Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 4 November 2024, 4:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting
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Agenda item :
Start of webcast
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Agenda item :
1 Apologies
Slide 1
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2 Substitute Members
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Agenda item :
3 Declarations of Interest
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4 Minutes
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5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting
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6 Chair's Announcements
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7 Public Questions
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8 Member Questions
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
10 Community Safety Partnership Update
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Clare Turner
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gary Selwyn
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gary Selwyn
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Andrew Brown, Officer
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
11 Feedback on Waste Round Rezoning
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Officer
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Officer
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Officer
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Officer
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Councillor Michael Vann
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gary Selwyn
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Officer
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Officer
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Councillor Gary Selwyn
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Tony Slater
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Officer
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Officer
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Clare Turner
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
12 Waste Services Update
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Clare Turner
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gary Selwyn
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
13 Draft Budget 2025/26 and Medium Term Financial Strategy
Agenda item :
13 Draft Budget 2025/26 and Medium Term Financial Strategy
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Cabinet Member
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Tony Slater
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Cunningham
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor David Cunningham
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Cunningham
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Cabinet Member
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Tony Slater
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Cabinet Member
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Cunningham
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor David Cunningham
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor David Cunningham
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Tony Slater
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Tony Slater
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Cabinet Member
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Tony Slater
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
14 Work Plan and Forward Plan
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Agenda item :
15 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gary Selwyn
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Webcast Finished
Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.
1 Apologies
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:00:00
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:00:02
We've all been busy at other meetings beforehand.I don't know if Councillor Waring will be coming later,
but I think we should get this meeting going.
So good afternoon to you all.
A warm welcome to everyone present,
including any members of the public.
And we particularly welcome those members of the public
and district councillors attending in person today,
as well as those who may be watching online.
I also want to acknowledge and welcome cabinet members
and officers who will be giving their reports.
to all members of the committee and also the officers present
to support the overview and scrutiny committee
in its functions.
The usual housekeeping applies.
Bar exits are marked.
Toilet facilities are out through the door and to the left.
Please turn off any input or put on silent any mobile device.
This meeting will be live streamed
and will also be available to view later
on the CDC's Facebook website.
If anybody wishes to film the proceedings, this is permitted,
provided it does not disrupt proceedings.
Could I now ask for any apologies?
We've not received any apologies.
Ana Prelici, Officer - 0:01:14
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:01:16
We did have a volunteer as a substitute,2 Substitute Members
but Councillor Coleman was quite keen
as should anybody miss, but I don't know
if Councillor Waring is coming, but we are courts,
So I think we will go ahead as we are.
Is that everybody happy with that?
Thank you.
So no substitute members.
3 Declarations of Interest
Any declarations of interest on matters in the agenda?
No matters?
All right.
4 Minutes
Now we go on to the minutes of the 2nd of September.
I have notified my amendments to the minutes
to Anna Prolici, who provides them so excellently.
And sadly, I'm going to say, sadly, Anna is not going
to be with us for that much longer.
I think at the end of the month, she moves to West Oxfordshire
where she has had promotion.
So congratulations to our,
our commiserations to the committee on losing Anna.
And also, I, so there's a few amendments I put in,
and I also chased up and we'll have the answers here
for the matters arising.
So has anybody else got any comments on the minutes
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:29
that they would like to amend or change. Councillor Jenkinson. I think it's just aCouncillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:02:32
punctuation thing on the bottom of page six. I think that there should beprobably a full stop after discussed or maybe I just can't understand the
I think there's a word with you in place of what the place of the blessing is.
That could be as well.
I have the whole of that passage a bit odd.
I've actually also underlined it.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:08
I think that Anna was one of the changes that I was making and I think it's been done.There was another one further down on page 7, there's a sort of T which has suddenly
found its way in on the second bullet point on the housing pressures and that was just
a sort of typo that's crept in there.
Was there anything else?
Did Councillor Slater please?
Councillor Tony Slater - 0:03:42
Apologies to my tardiness. I believe we requested and it was agreed that the performance ofthe enforcement team would be included in the performance pack in future iterations.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:54
Thank you for pointing that out. It was one of the things I also picked up on and it isgoing to be put into the performance schedules going forward. So thank you. We have actually
got the updates here which is very helpful which has been prepared in advance of the
meeting. Before we go on to that, was there anything else on the minutes that anybody
wanted to raise before we go ahead to vote and approve them?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:04:26
All right, so everybody is satisfied with the minutes. Could I have a proposer, please?Councillor Selwyn and a seconder.
Anna, take your choice.
Simultaneous hands.
And could we now go ahead and vote on those minutes for those who were present at that last meeting?
Hand up, hand up, hand up.
We're not doing it that way.
Thank you very much for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:09
We now go on to the matters arising.5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting
We have got very helpfully the matters arising here and you will see that the CEO Rob Weaver
has written to SWIFT and is still awaiting a response about the Andalands response times.
The cost of agency staff, that's going to be updated during the meeting by the Deputy
Chief Executive David Stanley. The next item was the planning enforcement, the statistics
on that are going to be included with the Quarter 2 performance report.
We're obviously going to cover the relation to the misc bin collections
acquired on a Friday and how to best report them. I don't think we've got the
full answer but it will be included I'm hoping in the we've got Yubico here
the thing and Mike Evamy who's the cabinet member responsible to report to
on that. The public transition report that is now being included in the February meeting,
so that's very good. And the one thing which we haven't got an absolute answer on is about
the Brownfield sites. So more information will be forthcoming on that in due course
and we'll make sure that that is followed up on. Was there anything else that anybody
else has spotted as a matters of rising which I haven't covered. Oh I have got
one and it's Councillor Jenkinsons one which I'm sure he's going to think is
resourcing on ecology. It has this actually been brought forward to the
Public Review Working Group I'm not aware that it has but I don't know
anybody anybody in the room's got the answer to that. Councillor Jenkinson do
Do you have any update on that?
Ecology resourcing?
No, we will...
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:07:15
Chair, I have seen notes in relation to other matters.There are two new ecology members, two new ecology officers, but I don't know any details
beyond having seen that phrase in a communication I got in a different context.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:33
Well, that sounds good, because it is that resource which we are looking at, is actuallya staff member. Was there anything else that anybody wants to follow up on or are
we content that that's covered off the matters arising?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:52
Go on to the chairs announcements I'm not going to give you a great deal of6 Chair's Announcements
thing but I did attend earlier today the meet -and -greet lunch which had a meeting
following led by Rob Weaver, the CEO, supported by Emma Cotton, who is a
consultant who's coming to help, I can't remember the name, external consultant, and it is to do
with the transition of Publica, CDC and you know, creating the new council,
getting people working together, and I think it was probably very helpful
to everybody. They are very open to suggestions and ideas from the staff and
how the CDC culture and workplace could be made to work effectively. So do talk
to anybody about that. I think it was very, for those who weren't able to be
there, it was a very useful meeting. And beyond that, I think most of the things I
have raised will be coming up in the meeting today.
The budget, new national budget may have ramifications
which are not, I'm sure, everybody's looking at it
carefully, but it's always difficult
to assess exactly how that will affect CDC's draft budget
and MTFS, which we will be discussing today.
Timings, I'm always going to go on about this, aren't I?
But, you know, one of the important topics today is the
a medium -term financial strategy.
It is one of the later items.
So we do need to not be too detailed
on some of the earlier items,
otherwise we won't be able to give enough time to that.
And now could each member introduce themselves
and the ward they represent,
starting with Councillor Wilkinson.
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:09:52
Tristan, responsible for Lechlade, Fairford and Kempsford.Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:10:01
I'm Councillor Angus Jenkinson, I'm the Councillor for Moreton East and Tottenham.Michael van Fairford North.
Councillor Michael Vann - 0:10:09
Councillor Clare Turner - 0:10:13
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:10:17
David Cunningham, Fosbridge.Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:10:22
Delis Neil. I represent Stow -on -the -World, which includes the villages of the Swellsand Morgesbury.
Councillor Tony Slater - 0:10:29
Tony Slater, Grumbold's Ash, with Aitman.Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:10:34
Gary Selwyn, Sire and Sister of Baltimore.Gina Bloomfield, Camden and Vale.
Could we now go on?
I don't think we have any public here, so I don't think we have any public questions.
7 Public Questions
Are there any member questions?
8 Member Questions
I think not.
Not unless you treat the question I asked you before the meeting as a question.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:11:01
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:11:03
I don't think we have the room in the agenda to bring in a new thing.But, you know, Councillor Jackson, you always bring up very interesting and detailed things.
And, you know, we're always welcome to think, but perhaps we could have more forewarning
and then we could maybe look at it.
Although, get advice is the best way and the best appropriate way to do it.
You know, not enough notice, sorry.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:11:30
I get that but of course part of it was this actually this afternoonAn event that took place this afternoon is part of that that I would comment on and there was a meeting right at the end of
Last week about this and I only managed to speak to Tristan about it on Friday. So
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:11:47
Yes, well, you know we didn't have full knowledge of itSo I think I think we do have to keep to the agenda items wherever possible
and especially as something which might be, it's not, it's not a, it's quite a complicated thing, it's not a straightforward.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:12:05
Absolutely understood. It's just, we are a committee of the scrutiny and if you'd wanted a report we could give you one.But there wasn't a notice period and it's not scheduled. Quite understood.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:12:16
Thank you Councillor Jenkinson. So let's go on to the first main item on the agenda, the Community Safety Partnership update.This will be introduced by Lisa Spivey,
cabinet member for communities and public safety,
10 Community Safety Partnership Update
supported by Jacqueline Wright, the officer for business, manager,
leisure and wellbeing.
So please, Councillor Spivey.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:12:46
Sorry, if I've got it wrong, I'm copying off what's said on here.It did say Jacqueline.
So, Joseph Walker, I'm delighted that you're here, but I'm sorry that I wasn't...
So, who would like to go first and who's going to...
I'll start.
Cabinet Member - 0:13:38
Thank you Chair, thank you committee, lovely to see you today. I am just here to give usan overview of the work that's been going on in the Community Safety Partnership over
the last year. You will have obviously seen the report. But just a couple of things to
highlight. So we had a look last year at the action plan itself. I was very keen for us
to have really clear actions as opposed to just wider reaching strategy and outcomes.
So whilst one of our priorities is for example supporting victims of domestic abuse and making
sure that we reduce violence towards women and girls in particular, then I didn't want
that to be an action because that for me is an outcome rather than an actual action.
So I have been very keen to go through that and we worked very closely with the members
of the community safety partnership to identify those key actions and then to have somebody
to own each action and to then make sure that we had a resource for it or to identify where
we didn't have resource so that you will see when you look at the actual action plan that
most of the things really are on track.
And that doesn't mean that we've eradicated crime
across the Cotswolds.
It just means that as far as our actions
and our identified actions are concerned,
we are on track to be delivering that,
which is something that I think is really, really important.
Just as general, I think it's really important
to note that we live in an incredibly safe area.
The Cotswolds has one of the lowest crime
rates in the country.
It is a fantastic place to live, to run a business,
to bring up a family and to really enjoy life here.
That doesn't mean to say that there isn't any crime
and there isn't any serious crime.
There is.
But it is a very low level, and I think we must all be
mindful of that as we interact with our residents
to remind them of that fact that we are very lucky to
of in this generally very, very safe area.
I think that what that does then expose, though,
is that for those who are victims of crime,
it can be a very isolating experience
and can affect people more than is sometimes
in more populous areas.
And for example, if you are the victim of a burglary
in an isolated area in a house that's far away,
then you might feel even more vulnerable.
We do know as well that victims of domestic abuse,
especially in rural areas, it's a real problem.
It's a really hidden problem.
I was very pleased to see that Queen Camilla has already,
again, been highlighting this.
It's been in the news,
and I believe that she's got a documentary
which is being shown on the 11th of November,
which I think is really important.
The community safety partnership in the wider group meets quarterly.
We go through our action plan, we'll have updates on various things and we use this
really as an opportunity to share with each other what's going on in everybody's various
areas and to then really forge that partnership.
It is a really very good place to share good knowledge and to work out where there might
be places where we can support each other.
We have been realigned ourselves with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner,
who has their own priorities, and I attend the Safer Gloucestershire partnership, again
which meets quarterly, to discuss that.
and then every two weeks I hold a mini CSP,
which I just held this morning,
where there are various partners.
Normally it's often Sarah Clifton -Gold,
myself, Simon Elson, Phil Measures.
Claire joins often from GDAS joins us,
and we discuss any important issues
which are going on across the district.
The report that you have got here today,
as I said, we have gone and tried to give this RAG rating,
which I think the committee asked for last year.
And I think as far as our actual actions
and ongoing work is concerned,
we are generally on track to deliver those things.
I am happy to take any questions.
Joseph, did you want to add anything?
If I may.
Please do.
Officer - 0:18:48
So, as you noted at the beginning,I am not Jacqueline Wright.
So, Jacqueline Wright was the business manager within Publica
who was responsible for this area of work.
As members will be aware, a number of officers transitioned
from Publica into the district councils on Friday last week.
So, as of Friday, I'm head of economic development
and communities here at Cotswolds,
so this falls within my officer purview.
So, at the time the report was published,
it was in Jacqueline's remit and how it falls within mine.
So, I'm slightly here under awkward pretenses
of not being fully,
not being sort of quite as confident
in the content of the report that someone else has written
that I might be, had I drafted it myself.
but I will do my best to support Councillor Spivey in answering any questions you might have.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:19:44
Thank you, Joseph. That's wonderful. I know what it's like when you get somebody else'spaperwork. It just isn't quite in – and it's a very long detailed report too. We're not just
saying it's with a lot of information. So now can I open it up to the Councillors for anybody
who'd like to have questions on this please. Councillor Turner. Thank you and
Councillor Clare Turner - 0:20:04
thank you for the report it's good to see lots of things on track. I have acouple of quick questions and the first is in the safer road section there's no
reference to a sort of blanket 20 mile an hour on roads where people are. Is
that has that been discussed or has it been dismissed as not appropriate for
Gloucestershire and Cotswolds. The second is it is great to see the successful grant
application for lottery money for the youth worker in Syrinsester. There is a lot of interest
in having something comparable in the north. Is that on the cards? Is there anything that
town and parish councils could do to get involved in making that happen for the north?
Thank you, excellent questions.
Cabinet Member - 0:20:49
As far as the 20 mile an hour speed limit goes, I know you are referencing that Stockholmagreement where there will be wherever people meet, it is something which the county council
as their highways authority has looked at.
At this point there has not been buy -in from the full Council.
There are various groups who will be putting that forward.
There was a motion, in fact it was one of the first motions in the new Council in 2021,
asking the Council to adopt that.
That was not passed by the full Council,
So therefore it is still on a piecemeal ad hoc basis, which I personally think is disappointing.
And I would definitely be supporting that, you know, where we know that the statistics speak for themselves.
If you were hit by a car at 30 miles an hour, you have an 80 % chance of dying.
If you were hit by a car at 20 miles an hour, you have an 80 % chance of surviving.
