Cabinet

Cabinet
Monday, 10th March 2025 at 6:00pm

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Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mike Evemy

1 Apologies

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Slide 1
Nickie Mackenzie-Daste, Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy

2 Declarations of Interest

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Councillor Mike Evemy

3 Minutes

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Minutes , 06/02/2025 Cabinet

Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
03. Minutes from the meeting held on 6 February 2025
Status: In progress
03. Minutes from the meeting held on 6 February 2025
Status: Ended
Councillor Mike Evemy

4 Leader's Announcements

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5 Public Questions

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6 Member Questions

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7 Schedule of Decisions taken by the Leader of the Council and/or Individual Cabinet Members

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8 Decision taken under the Chief Executive's urgency powers

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CEO Rob Weaver
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
CEO Rob Weaver
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mike Evemy
Public Speaker
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
Councillor Mike Evemy

9 Issue(s) Arising from Overview and Scrutiny and/or Audit and Governance

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10 Ubico Business Plan 2025/2026

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Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Public Speaker
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mike McKeown
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
Councillor Mike Evemy

11 Publica Transition Plan Phase 2

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CEO Rob Weaver
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
CEO Rob Weaver
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
11. Publica Transition Plan Phase 2 - Approve Recommendations 1-4
Status: In progress
11. Publica Transition Plan Phase 2 - Approve Recommendations 1-4
Status: Ended

12 Green Economic Growth Strategy outcome of consultation

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Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mike McKeown
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
12. Green Economic Growth Strategy - Approve Recommendations 2 & 3
Status: In progress
12. Green Economic Growth Strategy - Approve Recommendations 2 & 3
Status: Ended

13 Service Performance Plan 2024/25 Quarter 3

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CEO Rob Weaver
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
CEO Rob Weaver
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Mike McKeown
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Juliet Layton
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:00

Welcome to this evening's meeting of the Cotswold District Council

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:06

cabinet.

1 Apologies

Webcasts are all fine.

So we'll start off with apologies then.

Obviously you can see there's a few of us not here.

Looking over at Nicky, apologies.

Yeah, we've got apologies from Councillor Joe Harris,

Nickie Mackenzie-Daste, Officer - 0:00:23

Councillor Claire Bloomer and Councillor Paul Hodgkinson.

Thank you, Nikki. I remiss and didn't introduce myself. I'm Councillor

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:35

Mike Evamie, the Deputy

Leader of the Council, chairing this meeting in the absence of the Leader.

2 Declarations of Interest

Agenda item 2 is declarations of interest. Do any members or officers have any declarations

they wish to make relating to items to be considered at this meeting.

No?

No one has anything.

3 Minutes

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:59

So we will move on to agenda item 3, which is the minutes on pages 7 to 16 of the papers.

Does anyone have any corrections or questions on the minutes?

No, they don't.

So I think it was Juliette and I were the only cabinet members who were here at the last meeting,

so I'm proposing the minutes from the chair.

Juliette, are you happy to second?

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:01:27

Happy to second, yes.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:01:31

Thank you. And we'll now go to the vote on the minutes.

I think Ollie's going to abstain for the purposes of it would be useful if you were to abstain

on the minutes, if you're happy to do that, if you weren't at the last meeting.

We've got two abstains on the screen and two in favour,

so thank you very much, everybody.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:02:09

So we'll now move on to the next item on the agenda,

4 Leader's Announcements

which is the leader's announcements.

Obviously, the leader isn't here.

I'm the Deputy Leader and I don't have any announcements to make.

5 Public Questions

So, we'll move on to Agenda Item 5, which is public questions.

I'm looking at the gallery.

I don't see any members of the public with us.

There's many officers and other members of council,

but no members of the public.

So, we have, therefore, no questions to be put for us.

Member questions, we haven't had any in advance.

6 Member Questions

We don't have any member questions to consider this evening.

We will move through that item quickly.

7 Schedule of Decisions taken by the Leader of the Council and/or Individual Cabinet Members

So we will now move on to Agenda Item 7, pages 17 to 20, Schedule of Decisions Taken

by the Leader of the Council and or Individual Cabinet Members.

We have got two.

I will just call through them and if anybody wants to say anything about them then if you

just indicate.

So the first one was made by Councillor Juliet Layton and to do with a regulation 16 consultation.

Anybody want to say anything about that?

No.

And then the second one was made by Councillor Paul Hodgkinson and it was about disposal

of three items from the museum.

Nope.

So we're just noting those decisions then.

8 Decision taken under the Chief Executive's urgency powers

We'll now move on to Agenda Item 8,

decision taken under the Chief Executive's Urgency Power.

I'm going to hand over to the Chief Executive

just to explain to us that decision

that he made on our behalf. I think it was last week.

Great. Thanks very much, Chair.

So yes, pages 21 onwards.

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:04:08

outline the use of my urgency powers. So members will recall the Chief Executive has the ability

to use urgency powers in accordance with our constitution, one of which is when there are

deadlines, which unfortunately mean it won't be possible to get an item that we would usually

bring to a cabinet, to said cabinet, in relation to those deadlines. And this is an example

where as a district council we are required to submit to MHCLG our local development scheme,

which in essence sets out what planning reports and planning policies we are looking to

develop and deliver over the next few years. So it's essentially a timetable associated with some of those key policy documents.

MHCLG were requiring that we made that submission by the 6th of March, so clearly 10th of March now

wouldn't have given us any time to meet that deadline had we brought that paper to you.

Hence the reason for my urgency powers. So you can see in the report the

pack and it sets out Section 110 onwards some of the key policies that we would be looking

to consult on over the next few years and essentially sets out a number of key timescales

and deadlines including our supplementary planning document that we're hoping to take

in relation to the Syrins system master plan and some of our partial updates and local

plan progress and processes set out within that report.

So that was the use of my agency powers.

I did clear that down as I am obliged to do with the Vice

Chair of ONS, as the Chair of ONS was out of country,

and out of courtesy mentioned it to the Leader of the Opposition,

as well obviously it was talked to the Leader of the Council,

all of whom were happy for me to use my agency powers

in that context.

Thank you, Jeff.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:05:51

Thank you.

Rob, I've just got, I'll go to Juliet first before

I ask my question.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:06:03

First of all, I think we are missing a letter only. On page 22, 1 .7, it says the aspiration

is to combine the two local plan projects into a single local plan document at a late

date. I probably agree that it is a late date, but I really think we probably want to have

later date written in there, yes? Ironically, it is kind of truthful, but I don't think

quite right. But on run 10, subject to government grant funding agreements, the following time

scales are proposed. So when will we know what we are going to get grant wise and what

can we do if we are short of the funds? Because this is a very serious thing we have got to

get through, I was portfolio holder before.

And things moved very quickly, this moved very quickly.

So my other question as I go forward is,

did we not know that this had to be submitted maybe last month?

And I know we have moved cabinet this month,

but did we not know about it in January or February?

And I do fully appreciate how fast things are moving

and changing. But those are my questions.

If we don't get the grants,

or when do we know when we get the grants,

and have we got the budget,

or can we get it from somewhere else

to actually complete what we need to do?

And certainly for the partial update,

we need to get that.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:07:41

Before I bring Robin to answer,

I'm going to put a supplementary,

which was my question, which is linked to Juliette's,

which is when in 115 talks about the local plans delivery fund 24 -25.

Is that the same thing that we talked about at the budget meeting?

I think it was in answer to a question from Councillor Neill

about whether we were going to get some money for the government to support our work.

And the Deputy Chief Executive said, unfortunately, we're not getting anything.

Is that the same thing?

And I'm conscious, Chief Executive,

that your job is not to do forward planning

and strategic planning.

