a strict

scoring mechanism to work out who's going to get what and what will go

through. I don't know if you've got anything to add. Just to reinforce the

point about the difference between Section 106 and SIL and it's not

Officer - 2:56:30

possible to ask for the same infrastructure under both.

So you will find some things will be more likely to be

Section 106 tied to a development and a developer

contribution as a result of that growth.

So things like primary school places, secondary schools,

et cetera, more likely to come under that than they are still.

One of the criteria we'll probably look at is do the bids

have other match funding.

So if you've got a very big, chunky scale of funding required,

unless they can match it, we're unlikely to probably in the

future recommend still because they're too far from being able

to deliver it within a reasonable timescale.

So there are a number of mechanisms

by which infrastructure will be funded.

CIL is one of those answers, it's not the entire answer.

And with all things, it's often sometimes a package

of different funding measures that come forward with it.

Absolutely, we have a framework and guidance

that supports the panel that making decision.

That panel is multidisciplinary.

I think we'd like it to be more multidisciplinary

moving forward.

Last time it was an open invitation

to any member of staff to involve.

will be encouraging a breadth of people across the council to get

that different input and supporting them with guidance

of the framework, but also making sure that the questions

we're scoring against are very clear, weighted appropriately,

and allow that balance between the big infrastructure that

local plan needs to come forward and also that community

infrastructure for sustainable, healthy communities and even

climate change and emergency actions.

Thank you.

My point about the framework would be that a scoring

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:57:53

mechanism embeds policy decisions.

And so the question is, how are you going, in a sense,

the question just comes back.

How do you, you're effectively thinking about potentially

redesigning that scoring and therefore reevaluating

the set of priorities.

And it seems to me that one of the things that maybe after

you've done the work, that might be a good time for us

to look at what you've decided and determined

is the right pattern.

And at that point, say, no doubt the same

as we've just said, fantastic.

It's great that we go forward with that.

But the intervention of CDC taking a more strategic role,

it sounds like that's not appropriate.

Am I correct?

It's not appropriate for us?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:58:50

for members to...

I mean that this council in a sense, whoever it is, is that if we ascertain that there

are priorities, can we be active, proactive in some way in making sure that things come

forward that really meet the priorities that we determined having gone through a lot of

work through the area plan?

Officer - 2:59:23

I think there's two ways to approach that. So if there is, as a council, priorities that

have been agreed, then that can be reflected in the scoring matrix in terms of the questions

that we're asking and the weighting that is given to those. If the question is about how

you encourage organisations' bodies to bid and make sure that those things meet the aspirations

of the council, then that's, I think, where our comms workstream can also come in and

support that to show what's possible and what criteria are, how you go ahead and provide

support for those organisations going forward.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:59:55

The question I would put to the committee is do we wish to, once this has been redesigned,

I get the impression that we are very positive about it being redesigned, once it's been

redesigned do we wish to see it again or not?

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 3:00:18

I certainly think it will be interesting, but we have quite a busy work plan, so I'm

not sure it's a priority.

Councillor Clare Turner - 3:00:22

The impression that we're investing a great deal of trust in you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 3:00:32

I think I you know whatever bids come in have to fit in with the council's

Councillor Juliet Layton - 3:00:36

priorities it has to be within our corporate plan it has to be strategic it

has to be for the benefit of residents I think the scoring mechanism probably

won't change dramatically but it's the way that the bids come in the way the

way we see the papers and the bids and the members see them and we're not just

looking at something as skeletal as cabinet members so we get a much clearer

picture of what's being asked for so I don't think there's very much anger

that can go wrong to be honest and cabinet where I'm asking cabinet for

delegated authority on this as well.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 3:01:26

We're coming to the end. I'd like to thank Councillor Layton and Helen Martin for staying

on so late, the other officers, Democratic Services and so on for staying on so late.

I note that our leader is still present in the room. Thank you very much. I notice a

member of the public is still in the room, so we've managed to sustain that level of

Thank you.

And at whatever time it exactly is now, on my watch it's nine minutes past, but whatever

it is, the meeting is concluded.

Thank you.

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Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 2 March 2026, 4:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeMonday, 2nd March 2026 at 4:00pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Feedback

Votes

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:00:03

1 Apologies

Councillor David Fowles - 0:01:23

Councillor Jon Wareing - 0:01:30

Councillor Jon Wareing - 0:01:36

Councillor Lisa Spivey - 0:01:42

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:01:49

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:01:54

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:01:58

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:02:05

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:02:12

2 Substitute Members

Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:03:32

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:03:49

3 Declarations of Interest

4 Minutes

Councillor David Fowles - 0:04:12

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:04:55

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:05:07

Councillor David Fowles - 0:05:21

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:05:26

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:05:48

Councillor David Fowles - 0:06:04

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:06:48

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:07:15

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:07:35

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:08:04

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:08:27

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:09:12

Councillor David Fowles - 0:09:18

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:09:49

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:09:52

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:10:11

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:10:16

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:10:46

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:10:52

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:11:03

6 Chair's Announcements

Public Speaker - 0:14:01

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:14:16

Guest - 0:14:18

Public Speaker - 0:14:40

Guest - 0:14:54

10 Update on Local Government Reorganisation

11 LGR - Joint Scrutiny arrangements

Councillor David Fowles - 0:19:35

Guest - 0:19:56

Councillor David Fowles - 0:23:43

Guest - 0:23:48

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:24:11

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:24:21

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:24:29

Guest - 0:24:43

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:34:26

Public Speaker - 0:34:39

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:34:41

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:35:17

Guest - 0:35:22

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:37:06

Guest - 0:37:22

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:38:19

Councillor Laura Hall-Wilson - 0:38:26

Guest - 0:38:47

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:39:30

Councillor David Fowles - 0:39:34

Guest - 0:40:08

Councillor David Fowles - 0:40:21

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 2nd March 2026 at 4:00pm