I would totally agree, I think by the implication of your question, that that is something that we should be looking at much, much more closely.
And I will certainly, in my role, be lobbying at the County Council to continue on that.
As far as the youth worker for the North Cotswolds is concerned, I think it is incredibly important that we really do keep trying to lobby for that.
I know there are a number of activities that go on.
I think there should be more focus on that
and I'll certainly take that back
to the Community Safety Partnership
to make sure that everything that we're doing
in the south of the district is replicated
and if not enhanced for the north.
Councillor Cunningham.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:22:49
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:22:52
It's a follow up actually to the earlier question.Is there buy -in from Gloucestershire Constabulary
for the 20 mile an hour zone, in particular the enforcement of it, do you know?
Cabinet Member - 0:23:04
Not as far as I am aware. In order to get a 20 mile an hour limit, there are certainthings, one, the highway authority has to support it and the police have to then support
it as well as you rightly note because it does require enforcement of that to happen.
We've seen the examples in other areas, the whole of Wales.
Oxfordshire, for example, have adopted this and I spoke recently to the leader of Oxfordshire Council
and she said that it has been very successful there and they've had no real kickback from residents
and everybody's been really embracing it.
I you know like I say it's something that I personally the County Council
would most definitely support sorry I probably wasn't being clear it's my
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:23:55
sire ancestor accent have the police said that they will buy into this not asCabinet Member - 0:24:02
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:24:07
Councillor Gary Selwyn - 0:24:10
far as I am aware no thank you Councillor Selwyn this one thank you I don'twant to give you two detailed questions since you've got the nightmare of a new
portfolio but just referring to page 7 at the bottom and I'm talking here really
is the eyes and ears on the ground as a water more counselor where for the last
nearly two years a group of young people have been well I suppose the technical
term would be lots of anti -social behaviour, graffiti, fights, knives etc.
Now I note on page 8 that it says offer extra patrol hours focusing on
engagement and reducing issues number of reported incidents have reduced. When I
first saw that a bearing in mind that I am the eyes and ears on the ground I
I wondered, I'm assuming that that is reported to the police in terms of number of incidents.
But I should point out that I have reported to the police five times in 18 months including
giving them two lots of video.
It's a general point really since we're talking about anti -social behaviour order.
At no point in the last 18 months has anybody ever contacted the local councillor to ask
question of the local councillor or to give feedback to the local councillor of what's
been done.
So the first time I know that reporting is reduced is because I'm reading it here.
It hasn't stopped people talking to the local councillor about incidents which I assume
that they have reported but based on that perhaps not.
So before I just ask the question of reported to whom.
Two quick observations.
One, the toilets in St Michael's Park in Sainz -Hister are once again closed because of a third set
of vandalism since they were fully repainted.
That's damage in the thousands of pounds and they're still shut.
They have been for about a week.
So that's a continuation of the problem that was happening 18 months ago.
So you can tell I'm slightly cautious about the number of incidents have reduced because
they clearly haven't as per last week and and the fact that I really would
appeal to whoever produces this and the police to actually keep local
councillors in the loop of what they're saying and what they believe because
what they believe on the basis of what I'm reading here I have a slightly
different view the only question is to whom are the reduced incidents have been
Cabinet Member - 0:26:54
reported to? The police. Could I follow up? What ideally would theCouncillor Gary Selwyn - 0:26:58
process be then?Because the police are telling us that the number of pollutants have been
reduced. Had the police have said to me they've gone down dramatically I could
have given a battery of extra information says oh no they haven't
they've just stopped reporting it to you. I won't go into analyzing why the
some of the residents who reported things countless times have stopped reporting it.
That's not really for us to discuss here.
But my point would be it may well be that residents have simply stopped reporting things
that are simply a continuation of what they were reporting 18 months ago.
Cabinet Member - 0:27:36
Yeah, I think then what you could do is you could report it to the cabinet member whowho chairs the Community Safety Partnership, or I can say I have a twice a every two weeks
have a mini CSP so that I can challenge that. So it's that age old thing, isn't it? I, if
I don't know about it, I can't do anything about it. And it's the same for the police.
And I know how frustrating it is when we think that perhaps action isn't taken, but the police
I'm sure would give you the same response and Simon Elson would probably give the same
response is that if people aren't reporting it,
then what can they do about it?
And I know we get potentially get into some vicious cycle
where those that think that they're reporting it,
but nothing is happening.
But if it's not reported and, you know,
your local government is data driven, it's,
if you don't have the numbers, as we all know,
then, you know, you can't access the funding,
you can't do things.
So I really would encourage, whether that is your residence,
to continue to report things to the police, whether that's you, and then for
you to then raise it with a cabinet member who can then take that and
challenge that. Do remember as well that we have the police and crime panel at
the County Council, so again you could use that opportunity. Joe Harris sitting
at the back there and sits on that. I think that met last week and that can be
escalated further to the Police and Crime Commissioner himself.
Officer - 0:29:09
If I may just add a quick point and just a reference back to the earlier question aroundthe
Funding for youth worker in siren Cessna and whether similar might be available in the North Costwells clearly
You know, this is a prioritized bit of funding to address particularly this type of issue. There's a community safety partnership
Clearly we're reliant on the police to do that hard edge of policing
but the work of the partnership is to try and look at those sort of causes and
consequences of criminal behavior and antisocial behavior and see whether there's opportunity to do more to to prevent
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:29:47
Thank you, I've got Councillor Neill next yes, could you tell me aCouncillor Dilys Neill - 0:29:51
little bit more about project solace?Yes, I was very interested to read about it because I wasn't really aware of it before so who does what?
I just had a quick look and I see that there are certain things that should be reported
to the council which come under the heading of antisocial behaviour such as dog fowling,
litter and noise nuisance, whereas other antisocial behaviour should be reported directly to the
police.
So could you tell me a little bit more about it and what comments has gone on around it
to make residents aware of to whom they should report what?
Cabinet Member - 0:30:28
Yes, so this is an initiative where everybody is working together to try and make thingsbetter.
What we do as each individual district and community safety partnership, joins resources
and this allows us to allocate resource, both council resource, officers here and police
resource to work proactively to try and tackle these kind of root causes and
they've been quite often the very sort of you know naughty problems that have
been hanging around for a while and really require that sort of really high
level of intervention to to move forward and there have been some successes on
that and it is not, in lots of the circumstances where solace gets involved is quite long term
problems, really deep rooted, so they are not things that can just get quickly resolved.
Actually a lot of antisocial behaviour, especially when it is neighbour disputes and things like
tend to be quite tricky situations and not always clear -cut because there can
be sometimes problems on both sides. The matter of comms, how to report, it is
tricky. I think we did pick this up even last time and we think it went out but I
would agree that probably we still need to do more work on that and that the
could be better and I think that's something we take away.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:32:24
So for example, just quickly having a look at the SOLIS website here, you're suggestingthat noise nuisance for example should be reported to the council rather than to police,
is that correct?
Cabinet Member - 0:32:36
It is, yes, because that comes under our environmental services team, so that would be us as a culturaldistrict council.
Thank you.
Councillor Cunningham, please.
No, that's absolutely fine.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:32:52
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:32:52
My question was around Project Solace.That's all.
Great.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:32:58
And nobody from the left -hand side of the room?Councillor Dickson.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:33:06
First, in this time of transition,I'd like to thank the officers and your own role as in cabinet on this very important topic
It's clear that lots of good things get done
From the exposure that I've had for example community officers
some excellent work takes place and
I have no doubt that this makes a difference. It's clear that in all kinds of ways we help. This is really important. I
I have a number of detailed questions.
I'm aware of the fact that we don't have much time.
Therefore, I'm aware of the fact that probably I
won't go into most of these detailed questions.
What I want to bring up is therefore
what is less detailed.
There are two things.
Firstly, you can call me naive, and you probably will.
but I woke up at 0 .55 under legal implications.
In the sentence, for Cotswold District Council, the overview and scrutiny committee fulfills this function.
And I thought, do we? Are we doing it today?
Do we reasonably have the power to do this today based on the level of knowledge that
we have gained in this process?
I have never sat in any extended processes of discussion with anyone on this matter.
If there were other matters of a similar kind with this level of detail that had to be explored,
we'd probably have a working group or something that was looking at it in more detail.
So, how are we fulfilling this function?
My first question is, what exactly is it that we are doing?
Do you think that we are doing it?
I address this question not only to the cabinet member and the officer, but to my fellow members
of this committee.
Are we doing this job?
Do we need to have something else in place in order to be able to do what is clearly
a life and death matter for some people.
That's my first question.
My second question is that when I read this,
I did not get a coherent understanding
of how this is being tackled at county and by the partnership.
What I found was a list at 1 .3 of a set of CSP priorities.
Then at 3 .1 I got another list of priorities and at 3 .2 I got another list of priorities,
roughly the same number in each one.
I found no meta level systems analysis supporting these.
Nothing explains to me how these came about or how they are organised or how they translate
into what then follows, which is the page of actions.
So what I see is a lot of actions.
When I go through the actions on the whole, they look like really good actions.
I'm not averse to the actions in principle.
But how these are organized, why these are the right actions with limited resources,
how it is organized, there's no systemic framework provided here.
Now it may exist somewhere else, and I'm hoping that you can explain how it is,
so there isn't a systems dynamic model or a cybernetic analysis model
Some other analytical model for how these come about in this particular way.
And therefore the context for being able to explain any one of the point is somewhat anecdotal.
I think that's a jolly important thing, but I don't have a context for relating it to
the overall intervention.
And this gets a bit worse in my last point.
Sorry, just hold, okay.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:37:03
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:37:04
Is that when I get to some of the detail like March 25, March 25, it's not always clearthat the data might be several years out of date,
and March 25 doesn't look like something
where it's all going to be finished by March 25.
It certainly won't be.
So what does March 25, for example, mean in that context?
So I have lived out lots of other things
just to give you those two points
and to give ourselves that consideration.
Thank you.
Well, I'll try to answer some of that.
Cabinet Member - 0:37:41
I think I just draw your attention to 5 .3 on page 4,where it says that the Community Safety Partnership
is an alliance of organisations
which generates strategies and policies,
implement actions and interventions
concerning crime and disorder within their partnership area.
So this is a body of organisations,
of partners who will be working together collaboratively
in their own fields to deliver what we think is improvements
and to this cohesive way of underpinning community safety.
It's quite a nebulous title, it's quite a nebulous concept,
even community safety.
And what we've done, and sort of going backwards
in your questions really or your points,
is that we have established our priorities by discussing
with each other what that is. So no, there is no master, there's no matrix, there's no
sort of underlying principle framework behind all of this, but much more a way of working,
of talking about what we think are the priorities. That's obviously informed by the other list.
So the one at 1 .3 is the ones that we have decided collectively as our community safety
partnership what we want to do, but of course that is informed by what the
Police and Crime Commission is doing and what we have as statutory duties, one of
which is the serious violence duty prevention, which is a statutory duty. So
we have included that because it's very, very important. I can give you an example,
so for example, when we first discussed this we took out supporting
children and young people for a bit and then we discussed that within the
partnership. We actually thought that should be a focused priority because
there's that differentiation between what is a priority,
what is just business as usual.
However, it was felt very strongly within not just,
you know, the people who were doing children's work,
but actually the entire partnership of members of,
so the police,
Bromford housing are represented,
the fire service, et cetera,
that that actually should be,
can continue to be a focus and priority of the group.
I think then, you know, your point then,
and I, which is why I, in my role as the cabinet member,
when I took this on, I did want to make it very action,
specific action focused, because it didn't,
I don't think, like you say, you know,
we are going to end, you know,
we're not going to create safe roads for everybody
by March, 2025, but it should be ongoing work
and what can we do to work towards that aim and objective?
So that's why there are certain timelines,
but I totally agree that these are not going to be finished,
But that's where we came about deciding on what the priorities for the entire group would be.
And I think it's important to note that whilst we here at Cotswold District Council host the meeting,
I chair the meeting as the cabinet member, but this is really a partnership.
This could just as easily be chaired or hosted by Simon Elson as the community police officer,
or by somebody at GCC.
You know, that's not specific.
This isn't Cotswold District Council's
community safety partnership.
It is really much the partners.
And so to your first point, which was about how you,
as a committee, and perhaps you would like to look at this,
but I think, you know, it is clear that you should be
looking at the work which is going on,
and then to comment on the action plan itself
and then what's being reported to you,
which is the progress of the action plan.
And it says here you can make that.
I think if you were to have a working group,
I think you would then simply be replicating the work
of the partnership itself.
I don't think that's really what you should be doing.
I think you have to take my word for it,
but I come here to the committee and I report what is going on,
what the work that we have done is,
and how we are progressing with that.
I hope that answered some of your questions.
Thank you.
I think that was quite detailed.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:42:07
I can imagine it is a large umbrella organisation involvinglots of people.
So it is not CDC specific, we are part of that partnership,
which is what I said in the word.
Councillor Dickson, was there anybody else?
Councillor Neill wants to come?
Was there anybody else?
So Councillor Dickson and then Councillor Neill
and I have some things to ask.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:42:32
So thank you very much for a detailed answer.I take the force of what you're saying.
I also understand that there are circumstances
in which such partnerships take place and the role that the police commissioner may
or may not be taking in that is influential.
But to me, the more it is the case that there is a partnership of different bodies, the
more they can bring specific detailed knowledge of their own situation to the party.
But at the end of the day you still need to have a coordinating, coherent vision of how
to bring about the maximum amount of change.
And I hear you say that such a thing does not exist.
It arises in the process.
And I'm sure many, many, many good things arise in the process.
Big tick.
But I suspect that there is a gap.
It's probably not CDC's responsibility to fill.
but somebody should be filling it at county level.
Thank you, and thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:43:39
Councillor Neill, please.Yes, sorry, I suddenly thought I had a comment
Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:43:42
rather than a question to make, really.So, I do a lot of safeguarding training.
I'm the safeguarding governor for my local primary school,
and I'm also the parish safeguarding officer
in a couple of local churches.
both, and so we get training on child safeguarding for children
and vulnerable adults, and we also get training on domestic
abuse, but it's quite frustrating.
I've recently done some training with the dialysis to see how
they sort of interact with other people who are looking at
safeguarding domestic abuse issues as well, and it's a bit
be reported to the local authority designated officer
if there's a problem going on.
But maybe it's something that I should raise with GDAS,
because I suspect that in some small communities,
if there was a concern about domestic abuse or child
neglect going on, it might be reported to the parish priest
or the parish safeguarding officer.
So to include a bit of the church input into GDAS
might be, probably into GDAS rather than into your group.
Might be useful.
I don't know whether you want to comment on that.
Cabinet Member - 0:45:03
Yes, and actually I'd like to give a sort of shout -outto GDAS and the Rural Domestic Abuse Champions Network,
which Claire joins is heading up
and has been doing some brilliant work.
And it has been sent around to all councillors,
and I would really use this opportunity
to really encourage all councillors
to do that training.
It doesn't sound like it's something you might want to do,
but it is incredibly, it's really empowering actually.