So there may be some of the reply you're about to give us

that you may need to come back to us

or get a written response back to us

from the relevant officers.

But I'm sure you'll do your best to answer,

Councillor Layton's, in my question.

Yeah, thanks very much for the question.

So probably easy to start in reverse order.

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:08:37

And yes, I believe that was the funding

which we were not successful in getting, but I will obviously confirm that and let members

know. So my understanding is that the timescales set out in 1 .10 are the timescales that the

team feel are achievable in relation to existing resources. If we were able to secure further

government funding, then obviously that would certainly help. And there are a number of

pots that I know the forward planning team are looking at in order to see if we can secure

further funding around that local plan. But one of the things I did pick up with the interim

head of planning and the forward planning manager was some clarity around exactly that.

So my understanding is those timescales are achievable in terms of existing resource because

clearly it would be better to put out the timescales with the resource we've got and

then clearly anything else is a benefit to that rather than putting in the targets should

we be successful in achieving monies that we don't necessarily know we're going to get.

I will come back to you around the question of did we know

that we needed to submit this and what may have prevented

it coming from coming to a previous or subsequent cabinet

depending on where you look at it.

I'll come back to you on that one because I haven't got the

answer to hand.

Thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:09:51

Rob, are there any members have any other questions?

Okay.

So, oh, yeah.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:10:02

I'd just like to make a comment about it.

Only it's really good actually because it feels like

we have made a step forward, you know,

and I've asked questions about it,

but I do feel like we're making steps in the right direction.

And it's really important that we get this through

and everybody gets engaged in it.

And, you know, the supplementary planning documents

are very important as well to help us with our strategy.

So, it's really good to see that it's happening.

Thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:10:30

Thank you

Councillor Coleman would like to say something Councillor Coleman

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:10:40

Patrick you'll need to come somewhere where there's a microphone that's working and we know this is one of these working on the front here

Yeah, come to this one in front of Nikki here

Thank you so much chair

Public Speaker - 0:10:52

It's a very brief but important point locally sciences to town center framework master plan as mentioned at the top of page 25

this is

personal observation and a very, very basic understanding of retail centres and how to

kick short, make certain they're thriving. The time for which, during which retail premises

and commercial premises in Syrinsester Town Centre are actually vacant on average is getting

smaller and smaller. The number of vacancies in Syrinsester Town Centre is unexpectedly

to some degree, getting smaller and smaller.

And having walked around the town, as many of us do,

it occurs to me that our town system master plan

may need some revision or updating to recognise

that in contrast to vast numbers of towns and cities,

I dare say, in the country,

we may actually need a few more retail premises

and we may need to identify areas

for expanding our town centre.

It's all great news for my town, I hasten to add.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Coleman.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:11:54

Clearly, obviously, the provision and that, obviously there's work going on on that.

I'll bring Juliet in in a second. Obviously, there is a second public consultation scheduled to come in the summer.

So I'm sure you can make that point then, Patrick, if you don't feel that there's enough retail in the proposals.

Juliet, did you want to come in?

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:12:18

Well, I was going to say that actually that is a really perfect time to be putting those comments in in consultation

but and the master plan is a really big and

Exciting and innovative set of plans that could happen in Cirencester

So, you know come summer

I hope you get lots of consultation and lots of feedback because there's some really good things going on in there

and as Patrick said the town centre is vibrant and we're really lucky to have

that and to keep it going like that.

Councillor Wilkinson.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:12:52

I'd just like to, one comment on Councillor Coleman's observations and

absolutely to be encouraged I don't think there's any town like ours that

would want to discourage the sort of statistics we've got. I think the one

One thing to add is in consultation with business

owners recently, the sentiment, and I haven't

seen any data, but the sentiment is that the types

of businesses in Simon Sester are very

service orientated.

You know, nail bars, coffee bars, that type of

thing, which is different to how it was 20 years ago.

I'm not suggesting in any way that we try to

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:13:31

manufacture a particular kind of construct of types

of businesses but it would be I think helpful for our resilience and beneficial for the

town to explore how we can encourage more diversity in the future as well. So if there

are things that we are doing particularly well, let's continue to do that. But if there

are other things we could also add on top of that to maybe bring different types of

businesses, I think that would be really helpful as well. As we've seen with recent world events,

I think that the supply chains of businesses are very fragile at the moment. If we are

over -indexed in a particular type of business,

and something happens to the supply chains of that,

that could disproportionately affect us.

So a bit more diversity,

if it can be encouraged in the future, would be brilliant.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:14:18

Thank you, Tristan.

Noting that we're going to have a discussion

about the green economic growth strategy

later on in the agenda, and Paul James is sat behind you,

so we might well pick up some of those points then.

But clearly, obviously, as we referenced,

that there is going to be a public consultation

about the Cirencester Town Centre Framework Master Plan

and those points I'm sure will be raised in that.

So, if there's nothing else to add,

what we're being asked to do is we're being asked

to note the decision that was taken

by the Chief Executive Officer under his urgency powers

as set out in Annex A.

So, there's no need for us to vote on that.

We're just noting that that's what you did.

Thank you, Rob, for doing that on our behalf.

9 Issue(s) Arising from Overview and Scrutiny and/or Audit and Governance

So we'll move on to agenda item 9, which is issues arising from overview and scrutiny

and audit and governance.

We do have recommendations from the overview and scrutiny committee from their meeting

last week.

What I'm intending to do is I will raise them when we get to that point in the agenda, because

they're specifically about two of the items.

So, item, they were in relation to item 11,

the public transition plan,

and item 13, the service performance plan.

So, if cabinet is happy, we'll note that we've had those

and we will consider those when we get to,

and our response when we get to considering

those items on the agenda.

As far as I'm aware, we had nothing from the Audit

and Governance Committee to ask to consider.

So, we'll move on to agenda item 10,

10 Ubico Business Plan 2025/2026

which is the Yubico business plan starts at page 47 of your pack and goes

on to page 70. Thank you we have the managing director of Yubico with us this

evening Beth Boughton. Thank you Beth for coming along and if you would like to

introduce the plan to us. Also we have Councillor Wilkinson's the accountable

member but yeah if you're a give us a brief overview of the plan obviously

we've had the opportunity to have a look at it but anything you really want to

draw our attention to that would be great thank you. Thank you chair and so

Officer - 0:16:36

yes we're presenting the Yubico business plan 25 26 this evening and we're

presenting it as a tackle company owned by our shareholders and it's one of the

matters that the shareholders sign off each year it needs to be signed off in

majority of our shareholders to sign it off and as the shareholder representative for the council,

the leader will sign it off for Cotswold District Council. This is the end of the process. We've done

engagement sessions with the informal cabinet back in December. We did an all member seminar

right at the start of February and that's what leads us to come to the final version of the

business plan which is presented to you tonight. So members have already had the opportunity to go

through it. I probably don't need to do that again. But I'm happy to answer any questions.

And then what we will do is once all of our partner councils have been through their relative

processes, we will issue out a written resolution to the council shareholder representatives,

hopefully for sign off at that point. So unless there are any specific questions, I don't

think I have anything new to call out. Chair, thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:17:41

Thank you, Beth. I'm going to go to Tristan first as the portfolio holder.

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:17:47

No, I think I'd just like to acknowledge that there's a lot

of work that goes into this.

There's a lot of uncertainty around at the moment,

so with finances, with devolution, you know,

there's a lot of moving parts.

We have a fleet that is end of life,

and there's some big decisions that need to be made.

We've had significant sickness in the past that have impacted

service on some of our delivery components.

So there's a lot to be done here.

And I think that, you know, this is a good plan.

You know, it's not particularly revolutionary,

but I think it provides, you know, a really good,

stable basis for making sure that Yubico is in a good,

sound position for whatever comes next.