And there's two sessions, it's a two hour session,
a two hour session, it goes really by very, very quickly.
And it is really, I've done it, I think it's brilliant.
And Claire has been doing fantastic work
with local authorities, in schools,
she's really getting brilliant work there.
I know that she does work with all areas, including the diocese, so I'm sure that she
will be – yeah, Claire joins.
So yeah, I could bring more information to all councillors about this, but you'll have
seen, I think, Democratic Services sent out an email and I have also actively encouraged
everybody to do that, so I would do that again.
Well, thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:46:19
Funnily enough, one of my part of my questions wason how many staff have received the domestic abuse training.
And actually, I can't do it as smooth as you are.
D, A, C, N, C. I see two CDC counselors, presumably one
of them is yourself, has had the training.
But how many of the other staff?
And in fact, I wasn't aware that we were
and I perhaps should have been.
Because it's obviously a very important part.
And was there enough, I hope there's enough funding
to support that extra training.
That was just a comment that was carrying
I'm from Councillor Neill's observation.
I was just wanted to, I was very pleased to see
the recommendation to sign up to community alerts.
It's a very straightforward thing, but it's really good.
It keeps you in touch, you know what's going on.
And I also wanted to, unlike sometimes now,
to give a bit of a shout out
for Bromford's neighbourhood coaches.
And I do think everybody ought to be in contact with them.
Obviously, often when there's domestic abuse
it's quite confidential, the issues which are there.
But if you have a relationship with the neighbourhood coaches,
they often share certain things which are useful and helpful
within a neighbourhood to understand what's going on.
And they do work hard and they do try to resolve these issues.
So I just wanted to give them some support on that.
So, yes, I think we all should do this training.
Thank you.
It's still out there.
Cabinet Member - 0:47:37
It's on offer.We'll make sure that we re -send out all the dates.
Like I say, it's online.
it's very easy to access, it's very very good. I don't have figures on how many officers
have received the training, but it is on offer to all. I know that certainly the frontline
staff, especially those in the housing team, will have regular updates on that, because
it can sometimes be those that are by the front of that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:48:12
Thank you for all of that.Was there anything else that anybody else wanted to bring up?
This is a report that we are to note, there are not any recommendations on it.
Are we happy that we have gone through it and would like to note the report and move
on to the next?
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:48:32
Why are we only to note it if we have a responsibility for the key aspects of it?It says that we have responsibility.
5 .5.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:48:45
I actually remember from way back when I started on O &SCouncillor Gina Blomefield - 0:48:49
and this came up.And yes, we have a responsibility
to be reported to on it,
but we don't have a responsibility
to make a recommendation on it.
I'm getting a big nod, which I'm glad I got this thing right.
So that's how it sits.
So it's not a question of...
Andrew Brown is going to come to the comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. You're absolutely right.
Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:49:16
So the responsibility is to receive an update on the authorities' functionsin relation to crime and disorder at least once a year.
So that's what you're doing. You've received the report and asked questions.
You have the ability to make any recommendations you see fit to the cabinet of this council,
but you don't have to.
That's my point.
We have the ability to make a recommendation.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:49:40
It's part of O &S. It's in the law as to what scrutiny committees do.It's in the 2006 Act as to what we are supposed to be doing.
Therefore, it is not the case that we may just simply note it because we have no recommendations.
We are empowered to give notifications if we think we need to.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:50:02
I always defer to your more accurate sort of specific knowledge on certain things.I think here what it is is that the Cabinet and the CDC, which is what it's representing,
actually are only one partner.
So although we might make recommendations, they cannot actually affect on their own something
on this partnership.
Is that the...
Yes.
Cabinet Member - 0:50:26
And I would say that, you know, this time last year when this report was brought, theactual recommendation from this committee was that we give the RAG rating.
So, in the last year, a recommendation was made and it has been taken on board
and actually we will be improving that system.
And yes, there's work in progress.
So, yes, if there were any other recommendations,
we could take those, but that's one example.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:50:56
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:50:58
I would recommend, personally, and I'm not putting it to a vote, but I would recommend that you refer to the police commissioner for a more systematic or a systems -based, especially references, whole system approach.So a whole system approach would look at this problem and the various aspects and make a
whole systems analysis of how to tackle it.
That clearly what you have is a whole collection of good activities, not a whole systems analysis.
And I think that the latter would be a benefit to you.
I give you that point of view.
Thank you.
Cabinet Member - 0:51:44
I think that could be to identify the individual priorities for each community safety partnership.As I said, this does sit within the Safer Gloucestershire Partnership, so that is the
overarching organisation or vehicle for monitoring safety and community safety within the entire
region and it is for each individual community safety partnership to make up,
to identify and agree their own priorities. For example in Stroud or in
Cheltenham and Gloucester they look more towards the nighttime economy. We don't
really have that here so there are differing priorities. So yes we could as
a community's individual community safe, Cotswold community safety partnership
have more of a systemic approach to it. I take that on board and so that's a
recommendation, happy to take that back to the partnership.
I think the overall arching does exist and that's the Gloucestershire
Community Safety Partnership itself.
Right.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:52:54
Well, thank you for that and thank you for everybody's contributions.I think we will now just note the report.
Thank the people who are huge.
Joseph is going to take a huge accolade for having written such a long and detailed report,
but thank you and I'm sure you'll be taking it on and doing the job very well.
And thank you to Councillor Spivey as well for being very agile and adept at answering all those questions.
So could we go on to the feedback of waste rezoning, please?
I've got, it looks, hopefully I've got the right people today.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Eberme, Deputy Leader of Cabinet, Member for Finance and Waste.
I would like to welcome Simon Anthony.
Thank you. I have not met you before. It is very nice to see you here today.
Business Manager for Environmental Services.
I also had a note that Kevin Attwood might be here.
Right.
So, Mike, are you going to...
11 Feedback on Waste Round Rezoning
Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't see you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for attending.
Right.
Do you want to...
Yeah.
Cabinet Member - 0:54:24
So, just to add, Chair, so we have colleagues from UBCO here.I don't know if it would be quite useful for you to introduce yourselves to the committee
if that's possible.
Hello everyone, I'm Mark Osman, Head of Operations at Yubico.
Officer - 0:54:36
Good evening, I'm Mark Heath, Operations Director, Yubico.I'm Ian Borton, Head of Fleet Operations at Yubico.
Officer - 0:54:45
Thanks gentlemen.Cabinet Member - 0:54:49
So yeah obviously the report that Simon has written you've got in front of youit's a summary of the situation and the work that was done by Simon on behalf on
our behalf working with colleagues in UVicoh to change our round rezoning and
I'd like to start the presentation by repeating my apology to those residents
who were inconvenienced when we didn't collect their refuse as they were
expecting us to and I'm conscious that for some residents that was a repeated
occurrence and you know I want to put on record my apologies to them who made
those before but I think it's important and I start the discussion with
acknowledging that we didn't get everything right first time and for some
residents it was a significant inconvenience for them. I think it's
bringing members attention though to you know why we were doing this we were
doing is to make our service more efficient and to save half a million
pounds out of our revenue budget which is a substantial sum as members will
appreciate and what I can say to members is that the project is on course and has
to deliver that saving in a full year so I think that's a very important outcome
that we have achieved through the rezoning work
that has been done.
The report highlights all the work that was done by,
led by Simon on behalf of the council,
working with Rob and colleagues at UBICCO
to deliver the changes.
And it talks about some of the things
that we did operationally.
We had an interim collection and communications
that went out, advising residents of the change
in advance.
Section 4 sort of talks about some of the
operational challenges and members might want to ask
about that and obviously colleagues are here who
are dealing with that directly to answer to those.
I draw members' attention to, you know,
parrot the graph in 4 .4 and I think, you know,
really what Yubico faced was exceptional levels of
Cygnus absence in July and August,
which really did have a very significant impact
on the level of service they were able to provide.
I'm sure Mark and Rob can talk about that.
And you can see that within looking at the performance stats
as they're shown in Section 5,
and particularly the missed collection graph.
You can see how the misses were,
where we got to on the daily missed totals in late July,
and then peaking again at the end of July and we had a peak again in September
but it's obviously pleasing to see that we are now the levels are now
approaching those that we had prior to the the service change on the 24th of
June and then we put a specific paragraph about the repeat misses because
I'm aware you know some members in the around the committee may well have had
residents contacting them and particularly Councillor Sator has been in contact with
me about them and Councillor Cunningham I recall and Councillor Favan not naming
all members but you know I think that's that's the the particular issue that I
think you know is logistically we were changing the waste collection days of
24 ,000 households and the geography of our district is unusual to the extent of
you know it's an extremely rural district and many of the properties are
not that easy to find and where people will put their refuse out if you've
never collected from there before isn't immediately obvious and so on top of the
challenges that colleagues at Ubico were experiencing in terms of staffing
levels there was also the staff needing to understand and getting
around the properties and the complexity of that change.
And obviously that meant that in some cases residents' bins
were not collected and they weren't collected
when they complained about them.
So, you know, clearly there were some issues there.
I'll just finish off really by talking
about the customer journey work.
So this is still work in progress.
I think it's fair to say.
So, I'm clearly unconscious, and obviously Simon and I
have talked about this with other colleagues,
about how we can improve the journey for people having to,
when they do have to report a miscollection.
And obviously, we wouldn't want this sort of volume
of miscollections, and so we put the system
that we have under extreme stress.
And, you know, clearly it didn't work in some cases.
But what we're keen to do, and I think it's mentioned there
in 7 .2 is to redesign that process and particularly draw members' attention to the last point,
which is really about using the potential to use the additional functionality that we
have in the alloy system to be able to surface more of that on the website particularly,
so that members of the public can see where there is an issue, what was missing and to
be able to provide better information on the website
to enable people to understand what was happening and when.
But I will stop there, and I will obviously
invite colleagues if they want to add anything.
But obviously, very welcome to listen to what members have
to say and answer questions.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:00:47
Sam, was there anything you wanted to add at this point?Thank you, Chair.
Officer - 1:00:51
Good afternoon, everyone.Thank you, Councillor.
Over me, you took all of my notes.
So it's all done.
I just would like to just extend a good degree of thanks for everyone that's contributed
to this project.
Obviously, missed bins of any level are suboptimal.
When we do 300 ,000 collections across a fortnight in Cotswold, we will miss a few through human
error, through blocked access or by other means.
But when we talk about missed bins, it's probably a bit of a misnomer.
They're actually a sort of delayed bin.
So all of the bins that are missed are collected typically within 24 or 48 hours by Ubico.
So they are rather a delayed collection.
And in terms of the thanks, yes, we missed bins, but a lot of people did evenings, weekends,
I know Cruz particularly came in often on Saturdays to collect
Misfits that were there and just to fill out a bit more in terms
of the project teams of digital IT communications all came
together both on the Yubico, the Cotswold District Council
and the public side to deliver the project and go live on time
and on budget as Councillor O 'Brien might be confirmed.
That's it.
Happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Chair.
All right. Oh, gosh, two hands went up.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:02:15
I'll do Councillor Neill, Councillor Cunningham,and then Councillor Jenkins.
.
.
.
Cabinet Member - 1:04:35
I think that we haven't seen this and we don't know the answer.I don't know if any of you have seen it.
So I think you're going to have to take that away and get you a proper answer.
I haven't had time to be in advance.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:05:04
Thank you, Madam Chair.Councillor David Cunningham - 1:05:12
I suppose my questions really are to the chaps from Yuriko, really, to be fair.Anecdotally, what I was hearing was that in certain villages, half the village would be
collected and then half wouldn't.
There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to that.
I didn't know whether it was because the vans were full by the time they got halfway around.
I'm not sure if that was the case or not.
But normally when that sort of thing happened, the van would come back the next day.
Very often the vans didn't come back at all.
And then the next week the same houses were missed again, almost as though they'd then
been dropped off of the route.
In here it says that the guys were given the full routes that they were meant to be covering.
I am just not sure how that then could have happened.
Maybe it is a case of the fact that the vans were full.
Also, that when they were sent back to make collections, they were given the wrong addresses.
Is that because we aren't giving them the right information or they are not getting
the right information from the office itself?
My question really is, given that the number of missed bins seems to have dropped, I really
of charts because it really is quite misleading. One's about five or eight weeks and one's two years.
My question is really are you now, do you feel now that you're on top of those issues?
Miscommunication, not getting the right data, vans having enough capacity to get a full round
in for a whole village. Thanks. Thank you, so in terms of the answer
Officer - 1:07:02
to the question, soYes, we are way more in control of numerous aspects than we were.
There will be the issues you gave in terms of vehicle being full and then having to come away and make tick.
We've always had an issue in the Cotswolds or a challenge in the Cotswolds,
having to break off and travel quite far from our disposal points,
which has meant we've not always been able to get back to the second half.
I can't talk to specifics about which in that instance,
whether it was they were full or there was a miscommunication.
I think a lot of it has stemmed from the fact that we went
through a period where we would use a group or a crew one day
and it wasn't always necessarily the same through because of
absence and agency use the second day.
So we did have quite a lot of confusion.
In terms of where we are now, we've got a much more stable
workforce, we've got much more stable crews,
so you're finding it's the same three, again,
that are visiting and staying on the rounds.
We're working a lot more with people in terms of training across the rounds so they know where they're going.
So I think there was a lot of confusion. I don't necessarily think that they were given the wrong information.
And rounds that they were given were lists of roads. So they still have to find their way around those.
A lot of people make the misconception that alloy is like a sat -nav. It just gives you the list of roads.
So yes, we're in much better control of the rounds. We're finding that we're getting around them.
We've made day changes where certain crews, when they've done them, we let them go through
a few cycles of the rounds to see if they could complete.
And then when it's become apparent that they couldn't, we then have to start taking a section
off and move it to another round who were completing.
So we're in a far more stable position now than we were then we were then.
Thanks.
Just 1 .1 in the report says, on numerous occasions, crews have seen that they had corrected a
collection but they were visiting the wrong location to address. So are you guys not...
who wrote the report and who gave the information? Doesn't seem to match up.
Councillor David Cunningham - 1:09:00
Officer - 1:09:04
The subtleties of waste service. What I would say in terms of responseto that is we do ask residents as much as possible to report
mis -collections through the system and we do ask residents to present waste
where their address is located.
Oftentimes, you know, residents will live on sort of Church Street
but present on Ash Way or something like that
because it's the kind of rear access to their property
and that's what they've always done.
A new crew comes along, sees there's nothing presented
at the front of sort of Church Way
and thinks that everything's done and complete.
So there are sort of subtleties and challenges like that
that just, as Mark rightly said,
just needs that kind of crew knowledge, that crew stability
to sort of deal with and address, but that's really where we get those sort of strange
anomalies and they happen in Cotswold and throughout the UK unfortunately.
Okay, just one very last one, I promise you.
Councillor David Cunningham - 1:10:00
Have we considered using what three words on the system so that you can give a veryprecise location?
Officer - 1:10:10
Can I defer to UBICO colleagues in terms of how that report flows through to UBICO?So what happens is it's an entirely sort of seamless streamlined system.
So when a resident reports online that location will go straight through into the in cab of the crew that missed the bin.
It will be automatically triaged so to speak.
And then that crew will be assigned to the property.
I guess it's just on a per property address basis and not necessarily on a what free word or some sort of pin drop system.
Officer - 1:10:46
Yeah, so it is on a property, so you'll get a point on a property on a map, so you'llsee a red dot in essence.
I still think you need to have that local familiarity in terms of having been there
before if it's one of those properties where it may be front facing here but the bin is
presented in the back.
That's the work that we've done locally.
So we will get to the location, but sometimes there's been a problem in terms of if the
property's been uniquely presented or is down an alleyway.
but that's where we're now starting to pick those out
and share that information.
So it is on a mapping system, but it isn't what three words.
Thank you. Councillor Bairn.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:11:26
Yeah, I think. Oh, sorry.Officer - 1:11:27
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:11:28
Sorry, I just wanted to add.So where the problems are really difficult,
Officer - 1:11:31
what we've done is gone out and taken photos,and we've put them in the packs as well.
So if there's a new crew, there will be a picture,
or we get the crew in and we show them on Google Maps,
and we show them exactly where the property is.
Okay, thanks.
Yes, thank you.
Councillor Michael Vann - 1:11:50
I want to be quite specific about my question.I'm looking at customer journey, the future,
which is intended to resolve those things that have not been resolved to date.
Now, on the second Tuesday of the month, I shall be reporting to Fairford town council on where we've gone up to now.
Now, there are a bright lot in Fairford and one takes the precaution of copying in our
chair on each of the communications, which are pretty direct, that are sent out.
And I'll have my guts for gutters if I come up with a positive message Tuesday after next,
I've got to do the report a few days before, and then find that there are continuing difficulties,
looking at the future.
How short can the time for the customer journey be made?
In other words, the reports, the review, so that there's improvements that we're confident
that are being made.
Is it a month?
Is it what?
Yeah.
Cabinet Member - 1:13:26
So I've asked, Simon is leading on this, and this customer journey is really about interactionswith public staff who deal directly with customers, your residents in
Fairford. And so I mean Simon has just said to me that we are looking to get to
a point so we can revise that journey in January but I'm very conscious that we
use as much of the technology that we've already invested in as we can to improve
that process because we had a conversation about well we might be able
just change a few things on the website so it's a little bit better. I don't want
it a little bit better I want it as good as we can get it and I want us to learn
as much as we can out of the difficulties that our residents have
been through so we can minimize those any future difficulties because I
think one thing in Evertree and I'm aware of your resident no
service is ever perfect and we're talking about thousands, tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of collections going on a very large 750 square miles
on a fortnightly cycle so nothing is ever going to be absolutely perfect but
that's why we have the metrics to measure how good it is and obviously we
could see it was not as usual standard so I think what I would say Michael to
your town council and to other town and parish councils that may be concerned
and obviously to residents overall is that we want to make sure that we have
taken the time to understand exactly where the pain points were in the
journey and what we can do to improve the communications that we put out to
assist residents in understanding when we don't deliver, when Ubico aren't able to
make the collections on the scheduled day, what is then going to happen and so
to minimise any anxieties that people might have, they're not going to come
back or to let people know missed collections that have been missed and
that will be removed will be made subsequently so anything you wanted to
Officer - 1:15:40
add to that Simon? Just for reassurance purposes so this isn't a waste onlysort of project as Councillor Hovey said we're working with digital
colleagues to sort of fully map an end -to -end sort of customer journey
process and we work with customer services and the
service design team to actually go out and speak to
residents, to users of the service about what they want
to see in terms of functionality and that will
be fed back into the customer journey project.
So it will take time but it's time well spent because
I can't remember the status, something like 60, 70 percent
of the online traffic and the calls into the call center,
that they are waste -based.
So if we get this right, which I know we will,
it will improve significant sort of traffic
into the council in a number of areas.
Yeah, just obviously if we can remove the need
Cabinet Member - 1:16:36
for people to ring up,if they can get the information straight away on the website,
that's obviously advantageous both for them and for us.
Thank you.
Councillor Sullivan.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:16:46
Councillor Gary Selwyn - 1:16:52
Thank you chair. A question and and small observation that nobody in the room willagree with but I'll make it anyway. The question is noting in 4 .3 that at one
point 30 % of the frontline workers were not available which strikes me as a
staggeringly high figure for any organization. I mean three in ten people
not available. I understand the problems that would produce. My question is
is why do you think that was so high at that point?
And it mentions in the report somewhat obliquely,
it's now under control after extensive work
that HR have undertaken.
Could you give us an understanding
of what that extensive work might have been?
I'll come back to my observation after that.
Thank you.
Yes, certainly.
Officer - 1:17:43
It was very high.And if you look at the graph,
if the graph showing the absence goes back over a year
and it was like double what it was previous years.
There was about what we presume was COVID that went through,
and there was also a bout of short -term sickness as well,
which we believed was around culture.
So the staff were normally finishing half one, two o 'clock.
They're now working to half three, four o 'clock.
They didn't like that change.
We were aware that there would be a bit of a culture change,
but we weren't quite aware of the depth of it.
So normally we get a small percentage upset
and there was quite a large percentage.
Where we reference the work with HR,
that we've called those people in,
we've spoken to them about what's expected of them,
what their contract of employment says,
and in some places we have lost members of staff
because they may have been getting home at three o 'clock
and picked the kids up for the school
because their partners had an evening job
and of course that had to change.
As I just mentioned, we did make them aware of that
before the change, so there was quite a big kickback on that.
I don't know if Mark wants to add anything.
Yeah, only one small thing.
Officer - 1:19:04
In terms of the extensive work with HR,it always sort of has a connotation
that they were pulled in and spoken to about attending work.
It was also an exercise in helping them understand
that this was a bit of a journey
and it wasn't going to be late forever.
So it was also a process to manage them back in,
not just manage those people out,
just that it might read a bit like they were brought in
and read the right out.
There was also some support mechanism,
largely actually support mechanism behind that HR element.
Thank you. That sounds a very appropriate method
Councillor Gary Selwyn - 1:19:35
of dealing with that absence,and I'm delighted that it looks like it has been a great success.
The observation that nobody in the room will agree with is that particularly if you look at
7 .2
Every time somebody mentions the word journey in relation of customer. It makes me cringe
I don't believe customers are on a journey
I believe customers have an experience of a service so in 7 .2 if you said it was a customer experience
It wouldn't make me wince I know the language changes all the while. I know I am old and dogmatic
I am old and dogmatic and I apologize for being old and dogmatic but at least one dose
of the room can't cope with the customer journey.
Thank you, Chair.
Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:20:21
I feel so great now, thank you.Councillor Slater.
Thank you.
Councillor Tony Slater - 1:20:29
I've got a couple of questions around money, obviously, some of which will veer into theMTFS, so shout me down if that's not appropriate at this stage.
Could you tell me, you mentioned earlier that you're on track to save the 500k in future years, which is great.
How much did the exercise cost this year, given that we overspent on the comms, I believe, by 75k, I think we identified last time.
Secondly, which is specifically on the MTFS, we're saving the 500k every year throughout the series.
But am I right in thinking that the whole contract is up for renegotiation prior to that end of that period?
I might be wrong, but that's just my understanding.
And thirdly, while I was just looking at the numbers, we're looking at garden waste fee increases of potentially doubling from 25, 26 to 26, 27.
and then by the time we get to 28 29 they're up another they've doubled again
given that it's a previously a cost neutral service and I appreciate it's
not a service that we're we have to provide it sounds a bit like
profiteering to me so thank you
Cabinet Member - 1:21:53
thank you Councillor Slater so the 91 91 ,000 is the figure for the costs whichincludes the 75 ,000 you describe as an overspend I don't because it just wasn't
budgeted for so it should have been budgeted for so it was always planning
to do that communications so it just didn't get budgeted for the question
around the Yubico contracts expires in 2027 so yeah that's a matter for the
council to determine in terms of its procurement of the service the waste
service with our colleagues over in the room and I think we pick up the
about a garden waste when we talk about the MTFS.
That's okay.
I was Councillor Vaughan.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:22:38
Did you put up your hand again, Nadine?So Councillor Jenkinson.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:22:45
The first thing I'd like to say is that this was a good projectto do, and I would like to note the fact that making this kind
of change in order to save money and progressively improve
services, I think we ought to recognise that this is a good
project and say so and I would like to do that.
I have a few questions that my colleagues have asked a number of specific questions
about locations and so on.
I think everyone on this committee is experienced in something we call canvassing and it involves
going door to door and therefore the issues of trying to find strange buildings with strange
addresses is something we are all somewhat expert in and probably don't need to ask any
questions about that. I certainly can completely understand why fresh people would find it
difficult to find specific locations. And the fact that you've now mastered it seems
to be something to really applaud. But I do have a couple of questions that arise from
this. First, it would normally be considered good practice in an event of this scale and
size to do a test?
In other words, using something like the plan, do, check, act
cycle of quality improvement, you would plan it,
and then you test it as the first round
and see what you need to learn and make adjustments.
Did you do a test?
And if not, what would prevent you from having done so?
You want me to ask the others?
OK.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:24:27
My second question is that in relation to that, there are a number of, on an ongoing basis and continuing to improve,there are a number of tools for continuing improvement, continuous improvement as you are clearly working on.
I see the chart here, for example, on page 95, calls out for a control chart, for example.
So I'm wondering what tools you are using, what methods you are using in order to achieve continuous improvement.
I know you've got digital tools and resources like that that give you data and so on.
What methodology are you using for achieving continuous improvement?
I did have a question about sickness, but it sounds like that's probably been answered. Thank you.
If I kick off by answering the first one and then obviously
Cabinet Member - 1:25:19
colleagues, Simon and you wouldgo colleagues can come in.
No, we didn't run a test.
What we did have and the reason that we were able to run, essentially run this project
and put it live with the degree of confidence was the data that we had through the alloy
system which tells us where our lorries are going, our vans are going and where in terms
of the timing it takes for them to do that.
So, an awful lot of work, analytical work,
was done, obviously, to identify that we could operate
our service more efficiently with three fewer vehicles,
which is obviously why we ended up, you know,
going ahead with the project.
I'm not sure whether you can run a test on a waste service,
but I don't run a waste service.
I'm looking to colleagues to answer that more succinctly
as to why we didn't do a test,
But I think it might be tricky and I think they can pick up the tools for continuous
improvement as well between them.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:26:21
This would obviously mean taking a part of it and seeing and learning from the processof doing it what things to expect to plan for.
Officer - 1:26:33
If I could just come in and then I'll throw it to yourself Rob if that's okay.It wasn't my first realm reorganisation.
I doubt it was, it certainly wasn't you because Roundway organization.
So hopefully that will provide a bit of comfort.
It is, as we said a number of times, it is fiendishly difficult given the scale and the
number of collections and the number of events that need to happen each week, each day, each
month.
It is very difficult to test that.
In terms of preparation for this project, I did reach back out to previous colleagues
that were project managed around reorganizations for me just to sort of refresh my memory and
kind of pick their brains.
And so testing is, we covered as many bases as we could, but it wasn't, it just wasn't
possible and it isn't possible I don't think even now to test around reorg and how it may
sort of flow in the real world.
To your second question, to your second point,
really good, really good question, really good point.
So we're using Power BI principally as a way of essentially
digitizing the performance of the service at the moment.
So we've got all key performance indicators on our Power BI dashboard.
And I very much kind of live by the sentiment,
if you can't measure, then you can't manage.
So we know intimately the good performing crews, the good performing areas, the poor performing crews in areas.
And it's then that information that we can kind of feedback to UBICO and UBICO can use as well to improve their service.
And I will say for the last sort of two to three weeks, UBICO have consistently been performing above the contractual targets in terms of mis -bins.
So there are some really good developments coming on that.
When I say performing above the target, I mean better than.
Miss Binns, we always look to go below the target.
So I hope that kind of conveys, but I will pass to Yubico colleagues for any supporting information.
Yeah, just to add on the bit about tests, that's very difficult.
Officer - 1:28:40
Simon in a previous slide said, as we have at Yubico, have done these round changes many times.We did one for Cotswolds back in 2020 when it was a complete change rather than, you know, complete service change rather than just reduction in vehicles.
This one wasn't as successful as we wanted it to be for various reasons, the main reasons being just short of people because of the sickness.
We apologise to everyone that was affected.
It's not a service level that we're used to giving.
We do everything to make the service as it should be.
As Simon said, we're now back to where we were before
and we're working hard on that.
It was just lack of people.
We had so many people go sick and then we were calling in staff
from other depots that did not know where they were going
and it's, yeah, the missed misses were the big ones, which we got pulled out by. Once
we discovered an issue with the process that we were doing, we put that right.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:29:52
Chair, I noted an apology from the cabinet member and I've noted apologies here and Ithink they're genuine and I think we should note that the appreciation and appreciate
their concern and it's clearly there's a real concern to do a good job and I appreciate
that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:30:07
Well, thank you and I would second that. It's best to put up your hands and we admit theproblems, but you know it was a challenge and so I think we all appreciate that they
did have a challenge in getting it right. I'm sorry, Councillor Turner, I missed you
out earlier, your turn now and then it would be Councillor Wilkinson.
Thank you, it was a very quick question, a point of clarification
Councillor Clare Turner - 1:30:26
about the data. Themissed bin data, if there is a service failure and the whole street gets missed or it is
automatically scheduled for the next day, does that get included with the missed bin
data? If a group of bins are missed but only one resident reports it as a missed bin but
then the rest get collected because they have left them out, do those numbers get counted?
It is a question about how is that number generated?
I will be brief in my response.
Officer - 1:30:57
If it is a service failure which can be blocked access or flooding or anything like that,so they are not accounted as part of the figures.
If one resident has reported a misbin but others have not reported, the ones that have
not been reported will not be included as part of the figures.
Thank you.
Councillor Wilson.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:31:20
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 1:31:24
Thank you, Chair. So I guess my question was, we're not the only part of the country thathas kind of the same sort of configuration in terms of collections that we have, so rural
with a couple of densely populated centres. So I'm interested in best practice from around
the country from elsewhere, I'm guessing as part of your continuous service improvement,
you're looking at other parts of the country,
other service providers, what they're doing.
I love the low cost.
We've taken a photograph of it and shown people.
I think it's just those sorts of ideas that pragmatism
should be rewarded.
So I guess the question is, are there other things that you can
see that would make a difference that you're not able to do yet
that are kind of on your roadmap that either with support from
this council, in terms of funding or reconfiguration,
So I guess can you see other ways to improve the service that you're not able to implement
at this moment in time?
How can we help you with that?
And what are you learning from other parts of the country that are potential low -cost
interventions that we could implement quite easily?
I'm not sure there's any low -cost ones.
Officer - 1:32:38
There's some bigger stuff that we talk about with public all the time.Unfortunately, where the depot is, we're right on the edge of the boundary, so when we go north, the lorries can travel for up to 45 minutes before they get to their nearest collection.