I guess one question, if I may, Chair,

is when you expect the process to continue,

sorry, to conclude in terms of signatories with the other

Council say kind of it does feel like the plans we've had for quite a long time

I'd imagine you probably feel that more than anybody else, but no

I've got quite close to this over the last couple of weeks, and you know this feels like a sensible

Reflection of where we are as an organization

Officer - 0:19:01

Thank you yeah, I'm looking at the 28th of April so looking at when everybody else is taking it through feels like a long time

But it's always around April May so it's not out the ordinary

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:19:12

Can I just ask a couple of things?

Obviously, as the former portfolio holder who used

to go to those meetings, just a couple of things.

So I think one is in the financial implications,

and obviously it draws to members' attention there

that we're spending nearly 8 .9 million pounds on our

waste and recycling service that you provide on our

behalf at UBCO, which is the single biggest

expenditure of this council and obviously we as you know Beth and as the

other colleagues know we have a financial challenge particularly coming

with expected reduction in grant from the government and I suppose and it's

referenced in here that we've we have we had an aspiration to save three hundred

thousand pounds from our street services I don't think we've quite got there yet

I don't know if Beth if you're able to give us any sort of,

I guess me particularly, any comfort that we will get there

with that because essentially, you know, we are spending,

I think it's over a million pounds on street services

and we feel that we could do it more efficiently

from those conversations that we've had together.

So I'd be keen to hear from you

about how you see that going forward.

Yeah, and I was also very, I was pleased to see

The other thing was listed on the bullet points

in paragraph 3 .2, the customer journey project.

I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about that,

because that's something that certainly when I was a

portfolio holder I was talking to certainly colleagues

at Publica about.

I don't know, it might be a Publica question,

so forgive me if it is, on where we are with that,

as clearly you know Tristan has referred to in it we've had some challenges in

terms of when we made the change to the collections but I'm very pleased to say

you know we are secure that we've saved half a million pounds for the council

through making those changes earlier in the summer of last year but I was very

conscious that we wanted to pick up the issues that residents raised with us

about some of the reporting issues and that customer journey works really

important so that we can improve that journey for when we don't

manage to collect people's bins on the day we tell them we're

going to.

Thank you.

Officer - 0:21:41

I'll take them back to front just whilst that's fresh in my

mind.

It is probably a publicer question because they are, they

lead on the journey, the customer interaction side of

things.

However, it's something that we obviously work on together

because we have all of the data that comes in at our end that

has to get to you before you can give it back to the residents.

And the improvements that we've been making together around digitising our processes really

help with that.

They help with information flow, they've helped with the immediate access to what's been happening

on the ground on the day for your customer services teams as well as for us.

So all of that in the background is facilitating that to hopefully then be able to give more

timely information back.

But as to the actual where they are on that journey, yeah, that would be a publicer question,

sorry.

On that one, the Streets project is underway, having a look at how we can do that differently.

There is, whenever we do a project like this, quite an element of work around gathering data about what we are currently doing

to make sure that we know what we are starting from and what we are changing, rather than just leaping in and changing everything

without having that foundation first. So that project, it is underway, so it hasn't been delivered yet, but it's not been forgotten or on the back burner.

It is in train.

Thank you Beth. I'm sure it won't be forgotten by me or by Councillor Wilkinson.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:23:00

So both of those projects we will pick those up. I'm sure he will with with public colleagues particularly.

Councillor Coleman would like to say something and then I'll go to Councillor Layton.

Then Councillor End. Can you come to the front? I don't think that mic is on, Patrick.

Public Speaker - 0:23:29

Chair, unfortunately I couldn't miss the opportunity. Fortunately I'm able to take

the opportunity to say how much I continue to admire the leadership of Ubico, but balancing

that to some degree. It's the fact that I am still having multiple missed collections

in my ward of Stratton, the finest part of Syrinsester, on a Friday. Unlike other days

of the week, nobody comes round on Saturday to collect them or on Sunday and indeed some

of them are still there Monday, including Councillor Robbins's two green bins. I can't

think of a good excuse why they were waiting until Tuesday and I know it might be difficult

and I know there's a long management chain involving public error, all of which have

had their issues.

And there's a Freedom of Information request,

which has not been dealt with by one of my more beautiful

constituents, and we're outside the timeline on that.

So it's not without its trivial end,

but it's not trivial really.

It's just small scale compared with strategy.

Could I make one strong suggestion that we look at a

short overtime shift on a Saturday to clear up the

Fridays, because it's very different knowing that your

but bins have got to be out for three days waiting for a collection or even

four in this case as opposed to the other days of the week when there's a

very good chance they'll be picked up within 24 hours. So simple bit of customer

service as a suggestion I don't require any kind of serious answer now other

than a brief acknowledgement that it's a long time since last August when I think

this was introduced and we really ought to try and get it right within 12 months

of starting. It's not much of an ask, thank you.

Thank you Councillor Coleman. I'm conscious that they're delving into the service performance

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:25:11

which is the last item on the agenda. So if other people who want to comment want to comment

more on service performance I would welcome that conversation then rather than now necessarily.

But I'm sure Beth has heard the point and so has the portfolio holder. I think we get

it Patrick. But we want to make sure that the service is at the standard that people

expect but I will go to councillor Layton was it on that or can we pick it

up under the service performance?

It's not about service performance.

Go ahead.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:25:41

Firstly I'd like to say about well it is slightly about customer service which is what we were

talking about before is that Yubico do an exemplary service when there are

emergencies and they you know they come out to villages and they help with

flooding and pumping and cleaning up and they're really supportive of villages so

it's a different way I understand people's frustrations about bins and

collections etc so it's not about that I just wanted to commend them for the

actual very good community feel that they have with our residents. My

question is on page 56 or page 18 of yours maybe Beth we've got a very nice

picture about our services showing us all the bins but we've also got a big

trade waste and recycling collections so I know about recycling collections I'm

just wondering about the trade waste which we don't have and would be

lucrative does that I don't think that comes under us service bit later I'm

just questioning that thank you before I bring Beth in it's something that I've

certainly had conversations about and I think you're probably gonna tell us you

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:26:56

do that for some of the other partner councils,

but not for us at the minute.

And I think that, yeah, but I'll let Beth answer the point.

Thank you.

Yes, we do do it for other partner councils.

It is their trade -waste service that we deliver on their behalf

Officer - 0:27:10

rather than UBICO's trade -waste service.

We looked some years ago at delivering a UBICO trade -waste

service, but in a very saturated and very competitive market,

it wasn't deemed to be something that was actually

going to be as lucrative as you would expect.

The other challenge is that if you want a trade waste collection, you don't want it once a fortnight when we're passing with the domestic crew.

So it sounds like we'd just pick it up as we trundle past, but people tend to want it once a week or twice a week.

So it would be an entirely different service.

So that's why it hasn't come to fruition, if you like, for all of those reasons.

Thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:27:48

Councillor McEwen.

Councillor Mike McKeown - 0:27:53

So we've discussed quite a lot before with UBCO and partners

on the importance of waste fleet decarbonization.

So I think we've had good discussion, so more for the

record really to make sure we keep a strong focus on that

in a couple of respects.

One is it is our single biggest carbon footprint as a council

by a long, long way.

So dealing with that, you know, if we're going to meet our

targets, that has to be part of the plan.

and clearly it's a complex one because of the whole devolution, the devolution thing.