Disposal points are quite far out as well.
Just because of where it is, I mean, if we had some transfer stations, but they're not cheap and they just can't get them up tomorrow.
Obviously, Publica are working on it all the time, but we look just to make sure that we
are doing the right rounds, that within CAB, probably doesn't go down well now, but we
don't do as many missed collections because we don't have to go back and it's saving fuel,
carbon and time and so on and so forth.
But any real changes will probably come through the Commission of Publica.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rob.
Cabinet Member - 1:33:40
Just to add to that, yeah, clearly, obviously, with both my waste and my finance hat on,I'm always looking to how we can do it more efficiently and therefore save money.
So to totally disappoint those sort of conversations we have, I mean, the next item we're going
to talk about has some stuff in there to that end of investments that potentially we might
want to make if they can generate a return and make our service more
efficient and yeah that's what obviously we're always looking for that but I
Officer - 1:34:11
don't if Simon's got anything to add. Just a point of pride really we are isprobably more so number one we're not missing out there's no sort of open
goals out there that somebody else is doing something fantastic and we should
sort of be doing it we are one of the leaders within England in terms of our
system our recycling rate we're in the top 20 local authorities we're well
above 50 % recycling rate.
So there's a lot that we do well.
There's a lot that we do right.
We do keep a watching brief.
And between UbiCo and ourselves, we
will make sure that we're front of the queue for any innovation
that does come.
But at the moment, as Rob and Councilor Everly said,
it's really just about making best use
of what we're doing at the moment through IT,
through innovation.
All right.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:34:58
First of all, I wanted to thank Councillor Ebeny, who tells us we are now going to belooking at the reporting system, which I think could be improved.
I think it's good not to rush it, to actually look at it and get a thorough improvement,
because encouraging more people to do it on the website, which is excellent, but it is
a little bit clunky.
I think people would like to see if it has already been reported, which type of waste,
because of course in the recycling it could be just the cardboard have not
been collected but the others are because it depending on the amount of
space in the noise so thank you and we look forward to seeing that in January.
The other thing is I was just this alloy in cab system I actually thought it gave
you much more sort of you know computer they're sort of almost dotting out the
houses clearly not that but what as we've had not only did I have the shared
the reports from Fairford. That was a green bin issue. We had it in the North Cotswolds
and Norton Sub -Edge because it seems like it's over the county boundary and they for
about eight weeks didn't have any collections. It's now, I hope, cross fingers working. But
I've also had people who are on the assisted bin collection and I don't know how they are
identified on the system because obviously they didn't bring their bin out because the
whole point is assisted. So therefore it's very easily missed. So I just wondered how
system identifies them to make sure that they are reached.
Yes, assisted bins, they are flagged on the system.
Officer - 1:36:25
So when the driver or the crew are looking at the in -cab, it flags that it is an assistedand that they would know that they have to do something different.
Thank you for that. But I did have a problem with one of my residents
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:36:39
who had repeated non -helpand had to sort of flag out. It is, I think, now resolved.
but it clearly occasionally whatever it's...
Does it not sort of say,
oh, oh, oh, oh, you've missed out?
Quite exactly that one.
LAUGHTER
Officer - 1:36:57
We can try and get it to do that,but when we swapped over,
a few of them may have been missed off
because we would have to obviously manually put them on,
so when the new system, when the new service came in,
the new rounds, it may have been missed off.
It shouldn't have been but it may have fell through the holes and hopefully we've picked it up now.
Thank you for everybody for all their contributions.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:37:24
I think that we are noting this report. There's no actual recommendation to go forward and so we can go through to the next topic12 Waste Services Update
which is waste services update.
Is it, Councillor O 'Brien, going to kick off? Thank you.
Yeah, I think given that it was a series of questions and they've got
Cabinet Member - 1:37:41
written answersI don't intend to present this report.
I think we just leave it for members of the committee
to ask me and other colleagues on the waste service here
any supplementaries or anything else they would like to know.
Councillor Turner would like to start.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:37:59
Thank you.Councillor Clare Turner - 1:38:01
As the author of all of those questions,I hope you might indulge me in just making a few comments back.
So first of all, thank you.
It was great to have responses and lots of positive stuff in there.
Good to know that the direction of travel with greening the fleet and so on is in progress.
So I look forward to hearing more about that.
And also the EPR fees, good that that's, we'll have some information about that
in the not too distant future hopefully.
On the point of storing fuel to buffer the fluctuating prices,
It sounds like a really good idea and other local authorities have used that approach
as long as the installation of any storage tanks doesn't exceed the potential savings,
but I'm sure that's a given, given that EV is on the horizon.
Just wanted to make that point.
Deposit return scheme as someone who's been following the progress of it for a number
of years now.
I'm not surprised here that the possible date for introduction has been pushed back further
27. That has happened since these questions were drafted. Waste minimisation, I still
think there is a lot more we could do. I think there are potential savings if less waste
is generated and there is less for us to collect and deal with. It is all the more important
in light of the fact that all the black bin waste is being incinerated. Resources are
lost that way, so we should be striving for a much more circular economy and
there's potential benefits there to local businesses if we don't use those
resources out of the system. Similarly I think there's things we can do around
promotion of home composting, you could deal with food waste that way as well.
On the point of incineration, the fact that this is portrayed as a green
solution often, not in the answers I hasten to add, is quite troubling and I
I note with disappointment that the contractual arrangements between the waste disposal authority
and the facility are not transparent to us as a waste collection authority.
For the benefit of our residents and residents elsewhere, I think I would like to see CDC
take every opportunity to push waste up that hierarchy and not just accept that we collect
black bins and we dispose of it and that is the end of it.
So I think it's important that we take some ownership of that journey of that waste.
So a couple of questions out of this.
So how often is compositional analysis undertaken of what is in the residual waste stream?
So that's linked to the food waste in particular.
So how much of what is in our residual waste could go to other routes?
Is that something that's routinely done?
I appreciate fully that our recycling rate is good compared to other areas, but it could
be better.
We could avoid generating some of that stuff in the first place.
I think CDC could and should have a role in influencing behaviour change in the district
to try and minimise the amount of waste arising in the first place.
I'm sure I have other questions about on -street waste and so on,
but we'll save those for another time,
given everything we've got to get through today.
Thank you, Claire. Thanks for the questions.
I hadn't realised they were all yours.
Cabinet Member - 1:41:32
And well done.There were some really useful questions,
and obviously the opportunity to put this out
in the public domain about what we are doing.
I'll just pick up on a couple of points.
I think Simon and the officers are looking at a business case for fuel
bunkering at the depot. A couple of issues with that one is it's next to a
lake which is a triple SI lake so you know the obviously there would have to
be any very clear safeguarding against obviously any fuel getting into the lake
so obviously that's part of the things they need to look at and the other thing
I think we also need to say you're right we will look at business case and Simon is looking at that
And obviously with colleagues from you because every in particular colleagues over there
I think the other thing to bear in mind is as you
Allude to is that where do we want to get to and I know if Councillor McEwen was sat here next to me
He says he wants electric recycling vehicles, and we know that some
councils are using those
Typically the more urban councils where they don't have to drive so far, but I know Forest of Dean are trialing
using a recycling vehicle at the moment.
So, and I think obviously Ian is here as the expert
on vehicles, so we are having those discussions
as we put in here.
And obviously we've got to look at, okay, well,
do we need to, if we were to build a fuel tank,
you know, essentially start using that,
and then a year later, no, we're not using that anymore
because we're going electric.
So, we've got to look at that in terms of what's
most efficient as well.
Just to pick up your points about, you know, obviously the incineration,
there's been obviously media stuff about that more recently,
in the last couple of weeks about, you know, obviously the amount of plastic that's in the bag,
you know, in my refuse bin has mostly got flyaway plastic in it,
and not much else actually, which obviously is good,
but obviously then that is not if it's then being burnt and going up into the atmosphere,
which clearly is what is happening to the waste that I put in my bin
and you put in yours and other people put in theirs.
In terms of your point around home composting,
yes, absolutely.
So we're always mindful that we,
whilst we provide a garden -wayed surface,
we encourage home composting.
So actually, you know, people can home compost,
we would encourage them to do that
rather than use our garden -way service
because we're absolutely clear that, you know,
obviously that's therefore not incurring
the cost of transporting that around.
So yeah, definitely we do promote home composting
and we will continue to do that.
And I think the last point I'll just pick up on
is in terms of what you're talking about,
in terms of encouraging people to minimise their waste.
And some of you will probably have seen
one or two photographs of me in your inboxes
or in the media or on your web,
or your cameras encouraging people to do things like,
you know, eat their pumpkin rather than chuck it
in the food waste bin and buy recycled stuff,
buy stuff from charity shops rather than buying it new.
So that sort of sense of we have, you know,
do have a program and we have a comms officer
who works together with other across Gloucestershire
in the WRAP, together with WRAP and across Gloucestershire
to promote these sorts of things.
So yes, we are doing that.
There's obviously always more that you can do,
but yeah, I've totally agree in terms of what we want to do
is to have less stuff in the black bin.
And obviously that's our objective
and to encourage people.
And to some degree the figures that, you know, you're right,
our figures are better than most.
And Simon said we're in the top 20, which is great.
But nationally they have dropped down a bit
in the last few years, as I'm sure you're aware.
Councillor Turner and many other colleagues may be aware.
And they are a little bit of a blunt tool
because they include garden waste.
so you know actually they're not necessarily always the best comparators
yeah but they're what we have but I think we could have better if we're
thinking about waste that otherwise would go to landfill so yeah I think
Simon you can ask the question about composition analysis I think yes yeah so
Officer - 1:45:55
just so members are aware so composition analysis is actually doing some bindiving of black bins to see what's in there.
So we've engaged with a company to do that for us.
They tend to engage with students and other
needing money to do that.
We are, results are coming through.
Initial results are that it's no surprise that
approximately sort of 30 to 33 percent of the average
black bin in Cotswold is food waste.
We know that as well because it's the least
participated in service that we offer at the curbside. We will also get things
like glass, metals, cans, plastic. Approximately 65 to 70 percent of a
black bin will be recyclable and when you layer over that the fact that there's
some very high value materials in there in terms of the monetary value
particularly aluminium cans, it makes for a quite a sort of frustrating picture.
We can do better on behaviour change, absolutely we can, and we should, we can
do better at moving waste up the hierarchy. What I would really sort of
encourage, what we need is that political steer from yes, kind of Council
Council but also national government as well. We need that from from DEFRA to
really sort of push us on to that to that next phase. We're doing well at the
but we can do better we should do better
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:47:29
well thank you for that and thank you for Councillor Turner for her excellentquestions she really knows her the waste which is fantastic it's great I mean
fantastic very welcome and contributes a lot
Councillor Gary Selwyn - 1:47:48
Councillor Selwyn please. Of course Tesco Extra do recycle lightweight flyawayplastics. So that's the only outlet I know for flyaway plastics in this area actually.
My question actually relates to page 105. The comment about, and I totally understand
the monitoring system as a former company car user. I had a system called Lightfoot
in my car which did pretty much exactly the same thing. The bit that struck me, and this
This is more of an HR comment.
The drivers were unaware that their drive was being monitored in the initial trial period.
Was that acceptable from your HR teams?
Can you, I don't, because I don't actually think that you can covert monitor people unless
you tell them in the contract that you can covertly monitor them.
Yeah, thanks.
Officer - 1:48:42
The vehicles recording the data anyway through the Canva system and basically what we'vetapped into the camper system and extracted that data without the technology to the driver
being on board. So what we've done is that vehicle's been driven in such a way without
any advice coming back to the driver in live. So then when we turn the technology on, what
we do, we do training with the drivers, explain to them what they're going to hear and there
will be a voice when they do a harsh acceleration which will tell them to decrease, a bit like
Lightfoot is the older type of system if you wanted to go out with, it's a bit like a mild hybrid.
But this system is much more integrated with the camper system on the truck.
So the driver will get live information as he's performing telling him to adjust his driving style accordingly.
If he makes an alteration to that driving in two seconds it doesn't get recorded as a violation on the system.
If he doesn't change his style of driving and continues with his heavy -footedness, it
records a violation on his system which is picked up in the back office and then we can
look at individual training plans for drivers to bring them forward.
It's not a case of let's put it with the driver and not turn it on, it's a case of the vehicle
is already recording all that data and basically what we're doing is just extracting it from
that.
That makes sense.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:50:11
Thank you. Did any other members of the committee have a question they'd like to put at thispoint? No? Oh, well, that's excellent because we have got a, Councillor Efron has got another
busy period coming up ahead of him. So thank you very much. I think it was very useful.
The one thing I would like noted in addition to the fact that we have looked at all this
is that we would like to have regular monitoring.
I mean, waste collection is one of our big services.
It is something which really residents,
not a lot of things residents don't really notice,
they really notice the waste.
And I think it's very important that,
particularly the way it's going to be notified
or how you deal with it on the website,
we'd all like to hear from you and we'll make sure
that it comes up again to be discussed and updated.
So thank you for that.
And now it's the, so thank you for everybody from Jupica for coming.
Thank you very much.
Much appreciated.
13 Draft Budget 2025/26 and Medium Term Financial Strategy
And it's now the draft budget 2025 -26 and the medium term financial strategy.
Oh, oh, yes.
Okay.
Just ahead of the two hours we'll have a five minute or probably ten minute break
but please don't do take too long
because this is a big one coming up.
Thank you.
13 Draft Budget 2025/26 and Medium Term Financial Strategy
I'm getting the hang of this, so thank you.
No, we're just a little bit after six,
and obviously please do catch up with Angela later.
That's new.
But thank you very much. We want to keep on with this.
It's a big topic, this next one, the draft budget 2025 -26.
and the medium -term financial strategy.
I'm going to be very grateful for the additional papers
for David Stanley on the sort of budget initial reaction.
I thought it was very interesting, very well written.
I could understand it, so it obviously must make
it quite accessible.
So thank you, and thank you for, I hope everybody's
read through the papers.
I know they came a bit later because they had to be approved
before they could be added to our agenda.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Are you going to make a start?
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Cabinet Member - 1:52:34
So, yeah, this is our sort of annual visit for the draft updating of the MTFS to theoverview and scrutiny committee.
And you've got a quite chunky, I think, 47th age document.
And to the Chair's point, obviously, it's going to be considered by Cabinet on Thursday,
so you're effectively pre -scrutinizing it in this meeting.
Obviously David has worked hard with colleagues in both Publica and
Yuriko and obviously working alongside myself to prepare the document
you've got in front of you. Largely it's telling a story that you know members
will be familiar with, the budget gaps projections based around business rate
reset which has been delayed but we are now getting more confident I think that
it will happen in 26 -27 based on the announcements made by the government
that we'll get a one -year settlement again for next year but in the spring
the spending review will indicate three -year settlements for local
authorities. So yeah hopefully that will give us more certainty when we do this
next year rather than as we are at the moment. But we have largely expected
expecting a rollover settlement that we get from the government which you can
see as it's outlined within the report. Obviously we've got lots of you know
external things going on as well as we had the budget last week and the chair
referred obviously to the note that was sent out by the deputy chief executive
on that. We obviously got the US election tomorrow, we've got an interest rate
decision on Thursday so quite a lot of moving parts and that in that those
landscapes that could have quite significant impacts on us in terms of
setting our budget just in February next year. So what it's important I think
members to note is that we haven't sort of baked in the impact of lower
inflation so obviously we're expecting the pressure in inflation to ease.
The pay award was lower than we were budgeted for and there's I think work
that David is doing to sort of colleagues to work out exactly how much
lower but I think in the in the short term that's that's good news that that's
being settled obviously we've now have you know the minimum wage announcements
and obviously that will potentially impact on future future years and the
settlements that we might get next year I'll remind sort of members we set aside
financial resilience reserve to sort of build a little bit of a war chest to
deal with potentially the business rates reset as we sought to review and
potentially transform our services. There's information in the report about
the phase one review of Publica which obviously happened last Friday and today
We're obviously staff have come across to us from you Publica and many of them were in the room earlier on today.
I think what I would say is clearly you know we are going to need to make more savings and transform more services.
That's clear from the numbers that's shown in the report.
You'll note that there is a change to the business rates pool, which when I first saw
it, I thought, oh, that's interesting.
So you can take somebody out, one council out and get more money back from the government.
But I'm assured that that's perfectly legitimate and many other, it's been done across the
country and many other places.
It's just that we haven't done it before in Gloucestershire.
So our colleagues in Cheltenham dropping out the pool potentially will generate more revenue
for all of us, including them.
The draft budget assumes a five -pound increase in a Band D,
which is the increase that we have put through in the previous
five years of this administration,
and it's assumed that that will be the maximum that's allowed
under the capping regime, which it likely appears that the new
government will continue at least for this year.
And we've assumed there will be a 1 % growth in the council
tax base. It's worth noting that the report here doesn't include the funding
coming out of the empty homes or second homes premium. So I think we're assuming
that the core grant funding to the council is not going to change and
that any sort of changes to new homes bonus will be counteracted by the
guarantee minimum funding guarantee the government had. Looking at the capital
program, the main bits in there, the main spend is the, what we were just talking about
really, the waste and recycling vehicles.
You know, they're the big chunky amount, five million I think it is in two or three years
time.
So that's really where, you know, we obviously, when we get to that point and we need to re -provide
those, we will, as currently shown on the capital program, we will need to borrow money
for the first time other than for the climate bond that we've got. I think I'll
stop there and if they've got anything to add that I think I've missed out and
then obviously be welcome to hear your points and take your questions as ever.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:58:29
Just in terms of some additional information that was coming out thebudget I think employers national insurance contributions going out will
increase the cost of employment for this council through its direct staff and
through partner arrangements we've got with
Publica and JUBCO.
The government have indicated that they are
working on how that would be passed through, that
funding change would be passed through to local
authorities.
So, until we see the detail of that, I'm keeping it
relatively high level to assume that if our costs
go up by X, we'll be compensated by a similar
amount, although the way in which that works will not
be known until the end of December as part of the
local government finance settlement.
That's really the main pressure that was coming out through the budget.
There's a couple of other changes that were confirmed in the budget around core spending
power being 3 .2 percent in real terms.
It depends what's rolled into the 3 .2 percent calculation.
And with inflation being relatively low, that's a relatively easy target to hit in terms of
3 .2 percent real terms.
If inflation is low, the cash amount that will go in, it is relatively contained.
The one bit of positive news that came out of the budget
document that's only fleetingly referred to in the
MTFS report is around extended producer responsibility.
So for the last couple of years that's been referred
to as it's coming and you'll get notification of the
funding that will be attached to that.
But at the same time the Treasury were watching the
total amount of funding that a local authority might
have across the piece.
The budget report indicated that the Treasury had done a bit of a U -turn on that and weren't
seeking to limit the amount of funding in total that an authority would have in 2526,
and would provide a guarantee that you'd get a certain level of funding around extended
producer responsibility that would be consistent with a central case view.
What's less clear is what that central case view is.
But I suppose in previous MTFS's I've not assumed that to be a new income stream, I've
just assumed it to be cash neutral for the council.
What comes through from DEFRA for extended producer responsibility funding would be taken
away by Treasury somewhere else, but there is confirmation in the budget papers that
the government published last week is that would be a new funding stream, which in aggregate
is 1 .1 billion across all of local government.
I just realized that I forgot to answer
Councillor Slater's question from earlier,
Cabinet Member - 2:01:07
which I deferred to this discussion.So, Tony, from the point around garden waste,
you can see that in the table ES3 in 127.
It has assumed, the figures are from an assumed growth
in the cost of the Yubico contract.
So we have a policy that we will cost recover.
So I think the figure we've got something like 4 .3 %
assumed increase in the UBICO cost.
So there's an assumed increase of 4 .3 %
in terms of the cost of the garden waste service,
which is then recovered from residents.
4 .3 % for the numbers?
That looks like 100.
If you're gonna.
Sorry.
Councillor Tony Slater - 2:01:52
It looks more like 100 % from between 25, 26 and 26.27 and then it's multiplied it again doubled again I might just be
misreading the numbers. I think you are because what it's saying what you're not
Cabinet Member - 2:02:06
seeing is the one and a half million pounds that's the the cost of theservice at the minute so that's the base cost this is the increase compared to
the current cost so that's why you've got you know an increase of 115 and then
it's another sort of hundred so it's basically the same amount going up each
time compounded.
Thank you for that.
I'm sure there are other questions.
Who would like to ask?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:02:29
Councillor Cunningham up first.Thank you.
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:02:37
Phase 2 of the public transition.£5 million, would that be a fair estimate of what you think it's going to cost?
Where did you get that figure, David?
Cabinet Member - 2:02:50
I'm asking you if they think that's a fair number.Councillor David Cunningham - 2:02:52
No, that sounds like a complete plucked in the air guess.Cabinet Member - 2:02:55
So I don't know if David has anything to ask, but it doesn't sound like a reasonable assumption to me.Councillor David Cunningham - 2:03:02
So you know what it's not going to be, but you won't tell me what it is going to be.I find it's a lot.
Cabinet Member - 2:03:13
I asked you the question, do you have any, why did you come upwith that number and you didn't answer it?
So I think we can all chuck numbers around.
So I'm not going to acknowledge and agree with a number that's
just come, you know, we don't have any evidence for.
So I don't know if there's any reason why it should be that
number or any other number.
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:03:37
The DTP number that you have, reconciliation movement of additional costs, baseline costs,that comes out to $4 million and 30.
Given that you have an overspend so far of about 20%, I just put the 20 % on the $4 million
and came up with $5.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:03:56
If I may, in terms of that number that's referenced in the table on page 25 of the additionalThe 4 .030 million is the enduring impact,
but the baseline position of what were the equivalent costs
to those services that would have been provided in public
is about 3 .6 million.
So the additional cost of phase one in the report is 415 ,000.
And below that you'll see there's some commentary
in paragraph 5 .13 that sets out what the gross increase
increasing cost was of $937 ,000, less $522 ,000 of cost reductions.
There is some duplication, so roles that were previously provided by public are being classed
as a cost reduction, and then we put them in as a new post, very much not netting them
off but grossing both sides up.
So the net overall increasing cost of phase one is $415 ,000 on the current estimate.
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:04:56
So if you've got all that information, why do we not have any type of estimate of whatphase two will come to?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:05:05
If I may, phase two is a much more complex model to work through.So with phase one, by and large, the 272 posts that were transferred out of public and into
councils on Friday of last week were very much, they were working 100 % for one council
or the other bar around about eight posts that were fragmented.
For phase two is almost the opposite way round.
The majority of the posts will be fragmented.
You'll have a lot of shared public posts that need to then be included into the council's
service delivery models.
There are some choices the councils will need to make as to whether they continue with those
services on a sovereign basis, whether they enter into some sharing agreements or something
similar.
So there's quite a lot of detailed work to do and it will be the extent to sharing and
the extent to the service quality that is the choice of each council to make that will
have that impact on the numbers.
I suppose more broadly speaking, the MTFS as you have got it presented in this report
makes no assumption of any increase in cost of Phase 2.
If Phase 2 was an extra pound, you would expect an extra hundred pounds, it would then increase
the funding gap that's already been identified in the MTFS.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:06:34
The report I didn't give, because it wasn't fitting, is relevant to answering that question,Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:06:37
but so at some future stage when it is required I could make a further contribution to thequestion that's being asked by Councillor Cunningham.
Thank you, I'll certainly take that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:06:49
I'm glad someone's got an idea of what it is.Councillor David Cunningham - 2:06:51
One other question really, this is for Mike actually, rather than issue a 114 or get usinto a bucket load of debt, which of the capital program projects would you recommend the council
Cabinet Member - 2:07:24
drop going forward? So clearly it's whether the council issues a 114 as a matter forthe chief finance officer and him alone so I think obviously we've discussed
that previously and we're we're a very long way away from that but obviously we
know that you know 18 there are many I think seven councils have done so in
recent times and there are 18 councils that are getting emergency financial
support so you know clearly we are managing our budget to them so that we
don't have to do that so that we can continue to provide services. The capital
program clearly we will look at the capital program and review and we have
to bring forward business cases for things in the capital program as and
when they come forth.
And the big one, which I just referred to earlier on,
is clearly the replacement of the waste
and recycling vehicles.
And you can see from the capital programme
that we won't have the capital receipts left
to be able to do that,
because they will have been used up by that point.
So clearly it'll be a matter for council
to determine on recommendation from myself
or whoever is in this post at that point, how we fund those.
And that'll be a discussion that we have.
But I think we're still in a relatively fortunate position
compared to most councils of not having debt at the moment.
And that even with, and at the moment we've got
a positive impact of interest rates
because of the level they're at
and what we're able to get back from them
which is exceeding inflation.
So capital decisions will have to be taken and clearly at the end of the day members
will make a determination that ultimately the final discretion sits with the Chief Finance
Officer to do what's in the financial best interests of the Council at the time that
that decision is taken.
Then can I ask the same question of Mr Stanley then?
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:09:28
Which of the programmes would you recommend that the Council doesn't take forward ratherand puts us into debt.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:09:41
The issuing of a section 114 statement is very much a last resort where you've had theconversations with all members, you've engaged with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance
and Accountancy and officials at MHCLG to take every step possible to avoid putting
the council into a section 114 territory.
clearly, it is not something that I would choose to do lightly.
I would argue that it's less about the capital programme and more about balancing the revenue
budget where the section 114 would become relevant.
And to close the revenue budget gap is where I would put that focus.
So whilst there is within the capital programme a level of capital expenditure forecast over
the next four years that may have to be supported by prudential borrowing.
Clearly, I will look at the level of internal resources the Council has to support that
capital expenditure and look at other ways those internal resources could grow if the
only other option was to borrow from PWLB or other external sources at current interest
rates approaching 5 % for short -term money, over 5 % for borrowing over 50 years plus.
Clearly, the cost of capital has an impact on the revenue budget, which I'm keen to avoid,
but Council will be aware that the asset management strategy was approved by Cabinet earlier in
the year.
That asset management strategy may lead to disposals that could generate capital receipts,
and having that planned in over the next MTFS refresh
to understand what potential capital receipts are available
and how we can support capital expenditure
without prudential borrowing is something to consider.
So I will be looking at more the revenue gap rather
than reducing the scope of the capital program,
because in order to run a fit and functional waste
and recycling service, for example, we do need vehicles.
If you don't acquire them through the capital program, then we are then exposed to having
to acquire those vehicles through the revenue budget on a short -term lease, which is far
less cost effective.
So it's an investment, but we need to get the timing of that investment to correct,
both in terms of the cost to the authority, but also for the authority to deliver the
service that's required that we've heard quite a bit about this evening.
So you're saying you'd get rid of the plumbing and strategic housing.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:12:15
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:12:15
Can I just point out that it might be that Councillor Cunningham could see if there'sCouncillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:12:21
anyone else who wants to ask a question because he has had quite a good go so far and I dotake the advice you've given me on a number of occasions about how long I take.
Could I give him one final answer?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:12:34
maybe then we can be what if that's okayCabinet Member - 2:12:38
well the chair is that's what he determines that I think CouncillorCunningham I think the premise of your question seems to be a dichotomy between
do we borrow or not do we do we borrow to do something or do we not borrow money
and stop lower our ambition and I think as I said I think you know we need to
look at what we want to do as a council and look at them for how we can finance
So I don't agree with that essential dichotomy of saying we can't borrow money because councils
across the country borrow money and if you're borrowing money to invest in the service and
to invest in and there's a good business case for doing that, I don't think there's anything
wrong with doing that.
Obviously it's preferable to use money you've got in the bank with the receipts that we've
got.
But inevitably, you know, obviously we may well make some asset sales and boost those
up a little bit.
But, you know, essentially we only have the receipts that we have.
But we have to continue to provide services like a waste service which will require new vehicles in the not too distant future
Thank you, thank you councillor Cunningham we've moved to councillor Neal
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:13:41
Yes, so this is a question I've asked over the years in the pastCouncillor Dilys Neill - 2:13:46
I mean do it and I don't know that anything has beenfurther any further investigation has been carried out but um
Do we know how many?
properties that aren't paying council tax are using our waste collection service and is it possible to
charge
Those properties which have registered as small businesses or would or be a bit or whatever
Possible to make a charge them if they continue to use our service
There's work that has been done and is being done looking at
Cabinet Member - 2:14:20
making sure that we're not providing services to people that we shouldn't beproviding them to. I think there's an ambition I certainly have to generate
more revenue, any revenue we can, but in terms of trade waste I think there are
colleagues from Yubico have gone all that waste experts have gone that
but there are some complications about mixing waste trade waste streams with
domestic waste streams and contracts with county councils and all that sort of stuff,
which is quite tricky.
That's not to say that, you know, and the conversations around if you have, say, holiday
lets, for example, that are using, if we were to offer them a service, obviously we shouldn't
be providing a waste service for holiday lets as their businesses, but if we were to offer
them on a trade -waste basis, and whether and how you would do
that, because initially I thought, well,
couldn't you just put them on the normal collection?
Well, not necessarily, because there might not
be anybody there on every other Wednesday,
because it's a holiday there.
So there are some complications around that.
But essentially, what I'm assured by colleagues
in Publico and Ubico is that we are
seeking to prevent providing services to people that
not paying for them. What we're not necessarily in a position to is to
provide our services to them in order to generate revenue. I'd like
to be in that position. It's probably not as straightforward as I hoped it would be
but that's not to say that ambition is not still there. It's still a problem in
Councillor Dilys Neill - 2:16:00
my ward. I walk past Holiday Lex and there are bins parked outside.Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:16:11
In fact, it happened while we were staying at a holiday let in London. We had a problemCouncillor Dilys Neill - 2:16:12
with the rubbish collection and I rang the council and somebody came around and dealtwith it and they didn't say, oh, by the way, this is a holiday let, we shouldn't be providing
the services, but they clearly were. So it's clearly a national problem rather than just
Thank you for that.