I guess the key point is, you know, what we want to aim for is, you know, an oven -ready plan to

paraphrase another politician, but hopefully a rather better one than the other that you've

used that in the past, which would be at the very least when the new unitary forms,

that they have something that they can act on pretty much immediately,

that you know the whole details from infrastructure to the waste fleet itself

to the routing to the charging infrastructure to partnering with

community energy to provide low -cost energy the whole thing is ready to go and

can be enacted almost immediately particularly for us at Cotswolds that's

important because the legacy will leave is if we if we delay that planned

transition and are running on an old and possibly unreliable fleet by

that point in time because we've waited, it'll need to be acted on quite quickly,

otherwise costs will rise and service quality will drop, so that that would be

pretty important. The other aspect of it which would be good, I think we could get

out of this by, you know, fully planning it out with a fully costed ROI model

would be, are there early opportunities? I mean one of our problems is we're

stressed with our finances, particularly in latter years on the budget, as you

highlighted Mike the single biggest cost the council has is running the waste fleet the fuel is a big part of that and

There's no secret electric vehicles are much cheaper to run on fuel if done

Well, yeah cost me five pounds to fill my car up. It would cost ten times that amount in diesel

We would so we could get potentially big savings on our running costs. We can probably

Electric vehicles are generally much cheaper to maintain

as well so there may be early opportunities possibly to bring you know

capital in if it gives a good ROI we won't know that what that ROI is without

you know an actual spreadsheet with the whole thing worked out and some of that

has to be holistic you know do we work with community energy or commercial you

know to plug our waste depots directly into nearby solar farms or wind farms

and get very, very cheap electricity,

which could cut our running costs dramatically

rather than off the grid.

So I think there's a big opportunity.

And I know, Beth, the team is working on it.

I think we'll have budget proposals coming up,

because as it costs as part of my role in climate leadership

Gloucestershire, we know there's some budget that needs to be put

aside to get some consulting in as the whole of Gloucestershire

to look at this plan and bring people in with expertise to do

what isn't a simple task, but a really,

vital one to help our costs and to help us meet our climate targets and make

sure our service stays you know reliable and cost effective so good to capture

that. Thank you. Thanks Mike thanks very much for having Beth in to respond yeah

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:31:27

I'm just yeah very aware you know we've we've got prospective local government

reorganization but we've got a service that we need to continue to provide to

residents and you know then then we've also got to see if we can do that more

cost -effectively and reduce the climate impact you know this mic is just brought

to our attention brought to us very clearly so all of those things are

running probably in tandem now for the next couple of years it'll be probably

in about a year's time that we'll have clarity hopefully over whether the

formation of the new council that's going to succeed this one and hopefully

a timeline that we then can work to. But I'm very conscious in all the

conversations I've had with UBCO and with public privacy around and

looking at the budget, the money we have in our capital program and it's five

million pounds in the 26 -27 financial year which is not far away.

So, yeah, before I, Beth, it would be useful to give us your response to, particularly

to what Mike has just said.

You know, I know that you and your team are working on this and you work with other partner

councils on similar things.

So, it would be useful to hear from you and then I think we've probably at that point

let you go.

So, yeah, please give us your view.

Thank you.

Thank you. I think as was just alluded to, you can demonstrate a business case for buying

Officer - 0:32:58

a vehicle and then it paying back over its lifetime. It's the infrastructure and putting

that in place that is often we are finding is that gap. We've been talking to the climate

leadership group via the climate officers at the county council because we've got a

problem at all of our depots because if we plug in the trucks we'll black out the local

town. We don't want to do that. We have to have the right infrastructure to be able to

charge them and therein lies the cost.

Before we even get to that, we need

to know what that infrastructure could look like,

what the wider network can provide or not,

and what our opportunities might be.

So that's what we're sort of alluding to there

about a bit of consultancy work.

But we'd like to do that across Gloucestershire, not just

piecemeal with each of our partners.

The other thing we've been doing, we've got one of our partners

has bought two HGV electric vehicles.

We've had those on the road since August.

So we will start to have real data.

So instead of case studies and that sort of thing,

actual data of Yubico running them in quite a rural environment actually and

so that also is being looked at in the background of course with our offices

and with them to say well what does this look like what is the business case for

this and how does that map across all of Gloucestershire and all of our partners

on West Oxfordshire as well so a lot of work going on in the background there.

Thank you Beth not quite finished with you because Councillor Edens wants to say

something so it might ask you to respond depending what she says.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:34:18

Thank you chair

Officer - 0:34:20

actually it's not for you Beth it's the cabinet really my plea is that

connection in with Public Air who are currently dealing with the you know the

website ultimately that that issue so I have a similar issue on a Friday our

collections are a Friday in Tepray you can't do anything till four o 'clock on a

Friday afternoon. Quite often I am dealing with residents who are

contacting me over the weekend because the roads aren't showing on the website on the Monday morning the roads still aren't showing I

Have a specific problem Road, which just happens to be by my own house

And I look for it

You know and straight away it comes up and that's a particular problem for the green bins because it now it's a paid for service

That's I mean obviously that's like service performance

but my plea is to cabinet to make sure that we get this reporting right for our residents because

I'm going on on a Monday morning, and I can't see the roads that I know are missed

Nice, maybe some of that's because it's a Friday. I don't know but it's it's not right. It's clearly not right

Thank You Nikki and sorry to hear about that

I'm going to ask council Wilkinson to follow that up and if you want

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:35:33

to respond now, but obviously with officers

following this discussion and obviously with the points made by Councillor Coleman as well.

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:35:43

Just to, Nicky, I'm well aware of this and I think Fridays are a particular frustration for all of the reasons highlighted.

We are having conversations about how we can be more accurate and in particular pay more attention to rounds that have repeated issues.

because I think there are several things that frustrate people.

If it happens once, most people kind of give us the benefit of the doubt and go, you know, it's just bad luck.

If it happens several times, particularly with a paid -for service, that's the thing that really grates,

and that's generally when they get on the phone or on their keyboard to me.

And so I think Fridays are a particular problem.

It would be great to understand root cause of that.

So are there some underlying issues?

And Beth and I can pick that up later.

You know, is there a reason for that?

I don't know.

But we do need to look into that.

Because it's, I guess if I was to kind of analyze my inbox,

it's probably 50 percent of the complaints I get about the

service relates to Friday.

So something's going on.

Okay.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:36:48

Noting, thanks, Tristan, that the resolution of the Cabinet is

to note the draft Yubico business plan for 25 -26.

And we're noting that the leader is the shareholder representative

and it will be up to him to sign the written resolution

to approve the draft plan by the 28th,

whenever you need him to do it.

I think the backstop that everyone has to do it

was by the 28th of April, if I picked that up right, Beth.

So, thanks, folks. We don't have a formal vote

because it's down to the leader to do that.

But thanks, Beth, again, for coming along this evening.

11 Publica Transition Plan Phase 2

Right, we will then move on to Agenda Item 11, Public Transition Plan Phase 2.

So that is on page 71 of the papers.

So this is, was presented, this document was presented last week to the Overview and Scrutiny

Committee and I attended that meeting deputizing for the leader of the council.

Also Rob's chief executive was there and Andrew Pollard who's the interim

program director for the program. This report and this decision will be made

by full council decision at our meeting next week on the 19th of

March and Andrew gave a presentation at the ONS committee which I understand from

discussion with the leader he will be able to do similar next week if that's

the wish of council. Looking over at the chair over there obviously a matter a

matter for her but essentially this is a very big decision to take in terms of

this the development and the transition of staff from Publica back to the

So what I think we have obviously is a series of recommendations asked for

recommendations for us asking us to make to put forwards to Council. We also have

three recommendations from the overview and scrutiny committee so I don't know

I'm looking over at Committee Nikki in terms of

the visibility of these for anybody trying to

follow what we're saying online.

So I'll read them out, so make it clear.

They're relatively short.