It's Councillor Jenkins, please.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:16:33
I didn't even realise I'd put up my hand.That's excellent.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:16:40
I appreciate your reading of the situation.I've got just two questions.
The first is that my evaluation of this report, if I put it in simple broad terms, is that
the kinds of information we've been given in the past,
thank you very much, David and Mike, about the situation,
namely that we have to be cautious, there are concerns,
nevertheless we are managing it, we have an outlook,
it's clear what is going on, we're working on it,
hasn't significantly changed.
We are basically in the same position as we were last time
and previously when council discussed this.
And I read from this that we can in that sense be assured that the situation has not deteriorated
in any kind of significant way.
It remains a matter of concern to manage, but not a concern that is beyond our scope.
We remain easy in that respect in terms of it.
Concerned but not in trepidation.
So that's my first question.
Of course you might want to turn it around and use your own language.
I'm sure you will, but that is an overall assessment I'm asking for.
The second one is this.
As we go into phase two and beyond in the transition, it is part of the plan to work
on improving processes and improving how things get done.
Will you, both of you, in your roles in relation to finance, play some kind of an active role
in encouraging that we do those kinds of activities
that combine the ability to reduce costs
and improve effectiveness as well as part
of an overall discipline in the Council that we learn
to do these things better and more efficiently as time goes by.
Is that going to be part of your concern and discipline?
Thank you.
Thank you, Angus, for your questions.
Cabinet Member - 2:18:46
Yeah, I think I would agree with your first point.That hasn't been a significant change in the situation.
Obviously, we have a new government.
And David and I talked at the start about obviously some of
the implications of the changes announced in the budget last
week, but it does seem like local government finance is
going to be largely the same this year in terms of as it was
last year.
Now, there is some money that's coming, but we're not expecting
a lot of it to come our way.
I think it's probably the summation of that.
And as David talked about, the core spending power
assumes you'll put your council tax up by the
maximum amount, which I suspect the percentage
haven't worked out recently, but it's pretty
much close to 3 percent.
So, a 3 .2 percent increase in core spending power
won't give us a huge amount more money from the
government.
We'll have to obviously raise the council tax as a
significant part of that.
I think you're right to obviously raise the question
around the public transition and phase two,
and I think that's obviously the one significant change
that, you know, obviously it's a very large change,
but it's the one significant material change which we are
managing internally.
And I mentioned some of the external things we can't
control, who will get elected President of the United States
and, you know, what's going to happen with interest rates.
but obviously we can control how we manage the transition of services back from public.
And I think you're right to say that we as part of the transition need to improve.
It gives us the opportunity and we need to take it to improve the services that we provide
and make them more efficient, which we weren't able to do with the previous
construct of Publica. Now we have some notable successes and I've talked to
that, the committee, about things around stuff like the changes to the call
centre opening hours where we both, we provided, even though it's shorter time,
we provided a better service at lower cost to our residents. So we need to do
more of that and you're absolutely right that in phase two we need to be very
focused on how do we make our services more efficient costing us less
essentially and making them better so certainly David and I that's our brief
that's our remit very much within the cabinet and within the from me and
obviously the senior management for David.
And I think absolutely when and as those transitions
come forward, you know, we clearly need to look at
how we transform services.
I know transformation can be a little bit of a buzzword,
but I was at the local government association
conference in Harrogate last week and attended a number
of discussions about this.
and it's absolutely, and looking for examples
about how the people are doing it,
and I was recently on APA challenge
and at the council, not too far from here,
where we were encouraging them to really look
at how could they transform their services.
And absolutely, we need to be doing that here.
And I know you were in the room earlier
when the chief executive was stood at the front
talking to the staff who have come across to the council
as part of the first phase of transition.
And absolutely looking at the opportunities that that brings
for working differently.
Now they will all be working for Cotswold District Council
across the different departments and giving license for officers
to come forward with proposals to do things better
and more efficiently.
So, yeah, absolutely, Angus, we need to be looking at
how do we do stuff better and more cost -effectively
and David and I obviously add to his perspective,
but that's absolutely in my perspective in terms of my role
as Cabinet Member for Finance.
If I may, just in terms of the first question,
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:23:12
I think I can sum it up that the external funding prospectshaven't improved.
I think there's more likelihood that it's
going to be a tighter position for shyer districts
over the next year and probably into the outcome from the spending review. I think the thing
to watch will be the Government white paper on devolution where the word devolution and
local government reorganisation are being interchanged. I think that might be useful
for members to have regard to as we move into the budget setting phase finally in February.
But I think that might set out a direction of travel from the Government in terms of
what our prospects are. There's some upside benefit to the budget that's yet to be worked
through. So we mentioned that inflation prospects are lower. I haven't worked those numbers
through the MTFS, but clearly with a pay award that we budgeted at around 5 to 6 percent
that's come through at around 4 percent thereabouts, given the way the cash amount works for the
There's going to be some benefit that will come in this year, and the report said, suggested
that was set aside in the financial resilience reserve, and then we'll update the MTFS forecast.
There will be some benefit there, but fundamentally I don't see the overall position changing
drastically.
I have likened the position on what came through the budget to a review that the Guardian did
of the Kia's latest album to keep it relevant.
That was 16 years in coming.
The labor budget was 14 years in coming.
And the Guardian review said it was very, very doom and gloom.
I don't think it's quite that bad.
But I think there's less positivity
to see coming through for Shire districts
over the next three, four years.
In terms of the public review phase two,
I would encourage members to refresh themselves
of the design led principles that were part of the detailed transition plan.
The third one down said consideration of cost.
That is one that I am particularly going to be focused on in supporting Rob and the leader
and others with what phase two looks like because I think the cost is clearly going
to have a much more significant bearing given some of the choices that may need to be made
as to what services come across in what shape and what form.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:25:44
Thank you for that. I think I've got Councillor Slater next. Thank you, Chair.Councillor Tony Slater - 2:25:49
Looks a bit of a horror show to me but digging down the numbers,Councillor O 'Famme said it would be good to use our own funds but I think over
last five years or so, the administration has spent them all.
So looking at the numbers, we get to the end of 26 and the financial resilience fund reserve
has gone, and then two years later we're having to borrow £4 million to pay for new dustbin
wagons.
So the first question is why haven't we been putting money aside for the new dustbin wagons?
because it's not a surprise that the contract's coming up for renewal.
So why have we not put money aside?
Investments to me, which I assume is a capital program,
my idea of an investment is that you get money back from an investment.
So why haven't the, why isn't the income coming in to support the spending?
That wasn't very well put but I think you didn't get the drift.
And can I be assured that when we do borrow the money for the new environment contract
that it won't be longer than the length of the contract.
So otherwise we're compounding borrowing on borrowing if we're not paying it off.
It's like when you buy a car, you finance it over four years perhaps.
If you change a car after two years, then you've got two loans going for one car.
So can we be assured that that won't be the case in this instance?
And that will probably be for now.
Cabinet Member - 2:27:50
Thank you Tony. You won't be surprised that I don't agree with you. It's not a horror show.You should go to some councils. Most councils would love to have a report like this.
We are in a financially stronger position than most local authorities.
Most district councils even. But that's not to say that you know given that what's really the risk for us is the business rates reset.
Fairer Funding Review, as it was called, and that's what creates the numbers that you were
starting to read out about how we can't balance our books in four years' time if basically
we lose all this money from the government.
Because they currently give us five million pounds a year, and if they suddenly give us
three million pounds a year, I don't think many people would be surprised that we're
going to struggle to balance our books with a loss of two million pounds.
So I think, yeah, that's the context in terms of the revenue budget is all to do with that.
You know, obviously we've had inflation shocks and we've had other things that we've had to use our reserves through the last couple of years.
But we're the current budget, as I'm sure you will remember, actually seeks to put half a million pounds back into reserves.
So obviously we're still aspiring to do that.
In terms of your point about spending the money, it's not been in just in the last five years.
I think it's been in the last 27 years since the housing was sold
That the capital of the council has used its capital finances
Receipts in order to fund capital expenditure because it didn't need to borrow
so, you know we
Have been able to do that through administrations of both
Flavours and none in the time since we sold the council houses
essentially in I think
seven so, you know, I think
To be fair we know that essentially that that money is coming to an end.
As we talked about in the answer to Councillor Cunningham's question there may be some assets
we've agreed an asset management strategy that come forward for sale.
We're currently marketing to here in Syrinsester and we've recently marked it just agreeing
the sale of the former tourist information centre in Boughton -on -the -Water for instance.
We will have coming forward toilet facilities that have now been closed, so they may generate
more capital receipts that we can use to finance capital expenditure.
But the answer, I think David might give you a different answer to me about why don't you
put money aside for something.
we will put money aside if essentially we borrow it but I'm not sure which
money we would put aside for say the bin lorries because thought that putting
money aside would mean oh I'm going to start borrowing money now before I need
to which we don't want to because the borrowing costs money so essentially
what will happen as and when we get to the point and we need new bin lorries
and we need we don't have the capital receipts to pay for them is that we will
borrow some money to cover that and we will then have within the revenue budget
we'll have minimum revenue provision so money that gets put aside every every
year in order to be able to pay back that because you're absolutely right
you can't borrow longer than the life of the asset so that will happen as and
when we borrow for those sorts of assets and the minimum revenue provision needs
to be for obviously a refuse lorry at the moment it's seven years like it to
longer but that's what we're hoping if we move to say electric more electric
vehicles that can be longer because they typically have a longer life as the
engines will last for last longer so in terms I think the money from the
investments obviously when you make a capital investment there's a business
case that comes forward and it looks that well at we're going to do this work
what revenue benefit is there going to be to the council so I'll stop there and
let David answer any more technical things that I've missed.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:31:58
Just in terms of setting aside money, there's only two or three ways that you could setaside that amount of money in advance. If you said 10 years ago, we need to replace
the entirety of the waste fleet in 10 years' time. That's going to cost you £10 million.
You either would have set aside £1 million in your budget every year, which would have
then being an increase on your revenue budget, or you use windfall receipts, either capital
receipts or one -off revenue funding that comes in.
What we have done over the last couple of years is already bought some vehicles that
have been paid for out of capital receipts.
There's some new waste and recycling vehicles that are currently in operation.
That was about 1 .5 million that were spent early this year, although they were ordered
about nine months ago.
with a significant lead in time.
Clearly, part of the conversation
as to what we should be budgeting for and setting aside
those for the acquisition of waste vehicles
is very much linked to the useful economic life
of the existing fleet.
And are we pushing UBICO as hard as possible
to manage that fleet, to refurbish it,
to make sure it's maintaining its useful life,
Rather than automatically after seven years saying what we need ten new vehicles. It's going to cost significant amount
Some of the changes that were put through as part of rezoning will have had an impact on that
Fleet replacement program and what we also will be looking at is I suppose ensuring that we're not exposed to undue
peaks and troughs in that fleet replacement program
What you don't want is all your vehicles being up for renewal at the same points of what we're starting to do with you
BKW's plan for the next two or three years where we might enter into a longer term, short
term lease if that makes sense, rather than trying to lease a vehicle for a very short
period of time, say three, four months to get you over a hump.
We're looking at one year, two years, three years.
That reduces the revenue burden of those short term hires, but also enables you to plan more
effectively for changes that you might have either in the technology, so going back to
point Councillor Eri -V made in terms of if Councillor McEwen was in the room he would
be encouraging us all to move to EV vehicles for the waste fleet. There's a point over
the next two or three years we'll need to make that decision. Is the technology going
to be in the right place? How could we acquire vehicles that aren't necessarily brand new?
Are there opportunities to work with other UBICO partners such
as Cheltenham and Gloucester that might be moving to a
different type of fleet and picking up their vehicles?
There's a number of variables in that.
So what I've done for the MTFS is made the broad assumption
that we will have to commit significant amounts of money in
due course based on the current fleet replacement program.
But that is something that we're pushing all the time with UBICO
to ensure that we're not just acquiring another vehicle
because seven years has ticked over.
In terms of the borrowing, we would match the borrowing
if that's where we were going to go with the useful economic life
of the asset, but the capital program is tended to be funded
at the bottom line, so rather than borrowing
for specific capital schemes,
you borrow to support the overall program.
There might be opportunities to borrow for a different length
of time that makes more economic sense.
and we work with Arlene Close on that particular calculation,
depending where the interest rate is
for different durations of loans at different points in time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:35:46
Any more questions before I have my two little questions?Sorry.
You probably told me this.
I just always forget.
I'm so sorry.
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:35:54
What's the $3 ,351 ,000 you're spendingin 2425 for housing. Is that Joe's new office?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:36:09
If I may, Chair, at the back on page 44 or 45, page 44 is the detailed capital programmethat will break down the 3 .351 million. 1 .5 million of that is disabled facilities grants,
which is funded entirely from the Better Care Fund.
$291 ,000 is the balance of the affordable housing.
$840 ,000 is the balance of the loan for Cotswain Housing Association
that was approved by Council in July 2022 at an upper rate of 3 .25%.
And $720 ,000 is the joint venture with Bromford
for a scheme that was approved two or three years ago.
So it's not entirely on affordable housing, the bulk of it is around disabled facilities
grant which is labeled as private sector housing renewal grant, DFG, and that's entirely externally
funded for us.
So it's in and out basically?
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:37:09
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:37:13
We get, it's a grant that's paid over to us from the county council as part of the 10million better care fund that set aside for DFGs across the county. There's
partnership working with occupational therapists in the County Council to
identify housing stock that's in need of adaptations to enable vulnerable people
to carry on residing in those properties so those are paid for through the DFG.
You wouldn't borrow 10 million against that over 10 years on the basis that it
Councillor David Cunningham - 2:37:43
could be used for other things, would you?So in terms of working through the capital
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:37:51
financing statement, we're taking into account grantsand contributions for external partners.
So particularly section 106 contributions, what my
account can come through that could be utilized from
the community infrastructure levy, any
other capital grants which are very few and far
between, and any internal resources before we then
work out the capital financing requirement, which then determines whether or not we've
got a need to borrow.
All right.
Anything on that?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:38:25
My question is, I was just interested to know whether UBICO, whatever fuel price changesthere may be, will have to pay the increased national insurance to employers and may be
also affected by the increases in the minimum wage.
and just to put them together, will we be seeing the budget consultation, which I think before it goes out?
Norman, we've had some sight of it, all the questions you're going to be asking.
When were you planning to distribute this and when were the, whatever, you were going to interrogate the residents as to what they felt about it?
So, in terms of Yubico's position, we had some early
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:39:07
engagement with finance team a couple of weeks ago interms of the broad assumptions that they were
making around pay, and that was before the budget
announcements of increased national insurance
contributions.
So, in the MTFS report, I've assumed 3 percent on
Yubico play, with us holding a further 1 percent
in contingency.
So, clearly, increases employers' national
insurance and any impact of the national minimum wage would have an impact on them if they
pay those staff at those rates.