So the first recommendation was from the

OV and Scrutiny Committee that consideration be

given to what phase three of the publicer transition

may look like in view of local government

reorganization.

The second one was that the council undertakes an

annual review of the public a transition.

And the third one is that consideration is given

to wider communications about the public a transition

to the public and town and parish councils

following the pre -election period

for the County Council elections.

So those are, we'll come back in terms of our response

to those in a minute, but I'm gonna pass over now

to the Chief Executive if he wanted to draw our attention

to any particular parts of the paper,

And then I'll open it for members for questions

and comments, and I'll come back with the recommendations

that I'm proposing that we take in response

to the ONS committee suggestions.

Thank you, Chair.

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:40:22

And firstly, thank you to Cheryl, Michelle, David,

and others who have been involved in supporting

Andrew as part of the program team to pull

this report together.

So a lot of this will look very familiar to members

because you'll have seen the phase one transition plan,

plan, which set out back in November, October -November time, how we planned to transition a number

of services back to the council. So the format is the same, the justification is the same,

a lot of the rationale is the same, but clearly the service areas are different. So it's probably

worth highlighting that one of the key differences in relation to phase two, in light of local

government reorganisation and devolution discussions, we along with our partner councils need to

think very carefully about the timing of unpacking some of those service areas. And in summary

what that means is that the list of services that will now be transitioned as part of Phase

2 is shorter than originally envisaged because it's very much based on political priority

or cost. And so waste is a very good example. We know that currently Yubico as a contractor

are managed by Publica as a contractor and sometimes we can feel a little bit arm's length

from some of those negotiations and discussions.

That's no criticism, it's just the reality

of how the current system works.

And if we're looking to do waste in a different way

or have more control over how some of those services

operate, it's effectively a good idea to consider waste

and recycling as one of those key services

that's coming across.

So along with waste, we've also got leisure,

which is another one of our key areas in terms of making

sure that we're contractually managing that correctly.

We've got project management, which does what it says on the tin, and it's incredibly important

to deliver your corporate plan priorities.

And we've also got property and assets.

So the list is slimmed down somewhat, and there's been a lot of staff communications

around what's resulted in that slimmed down list, but that's the reason why you may see

a shorter list than was originally set out as part of the Phase 1 transition.

The business case sets out and again reminds members about some of the key reasons why

we're looking to bring the services back.

And again, the financial implications will set out

the costs associated with that phase two transition.

So we've got Michelle in the room who I'm sure can support me

if there are any questions around the finances.

And we've got Cheryl as one of the program team managers

who I'm sure can help with any technical questions

around the process.

What I would say, and it's deliberate,

is there is an absence of any staffing structures in here.

And that is deliberate because, again, as per phase one,

we've got to be very careful that we don't start

inadvertently straying into protected conversation territory.

That's why those structures aren't included.

But again, we've worked very closely with the program team

to work up what structures we're going to need as part of Phase 2.

It's more complex than Phase 1 because most of the roles in Phase 2

are what's called fragmented.

So the staff in the majority of those areas work across more than one council,

in some cases all three, whereas a lot of the staff involved in Phase 1

were predominantly working for one council.

So the fragmentation process has created complexity

and what that's resulted in, so taking waste and recycling as an example,

is where there may well have been a third of a resource available to the council.

We've clearly had conversations around how we need to resource to have a whole person

doing one of those important roles.

So that has been set out and clearly that's reflected in the costs

and that's made it slightly more complex for HR and the programme team than it was around phase one.

I think, Chair, I'll leave it up there and take any questions that members may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. Looking at colleagues. Tristan.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:44:09

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:44:11

Since we started this, Rob, do you think the risk profile of this transition has changed in any significant way?

So now that sort of phase one is done, have we learnt anything from that that we take forward into phase two that, you know, with hindsight means that we might want to approach things slightly differently?

Yeah, it's a really good question. So what we have done actually is part of the lessons learned.

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:44:37

So we've done a staff survey where we asked all staff involved in the phase one repatriation to give us their thoughts and views around how well they felt or otherwise that transition had gone.

And there were a series of questions about how supported did they feel as part of that

process, how good were the communications, how good was the managerial and leadership

support that you received during that process.

And I've had the results and I'm happy to say that in the main the staff felt supported.

One of the areas which we knew we could work on was around the communications.

So members will recall that we were using the Publica communications team to help us

deliver the messaging around Phase 1.

Now clearly that created some difficulties because they were a public communications

team and some of the messaging needed to come from the councils.

So they were sometimes caught in the middle of how best to communicate.

Essentially comms were one of the teams that were involved in the phase one transition.

Since then we've obviously brought the communications team back and we've now got a CDC comms team

and I think that has helped and will help as we go on around landing the messages with

the CDC staff.

So that's one of the things which we've heard and we've actioned.

I think the other risk profile has changed is clearly when we were doing phase one and in start of phase two,

there were a number of services that were going to remain in public for the foreseeable future.

That has now changed because in the same way that district councils will cease to exist as we know them,

so it's highly likely public will cease to exist.

So some of the risk profiling has been how do we move now into a mindset of preparing

for that future and transitioning staff for that future, which we may not necessarily

have had to have done to that extent as part of Phase 1.

So those are a couple of areas where I think that risk profiling has changed.

Thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:46:27

Rob, I've got a couple of things really.

I think obviously I was able,

said I went along to the overview

and scrutiny committee last week

and spent about an hour together with Rob

and Andrew Pollard answering their questions.

And I'll thank them for that.

I always enjoy going to the ONS committee

and hearing what they've got to say

and seeing them do their job effectively in questioning,

particularly in this instance,

I guess the officers who've been leading these discussions

together with our partner councils. And I think important thing to say is that

obviously as was brought out in that discussion is that it's a jointly owned

company and we have to move in step with our partner councils to make these

changes and we are all making, needing to make decisions in March in order that

then our officers at the individual three councils can then get along and

implement those, the phase two transition.

But for me, I think I just wanted to, I guess, highlight,

I thought three of the bullet points in paragraphs,

4 .2, and they're not numbered.

But, you know, to remind colleagues

as to why we're doing this, because clearly, you know,

we've got local government reorganisation coming up,

but, you know, that's not absolutely certain

it's going to happen, but it's more likely than not,

and the government have a big majority,

and they said they want to do it.

But at the end of the day, we are doing this,

and I think the key things for me within those,

the rationale was, the first one,

a more focused and defined approach

to driving the delivery of the Council's priorities

as set through the Council plan.

We know how hard it's been sometimes

to get our priorities implemented

in the current structure.

The second one, enabling performance and value for money

to be more clearly defined and measured

by the Council.

We're going to come on and talk about performance in a minute

in the next, in the report we've got later.

And I think also, you know, the other one I've picked out

is greater responsiveness and agility

so as to be able to give member priorities,

deliver member priorities,

and adapt to changing circumstances.

By having those key functions

within the direct control of this Council,

those I believe are the three principle reasons

why we should move ahead with phase two of the public

transition.

We recognise it will cost a little bit more than the

current structure and I'm sure we'll debate that next

week at the council in terms of whether that's

value for money and whether we should be doing that.

But in my view it absolutely is.

And as I said to the councillors on the overview

and scrutiny committee last week, you know, we as an

administration worked very hard to work with the publica model.

We inherited it, it wasn't our choice,

but we absolutely tried to make it work

alongside delivering our objectives.

And this is no criticism of the officers

that work within publica,

very diligent officers working on our behalf

and still are working on our behalf.

But the structures as they were set up,

initially they were set up,

essentially a very weak council model.

And when we sought to change that,

and then we sought to make changes

in terms of setting corporate objectives,

we found that it was very difficult

to get the resourcing to be able to do that.