But that's something that will be firmed up through November as we refine that budget
position.
As I said earlier, we are expecting the government to compensate local government for that employer
national insurance contribution, but the detail as to what that number is for this council
won't be known until late December.
Thank you chair. On the budget consultation we've not firmed up our
Cabinet Member - 2:40:06
proposals on thatyet so as and when we do we will share that with with members but it's no
intent to bring it to either this committee or to the cabinet. Ultimately
it's my role as the cabinet member for finance to lead on that on behalf of the
obviously working with David so yeah we will obviously let members know what
we're doing but we haven't finalized given obviously the uncertainty around
the budget last week we wanted to see where that landed to be able to consider
what it is that we might want to ask residents. I mean what sort of I know
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:40:42
that obviously the new budget and everything has probably pushed it backbut normally we do get it before Christmas don't we that's a normal
or is it in January?
Actually, I should remember, but I just want to...
So we have done five since I've been in this role,
Cabinet Member - 2:40:57
since the administration's taken over,and we have done them in the sort of autumn period.
Yeah, you're right.
But there's no requirement on us to do it to that timeframe,
and it depends to what degree we want to go out to the public
and how much publicity that we want to do.
I think we're mindful about what we're going to ask them.
I'm sort of very mindful about what we want to ask residents at this point.
So, haven't yet finalised whether and exactly how we're going to do that.
Thank you for that.
Was there anything else that anybody else wished to...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:41:38
Got 10 minutes then, don't we?No, we've...
Two thousand sitting in the Cotswain House in this case.
It's essentially they didn't draw down as much last year, so it's
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:41:52
added to the amountthey'll draw down this year.
So there is an agreement within the facilities agreement that was signed off in July 2022
for an upper amount and they can borrow up to that amount.
Can I just check one final figure?
Councillor Tony Slater - 2:42:09
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:42:12
Councillor Tony Slater - 2:42:13
We have talked about borrowing at the end of the 2028 year for about £4 million.At the end of 29 that shoots up to £10 million, is that right?
We are anticipating borrowing £10 million.
Where are you getting that from?
Cabinet Member - 2:42:30
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:42:37
So, table five on page 35 shows the position of the reserves.What that two sets of numbers is indicating would be, for want of a better way of putting
it, the overdrawn balance on the financial resilience reserve.
So that's the cumulative budget gap or funding gap on the revenue budget.
It isn't at all related to the amount of borrowing the council may need to undertake to support
its program.
So other things being equal, if the MTFS as drafted here played out without us making
any additional cost reductions or savings or without additional funding, the trajectory
based on those numbers would be we've got a significant problem that we need to resolve
before the end of the 27 -28 financial year.
If we didn't do anything to resolve it,
we would need to borrow a further £10 million.
Councillor Tony Slater - 2:43:27
No. No?No. That's very clear.
The chief finance officer said no.
It's not about borrowing money.
Cabinet Member - 2:43:33
What that's saying is if we don't do anythingand the government takes the money away from us
that we think they might,
we've got essentially we're £10 million short.
We have to work a way to not get to a figure
where we've not got £10 million.
So we've got to adjust our revenue budget
in order to be able to support it over the next few years.
Chair, I'm interested, it's five minutes from our deadline
and I think there's one more item on the agenda.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:44:00
In fact, we have an extra ten minutes because we had our break,so it goes on to ten past seven.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:44:06
I have been watching the clock.Abundance.
I know, abundance of time, but not an abundance of time.
But the budget is an important draft budget.
It's going to go to cabinet on Thursday.
Was there anything that we're obviously noting what we have found there, whether there is any recommendations anybody wants to put forward?
I'd like to recommend a congratulations. I feel like I've been sitting
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:44:31
in a university level seminar here this afternoon.And I appreciate the quality of questions that have been asked around the Council and I appreciate the quality of answers that have been given.
We know that it's a difficult climate and it's good to know that we are piloting with great care.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:45:01
Thank you. I'm sure that Councillor Eberle will appreciate your approval of that.So thank you, yes. I think that does conclude this topic.
and now we have got both your report and Deliss's report.
Oh no, we've got the work plan first, so sorry.
Yes, work plan ahead of that.
14 Work Plan and Forward Plan
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, David.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Just, I was just gonna make,
as I said, I'd note that the full council's likely
November agenda looks very light.
That's just, I mean, that was just an observation.
and I had made a note and I'm looking at Claire Lock over there,
when we're going to be looking at the updated local plan, maybe,
that's for the ONS forward work.
So has anybody else got anything on the work plan as it is?
Councillor Neill.
Yes, I'm very exercised as you know about the empty properties
Councillor Dilys Neill - 2:46:07
and we were going to originally look at the empty home strategies at thismeeting and it seems to have slipped and there's no longer a date for it.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:46:22
Claire Locke is coming around to resume, sitting beside me, who's much better at this.Cabinet Member - 2:46:30
Thank you chair, it is actually down on the forward plan for January and it saysempty home strategy potential cabinet item to be confirmed so it is penciled
in for January.
I think the work was being done on those strategies,
and they were hoping to bring them forward to that meeting.
So we will certainly get an update to see whether that is
a realistic date, but it is on the work plan,
so it certainly won't be lost.
Thank you very much.
Sorry.
Oh, that says log off.
Oh, dear.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:46:58
I'm not sure if I'm sort of slowly going out back.I don't know what I – oh, there we are.
That looks better.
Yes.
Was there anything else that anybody else had as a comment or something that they would
like to see or hasn't been seeing?
We mentioned earlier the resourcing for ecology, which is sort of – we seem to think we've
to new ecology officers which that may be answering that side of things.
Was there anything else anybody?
No.
So you're happy with what's anticipated going forward.
Yes?
What's the scope of adding things in?
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:47:38
How far advanced do we need to specify?specify and I'm not always clear for example
December 24 cabinet has got an item
Which I guess we're saying we might want to put that in we've got something in the council some items
Are we saying that those are all automatically appearing or they might appear or what actually is it telling us?
I'm gonna ask Claire to give the real answer, but what it is is we are meant to be
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:48:08
mirroring, we're looking ahead to what cabinet and full council do and we're looking at whatthey, so we're looking, but looking obviously in advance because that's the whole value
of it, but we're not necessarily meant to be coming up with something of our own unless
it is, you know, we really do think it has strategic importance, so it's not just one's
own little pet, whatever it might be, it has got to be something which is going to really
contribute to the functioning of the council.
Claire might be a bit more specific,
and I'm making it up as I go along.
I'm not quite.
Thank you.
Yeah, so normally we have a meeting of this committee
Cabinet Member - 2:48:48
around February, March time to set the work planfor the following year.
So it's not a formal meeting like this.
It's a sort of work plan setting meeting
where any sort of technical issues and things
like the waste that's been discussed tonight
was flagged previously, and that's why that was
on the work plan.
So we'll identify those items.
We try and space them out through the year so that you
have even meetings in terms of the amount of work that's
coming before you.
We factor in the regular items like the finance and
service performance data.
And then we scan, we sort of horizon scan in terms of the
cabinet work program to see what items we think this
committee may wish to consider.
So we try and leave gaps when we're planning a long way
in advance.
We try and leave some gaps because obviously we won't
even know necessarily what reports there will be on the cabinet forward work plan six, 12
months in advance. So at this point in time, if there's items that aren't appearing on
this work plan for you for the rest of this year that you can see on the cabinet work
plan, then you can certainly flag those at this meeting. Ideally, we need to know about
a month in advance because obviously we need to line up the cabinet members and the officers
that will come and present those items and we need to give them a fair warning of that
ideally. So if there's anything tonight you want to raise then please do, but equally
if you want to pick that up outside this meeting you can flag that with us and we can see whether
it's an appropriate item to bring to this committee.
Right, well that is, you know, it is, you're given the information
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:50:24
about what's likelyto come forward in cabinet meetings just so that you can look at it.
So it doesn't have to be done just at this meeting, it can be done at any time.
So don't sort of feel that's a restriction.
So thank you for all of that.
I do still say I would like to see more updated local plans, but obviously the MPPF and everything
else is also complicated.
We don't really know where we are exactly perhaps with it at the moment.
15 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees
Right, the last item is the updates from the Gloucester County Council Scrutiny Committee.
I hope I got this thing. It keeps changing its name, so it's either longer or shorter, but more Gs and Cs.
Angus very kindly shared us a report earlier that he put together.
He obviously takes excellent notes through his meetings and puts things together.
Was there anything that you wanted to add that you think would be useful to us?
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:51:32
Chair, can I first of all not say something without actually answering the question youjust accidentally asked, which is just to remind the Scrutiny Committee that the working
group for the area plan specifically focused on Morton has not yet met, just so that we
are aware that that has been postponed since April,
for one reason or another.
I thought what would be best is probably to take questions
if there are any and if I'm capable of answering them,
assuming the report was shared.
I find it ironic that we have a, as you say,
chair that's been renamed.
It's now the Gloucestershire Economic Strategy
Scrutiny Committee.
I find it ironic that a committee that's
called the Gloucestershire Economic Strategy,
doesn't actually think that it is scrutinizing the Gloucestershire
Economic Strategy.
But rather, that it thinks that it's
scrutinizing the city board.
And this is not the same as the Gloucestershire County
and its economy.
It's a subset of that.
So quite how they managed to decide that they would shift it to that and away from Gloucestershire,
and yet nevertheless it is within the terms of reference that it does actually have words that suggest that it is Gloucestershire economic strategy.
Basically it's up in the air and they've got no way to think about what the scrutiny committee is actually scrutinizing.
So I find that a bit disappointing because the point about it isn't just me being pedantic
or clever or any of those things. It is the fact that the scrutiny committee was a means
whereby each of the districts could send a representative to comment on key aspects of
the county strategy as they might affect the individual districts. And so represented on
committee are people from the different districts. So if they should choose to reduce it in function,
if that is the conclusion, then one of the effects would be to reduce the ability of
this district and of this scrutiny committee and council, cabinet, to contribute in that
kind of way. There are obviously councillors who are on the county who can talk and we
have other ways of communicating with them, but it would be that reduction. And I don't
think that that's to be encouraged. That's the main point I want to make. The rest is
detail.
Thank you. Having had that role before, I can say that I can understand the frustration
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:54:25
because you go there, it's a bit of a talking shop and you go away. I shouldn't say that,But there's a lot of interesting information.
But we're not.
Anyway, I think maybe they will make it better now.
And hopefully, with your help, maybe you can guide them.
It's a really important thing.
We are affected by other parts of Gloucestershire
in the economy.
Gloucester County Council is the big spender.
For obvious reasons, there is a great interest.
In the previous role, I changed.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:54:56
I was able to impact the county strategy.So I was able to bring in something that led to, from my point of view,
a significant material change in that strategy.
So it did have...
Thank you.
I wanted to...
Yes.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:55:12
I can't read that upside down, but I'm sure it says...That's me.
Oh, yes.
Councillor Selman.
We are counting down, and I don't want to leave Councillor Neill out,
but certainly Councillor Selwyn.
Briefly, really enjoyed Councillor Jenkins' report,
Councillor Gary Selwyn - 2:55:28
particularly enjoyed the interpretive view.Very helpful indeed.
And reading what you said in between the lines,
very interesting.
My only other observation is that the bigger the Council,
the less failures they do themselves
in trying to allow people even at our level
to understand frankly what the hell is going on
in terms of what department is doing what,
what name change is relevant, which one isn't,
which one is replacing another one when does one report
some of these don't seem to have reported at all this year
from my perspective not having the benefit of being on these
it reads like an absolute mess I absolutely do not have a clear
understanding of what group does what at the county council
that's my observation thank you chair
Thank you for that. Councillor Neill.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:56:19
Sorry, thanks. I apologize, I only sent this today. I'd written it andCouncillor Dilys Neill - 2:56:26
just forgot to sendit, so I apologize. It isn't such an extensive report as Angus's report. Next time I send
it, I'm absolutely happy to put in a lot more detail if you're interested. There's an awful
of interesting stuff comes up.
And I know the NHS is often thought to be top -heavy as far
as regards management, but it's very often the people in
management situations who are dealing with reforms and new
ideas and innovations to make the whole system run better.
So it's very good to hear from them at the HOSC.
So just a couple of things I wanted to draw out.
There's some fantastic new initiatives going on.
So in the ANE department, they set up
this thing called treasure seekers.
I don't know why it's called treasure seekers,
but it's quite often working in the casualty department.
I've worked in casualty.
You get people who come in who are just distressed,
you know, distraught mentally, and they've
got no idea where to go.
And that's not what a casualty department is designed for.
So the treasure seekers is a separate sort
of mental health unit to deal with acute mental health
emergencies as they present to casualty,
which is much more appropriate.
So I was really thrilled to hear about that initiative.
And then the idea of the personalized care,
what matters to me, it's about, yeah,
people with long -term conditions with a limited life expectancy
often.
It's to help people understand, to help health care
professionals understand what the appropriate care
for that person is.
What things do matter to them, to maintain their dignity,
to be at home, to see their grandchildren,
and all that sort of stuff,
I thought that's really a lovely initiative.
So, the demand for the NHS services just continues to rise,
particularly as more interventions are made available.
So, GPs are putting up more and more appointments,
despite the fact that there are interventions in place
to try and reduce the number of GP appointments required.
It's just an ongoing problem,
and we just get reports on that at every meeting.
So we sent, we had a motion at our last meeting
to ask for more information
about ambulance service response times,
and I just wanted, almost my last paragraph,
is just to show you how the ambulance response times
are just not to do with the ambulance service.
there to do with the turnover of patients from hospitals.
So if there are patients that they're called,
no criteria for residents, patients,
they're patients who could be discharged home.
If they're in the beds and you can't move your patient out
of casualty, then the ambulances are
going to be blocked sitting outside the hospitals.
And this particularly happens in Gloucester.
So the fact that there was a major triumph
that the hospital's trust has reduced the number of patients
who are ready to go home but can't be discharged.
There's been a significant reduction.
There's a huge amount of work gone on that.
So obviously, with my medical hat,
there's topics that I wasn't fascinated by.
But if any of you had wanted me to ask any questions
or to ask for anything to be included in the work
plan for the HOSC, please let me know.
and I'll put it forward at the next meeting.
Thanks.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 3:00:10
I just wanted to say that I'm delighted that the CFRs inChippin Can, have raised the 30 ,000 to buy a vehicle.
So they are going to be able to attend.
I know it's not a good, solve all the ambulances,
but they have been really busy.
It's really going to make a huge difference.
And I hope that that is going to get lots of publicity to
to encourage more people to wish to be CFRs and to get,
because it's going to be difficult ever for us to get as
much things, so it's a very good, it is a real help.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 3:00:42
I think I said in the past when I used to be in generalpractice, the GPs used to work as CFRs effectively,
you could be called out of your surgery to do the response,
and then we were on call in the evenings.
And so the changes in, you know, the changes in structure,
I'm not saying that's a bad thing,
but things like the changes in the way general practice is
organised, makes an impact on the ambulance service and everything is so interconnected.
But that's great news.
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