And so we've had to make decisions over time

to put in extra resource to make that happen.

But I think we all recognise where we are now,

financially, with the challenge.

And was the other big thing that was on my mind

when talking to ONS at the last time I looked at this,

I think the phase one was actually we are going to need

to make substantial savings

and we need to be almost in charge of our own destiny

on that and within the public structure.

That was very, very difficult to foresee

how we could be able to do that.

Notwithstanding the fact that public have provided savings

and some very significant ones at that,

particularly around the contact centre and others,

but they weren't at the scale that we're going to need

to potentially consider.

So those for me were the reasons

why we should move ahead with phase two.

And obviously we'll have that debate at the council next week.

Was there any other colleagues that wish to say anything

on this item?

Juliet?

Well, only that I'm going to second this anyway.

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:51:15

And what I would like to say is,

I think it's really important to go through with this.

It is good to see it here.

Yes, we have acknowledged the fact

that it is going to be delivering all the things

that we have looked at in our corporate plan

and our strategies,

but I would also like to say that the people in phase one,

the staff and the officers seem very happy

with what they have got and where they are now.

And there are people who thought they were going to be in phase

two and aren't and are going, why aren't we there?

And for all the reasons that we have set out,

I understand that, but actually it's been I think very good,

and this we will know better with data later,

but it seems that recruitment is easier.

I think retaining staff will be equally as important and easier.

So for those reasons alone I think it's really good,

because if we've got happy people working here

and having a sense of place and value,

and all our staff are valued as you said,

But it was just that model of publica

that we didn't particularly value.

But I'm very happy to second this.

I'm very supportive of it going through.

And seeing phase three coming hot on its heels, I hope.

But with everything changing, we don't know quite the dates.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:52:41

Thank you, Juliette.

Picking up the point about phase three,

we're now going to read out the response to the recommendations

from the overview and scrutiny committee.

So the first one was about phase three, and the response

is a key dependency for any phase three is local

government reorganisation.

CEOs of the public accounts or shareholders will begin

to give thought to options concurrently with

discussions on local government reorganisation

with an options paper to be brought back to Cabinet

about phase three.

So that's the first one about phase three and

public transition and local government reorganisation.

The second one, a key aspect of the public transition was to develop services more focused

to the locality and so improve performance.

It's too early to judge performance at this stage, therefore the key is to review this

in early 2026 when performance data should be available and 12 monthly thereafter.

So that was raised by Councillor Spivey at the ONS committee which the committee agreed

with.

Let's look at how phase one is done after a year and then the suggestion we now

Recommendation is that we look at it on an annual basis after that. I think we will see we want to potentially

Plug in phase two after a year and see how that is developing the performance

And we'll pick some of that up obviously in our regular performance monitoring

but to have a specific focus on those services that have transitioned and what's happened to them since they transitioned and

And the third one was about Town and Parish Councils and public. This presents an

opportunity for the Council to explain the rationale for a locality focused

service delivery that's aligned to the corporate plan objectives. Following the

County Council elections there's an opportunity for the Council to

communicate its goals for delivery of these objectives and how the

repatriation of services is supportive of this. If the leader were here I'm sure

would also want to say about the opportunity to discuss with town of

parish councils what local government reorganization could mean for them in

terms of if unitary councils replace the county and us as district councils

you know inevitably that will mean a greater role and it has done in those

where that's happened in other places for town councils particularly but also

for the potentially for the larger parishes as well. So that's the response

which I think you've got and we can add up onto the website,

can't we, Nicky, at some point relatively soon?

So the recommendations are those on page 71,

and I'm proposing having Juliette seconded,

so we're particularly pushing that they are.

To approve the implementation of phase two

of the public transition,

this is to recommend full council, I should say,

on the basis of the phase two transition plan.

To delegate to the chief executive in consultation

with the leader the decision to deal with any final detail matters arising from phase two transition plan

to delegate authority to the director of governance in liaison with the leader to update the constitution

By making the consequential changes required as face

the result of phase two of the public transition and

Fourthly to carry out a budget rebasing for the 26 27 financial year

So the funding provided to publica is proportionate to the services received

I have moved, Juliette seconded.

We will now take the vote, please.

You are not against, Tristan.

Good.

All right.

Thank you very much, colleagues, on that one.

12 Green Economic Growth Strategy outcome of consultation

So, we'll now move on to agenda item 12,

which is the Green Economic Growth Strategy, page 103.

Tristan, I think you're going to introduce this,

and we've got Paul James sat behind you

to answer any tricky questions that we may have.

Over to you, Tristan.

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:56:48

Thank you. Yeah, I'm really pleased to present this.

This is something I'm really passionate about.

It absolutely supports our kind of core agenda as an organisation.

It's largely a continuation of the previous strategy that was from 2020 to 24.

That's been largely successful over the period.

I think that having a specific forward plan for this is really, really important.

It's bringing a lot of vibrancy.

it's helping to bring diversity and different sorts of organisations together.

Paul and I have met with local businesses over the last couple of months.

There's real passion and enthusiasm for this area.

I think as an organisation, as a council, facilitating that passion,

helping to allow organisations locally to reach their full potential

is absolutely what we should be doing.

We have had a consultation recently.

It's fair to say it hasn't set the world alight in terms of

responses, but that was understandable.

Most of them, the responses we did have referred to the

Together Gloucestershire Initiative,

which was designed to keep spend within the county.

That's something we are looking at.

We need to make sure that kind of any investment is kind of,

creates a sort of more circular spend and reinvestment within the organization.

I'm also pleased to report that the council sponsored a bid by Together Gloucestershire

to the county's strategic economic development fund which was approved last week's city regional

board meeting so that's good news. It's also important to acknowledge the difficult time

for many businesses locally so one of the things we have been talking about is how we can develop

the theme of resilience this year.

Just acknowledging the reality that we've heard from some local

businesses that their kind of internal motto is survive 25.

Not necessarily the most inspiring kind of motto,

but I think it just reflects that with national insurance

contributions, with changes in rents,

just with everything that's going on in the world,

there's an awful lot for businesses to consider.

and the one thing most businesses really need is stability and continuity.

So any sort of change creates costs and uncertainty for them.

That said, there's a lot to point out that is going on really well locally.

We've already heard about utilisation and occupancy rates within Cirencester.

I think they're one of the best in the country and we should absolutely reflect the reasons for that

and that's something to be celebrated.

I'm also optimistic about the longer term for the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire.

The Missing Link 417, the Royal Agricultural College's Innovation Village proposal, which

I would love to see come to fruition in its current and original proposed form.

I think that could really kind of create some excitement locally, so I really welcome having

and ongoing discussions with the RAU about what their vision is going to be for that.

I'm going to leave it there. I'd like to thank Paul as well, just acknowledge him publicly.

Paul does a really good job in representing this council to local businesses.

He's a really good advocate for the best of us. He's trusted. I think he knows his brief.

and I think we're lucky to have somebody in this area that you know is really

passionate and speaks with authority which is really important the one thing

that businesses are pretty good at is that smelling out BS and Paul doesn't

smell of BS.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:00:48

There right Paul you don't smell of BS I don't know if you have said anything

that you wanted to add to that praise that you got from your cabinet member

Even if it's around the back end.

I can leave it at that, actually,

but no, I'll answer any questions if there are.

Officer - 1:01:04

Okay, thank you.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:01:05

I've just noted a couple of things from me.

There's, on your introduction, Tristan,

I think the tense needs to change

on a couple of the things,

but I'm noting that we're agreeing

to delegate your authority to Rob,

together with you, to sort of make any text amends,

because it's sort of yeah there's something says will expire in December

24 and things like that so just need to update update that sort of stuff.

She's now gone, Councillor in, but I noticed that she was there. They're pictured

together with Councillor Mark Harris in the toilet on page 18 of the report. The

changing places toilet in the Abbey grounds for those of you who haven't

seen the document together with the Mayor of Cyrus Estes at the time but you

Just one of the big things I think about attracting

external funding, which is one of the key things that Paul

and other officers have done for us in using that external

funding to the benefit of our communities.

So I didn't have any questions for Paul.

I'll go to Mike.

Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:02:13

I also wanted to add my thanks particularly to Paul,

but also some of the other officers who were involved

in last week's Drive and Thrive event which is connected to this because it was very much with

local businesses and partners where Paul played a big part along with Justine and Olivia and

the comms team who did a fantastic job getting lots of members of the public into Syrinsester

Center for the event that we filled. Syrinsester Market Square with electric vehicles and people

We were test driving them around the area.

We had a busy trade show in the corn hall

with said local businesses.

Big thanks to Paul for getting so many of them interested.

And we were holding talks upstairs

on a whole range of subjects.

So we were talking about how to make your home more energy

efficient and cut your bills, how

to cut your carbon footprint, make it warmer and cozy,

as well as getting electric vehicles.

And some of my local business partners

were also presenting at that.

a nice event and I think ties very much into your message,

Christian, about sustainability and it very much is the lot we

can do locally, our carbon footprint.

The Cotswolds is number one, it's our transport, our cars,

and number two, it's our homes.

So number three, it's actually the businesses including

agriculture, so all together I think we can do a lot that has

the benefit both to the climate but also makes us more

sustainable, you know, from an economic perspective.

So I'm very supportive of this as well.

So thank you very much to Tristan and the officers.

Thanks Mike.

Juliet.

Yes, thank you.

Well, that sounded like a really great thing,

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:04:03

Councillor Juliet Layton - 1:04:04

which sadly I couldn't come to,

but I would, I'd like to acknowledge

and just bring to highlight really Cotswold Lakes,

which is on page 118 as one of the local key assets.

I think it might be at the top of the page alphabetically.

I know Cotswold Airport would be earlier.

So maybe it's just the best.

But Cotswold Lakes has changed its name to Cotswold Lakes

from the Cotswold Water Park.

And that was launched at the end of February as a big launch.

And there are so many businesses across the Cotswold,

our lake area and Wiltshire.

And it's good to see that coming together.

and they're very excited and really driving and striving to be viable and

they play such an important role in our tourism and in our leisure for the

locals as well. And I hope and I know that Paul has been and visited most of

these people and knows them all but what I'd like to see with this vibrancy

that's going on and the excitement that's going on is that our outside

agencies say oh actually we need good bus services we need to get our people

coming in and getting transport from Kemble to get them into the lakes to get

them around move people around and move people around safely and it's you know

we've got things going out there and we're talking about it and the more

information and news there is the more chance we have of getting that sort of

infrastructure in. So yeah thank you for that. I'm thinking of putting this at the

top of the page. I looked at it as somebody who works on things like this and

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:05:50

then reviews them and I thought that's artistic. It's a layout thing to do

with the where the images and the other two area but you know you can take it

take the credit for being on the left -hand side but not to say that the

airport and the fire service college aren't really important as well. So I

I just wanted to add my thanks to Paul for all the work that he's done, for Tristan on

leading from this, and it would be remiss of me not to mention Councillor Tony Dale,

who we all wish to see back very soon, who was obviously instrumental in our work on

economic growth for five years at this Council, and we hope to see him back working with us

soon.

But thank you for Paul and for Tristan for taking on the role

that Tony was doing with regards to economic development,

but for you continuing the legacy of his work and bringing

this strategy to us this evening to agree.

So I've got the recommendations on page 103.

I've got Tristan proposing them and Mike seconding.

Do you just want to formally agree that's what you're doing?

Yep.

Mike, you're seconding the recommendations, yep.

And we're just asking to note the results of consultation

on the Green Economic Growth Strategy 2025 -29,

agree to adopt the strategy subject to the changes

set out in section four of the report,

and delegate authority to the chief executive

in consultation with cabinet members

for the economy and environment to make final amendments

to the strategy before publication.

Can I open the vote, please, Gabriel?

Thank you.

That's four in favour.

None against.

Thank you very much, everybody.

13 Service Performance Plan 2024/25 Quarter 3

So we'll now move on to our final item on the agenda, which is the Service Performance Plan.

This was also went through Overview and Scrutiny for pre -review last week.

And we do have one recommendation from

overview and scrutiny, which I will read out,

and then we'll consider it, and then I'll give

the response at the end as I did on the earlier item.

So the recommendation from overview and scrutiny

was that a review is undertaken of the

performance indicators used to measure the waste

collection service with a view to supply in the

overview and scrutiny committee with additional

data brackets already collected slash measured by UBICO,

close brackets, that gives a more accurate picture

of collection performance.

We have Gemma is here and Colin is over there.

So, I don't know how you wanted to present this.

Obviously, the leader of the council is the accountable member.

But you're all going to kick us off, are you, Rob, on this?

Okay, we'll hand over to you.

Thanks, Chair, and yes, thank you to Gemma and Alison for all your hard work collating

CEO Rob Weaver - 1:08:54

all the information and being on hand to answer any technical questions that might be on this

one.

So this is the point at which I always remind members that we're reporting on this retrospectively,

so where necessary in the report you'll see an up -to -date update which sets out the current

position because clearly this is a report of quarter three.

So I'm just going to take a couple of minutes to talk about some of the highlights and also

some of those lowlights, as I usually do.

So some of the highlights on progress against actions during this quarter include, as we

heard earlier, employees during Phase 1 have now been successfully transitioned to the

Council and a detailed transition plan for Phase 2 will be presented to March Council.

The Council has partnered with Gloucestershire authorities to launch retrofit support service,

which went live on 22 January.

This service offers efficiency plans, project specifications and basically is designed to

be a one -stop shop for residents to get all their retrofit questions answered.

And I think that's got the potential to go from strength to strength and while

we may start with some relatively straightforward inquiries about have you

ever thought about solar PV or ground or air source heat pumps, we're hoping that

over time we're going to be able to tap into not only the able -to -pay market but

also some of those areas of our communities that may be eligible for

grants. It's a really good initiative and a highlight of quarter three. Second round

of our Unsung Heroes Awards took place in November. You'll recall this is where through

members we champion those unsung heroes in our community who really do deserve recognition

and that again is a piece of work that's going from strength to strength.

We've also launched the first campaign associated with LIFT, the Low Income Family Tracker software

which we are running in partnership with Policy and Practice and members will be aware that

That's a piece of software that plugs into some of our existing grant and benefit systems

to better identify members of our communities that are eligible for benefits they may not

know about.

So the report that ran within this quarter was in December, and that was focused on identifying

customers likely to qualify for pension credit and, consequently, winter fuel allowance.

And that, again, has been very successful, and we've got another four campaigns in the

pipeline for the LIFT program which is great. Some of the highlights on service performance

as opposed to key actions that are above target. So customer satisfaction remains really high

with the council. Percentage of planning applications determined within the agreed time scales remains

above target for all application types sitting at between 90 and 100%. And 96 % of official

land charge searches were completed within 10 days against the target of 90%. The number

of gym memberships has also gone up, as has visits to the Leisure Centre. They're both

above target, with memberships exceeding the end of year target by around 6%, which is

great. So some of the areas that aren't quite hitting the mark. So unfortunately, the number

of affordable homes that were delivered during quarter three was hampered and stymied for

a number of reasons. Notably bad weather, which has delayed some site visits and further

project rephrasing that was required as a result of that. The original 13 affordable

homes that were expected in Quarter 3, two at Evenlow Road, Morton and Marsh, are now

projected for completion in Quarter 4. The remaining 11 at Down Ampere have been rephrased

with six expected in Quarter 4, and the remaining five, along with the further 11 originally

scheduled for Quarter 4, are now expected to be delivered between April and December

So consequently, the total number of affordable homes projected for 24 -25 has been revised

from 74 to 58.

Number of mispins, as we heard earlier, has exceeded target in Quarter 3, despite a notable

reduction in comparison to Quarter 2.

And while flooding issues in the district have caused some minor delays for crews earlier

in the quarter, November marked a significant achievement with the lowest number of missed

collections since the reorganisation of collection rounds.

This highlights the success of the improvement initiatives introduced in the last quarter.

However, unfortunately, December saw a rise in misbin collections, largely driven by the adjusted scheduling during the Christmas period.

So I think the headline from that is, whilst it feels like we're coming out of the main issues around misbins, it's still something that myself, the team and obviously Yubico are monitoring very closely.

So those are some of the highlights and lowlights. Happy to take any questions members may have. Thank you, Chairman.

Thanks, Rob.

Obviously, questions and comments.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:13:32

Open it up to colleagues before I delve in with my one or two.

Tristan.

Thanks, Rob.

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 1:13:39

So slightly unfair, because I can't remember whether I raised

this here previously or ONS when I was there, but I'll raise it

here anyway.

So I think there has been a previous suggestion about

monitoring planning enforcement in some way, because I know that,

again speaking to some of my parish council colleagues,

there is a perception that we are not conducting enforcement

in a particular way.

I know we have had some issues in terms of staffing etc.

But I think it would be good if we could benchmark that service

and see whether or not that is something

that is realistic in terms of coming up with a metric

that is fair and reasonable, especially I think now

that we are either at full capacity in terms of people

or nearing that.

Just briefly to come back, I think that's an excellent

CEO Rob Weaver - 1:14:34

idea, happy to pick that up with Gemma and the team.

And also, just a quick plug, there's an all member

briefing on planning and planning services on

Tuesday at lunchtime, and I know that planning

enforcement will be raised as part of that, so that

could be a good opportunity to raise those as well.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:14:52

Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:14:54

Mike, just wanted to give my thanks to the officers on the

EV charger rollout that I know were part of the performance

plan and was, thanks to the government's tight deadlines,

had quite a stressful time getting everything installed

for the, and completed in time for the end of the government

financial year and the grant that we successfully,

we successfully bid for and got from government.

So that's great.

just please pass on my thanks for doing that and obviously help our EV adoption

in the around the Cotswolds to help homes that I think it's about 30 % homes

don't have off -street parking so that should be a big help so thank them.

Thanks Mike. Juliet. Thank you yeah well good news about some of the the planning

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:15:35

Councillor Juliet Layton - 1:15:37

things that Rob's just reported and the things that are not quite fitting in

with this time scale about the affordable houses I do know that they're

very close and they are coming to committee and they are not shelved forever at all, it's

really ongoing. Interesting about enforcement, we need to be talking with our town and parishes

about what's reasonable about enforcement and things. Please come to the briefing tomorrow,

or tune in to the briefing tomorrow. I would like to say that one of the things that we

government, particularly because everything else seems to be because of new revisions

on MPPF and everything that's changing within the government at the moment. But the spine

road crossing is a serious issue and it's being held up by the bridge or the bats. There's

a lot of work to be done. I would like to think that with a new strategic transport

officer we're likely to get, we could actually maybe even say to the county, well, if we

can't do it here, let's move it down the road.

And I would again say this out loud,

because it puts it out there as an idea.

But yeah, I just like to thank all the officers,

because it's great to see what's happening

and how it's getting involved.

And every time we have it, it's good to see the reporting.

And I would just like to remind Democratic Services

that as I said about Cotswold Lakes,

but the next time we see this can we not have the water park mentioned?

Because it's now got a new name and I know it's really easy to not, you know,

to forget that, to forget new names. Thank you.

Thanks Julia and as you say there's lots of good stuff in here and I was

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:17:32

particularly impressed with, you know, the planning figures that we're seeing now.

That's down to a lot of hard work from the planning officers to get those numbers as

good as they are and it also reflects on the decisions that we've taken as a council to

make sure that what is coming to the committee is something that the committee can make a

realistic defendable position if it chooses to differ from the officer recommendations.

So that's very good to see. I noted and we've got Michelle here and I'm not

necessarily expecting an answer Michelle but I'm noting that on my observation is

that in terms of things like NNDR, the business rates and council tax what

we're seeing is a slight decline particularly on business rates payments

so far but I'm also noting that more people are choosing to spread over 12

months than 10 as they can and that probably picks up on the point that you

were making Tristan about businesses surviving 25 you know one way of doing

it is you know evening out your your costs so that they're more regular so

you don't have two months when you're not having to pay business rates and 10

months when you are if you can even that out so that might be factoring in with

some of that, some of those things we've seen.

Slightly disappointing, and this is a national situation

with regards to the percentage of house waste

being recycled, obviously we haven't changed our service.

We changed the days in which we collected it,

but we didn't change the service.

But we're seeing a little bit of a drop off,

but that's also being seen nationally, I know.

And as we think about the future,

and we were talking about that with Beth earlier on,

How do we seek to ensure that we are recycling more,

that we're making better use of the precious resources that we have,

and so that we're not sending it all to be burnt in the incinerator.

But always sending less to be burnt in the incinerator, I should say,

because obviously we are recycling a significant amount,

and obviously thanks to everyone that is doing that,

and we need to continue doing that.

I have one question looking over at the team on the right hand side. One of the figures to me looks wrong

and it's page

206 of my of the agenda, which is the one to third page from the end if you're looking electronically

And it's the residual waste per household

And the what I'm looking at is that we as Cotswold are the sort of big black line

And it says in the narrative that we recorded a rise in Q3,

which you often do because of Christmas,

increased to 88 .37 kg.

But compared to last year, it was over a kilogram less.

So that's good.

But the table on the left doesn't,

it's benchmarked from a year ago,

but it suggests that we were at 113 a year ago,

and we were one at the bottom,

which doesn't sort of tally with what it says on the right.

So apologies I have not warned you about that earlier.

It just came back to me

because I was reading the papers yesterday.

I noticed that and thought, that looks a bit odd.

Why? Because we're normally pretty good on our recycling.

I'm not asking you.

You don't have to give me an answer right now.

And if you have, but if you have it, then please do.

We don't have it, but we can get it for you.

Officer - 1:21:16

I think it's come directly from the LG inform data set.

So we'll investigate it and come back to you

if that's all I can.

Thank you.

I'm a big fan of LTRI in form.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:21:30

And I was having, yeah, but yeah, nothing is foolproof.

And obviously, they put in the data that we send them.

But that does sort of look like maybe this,

they mixed us up with someone else

to give us a figure that says that we are,

because that doesn't tally with the numbers

you've got on the right -hand side.

But that was it, I think, from me.

Any other comments before I come back with the

recommendations and the comment, the response to

the ONS?

No, I'll keep talking then.

So, in terms of response to the ONS committee,

strategic indicators are reviewed each financial

year, ready for Q1 monitoring in April and

reporting in June and July by the portfolio holders.

Although current indicators actually reflect performance

and allow benchmarking at a national level,

there is scope tradition information to enhance

and augment this strategic picture.

This would be best achieved through working collaboratively

to discuss which metrics would support strategic scrutiny

of the waste service without blurring the picture

with large amounts of operational detail.

The metrics and information defined

through collaboration will provide all Councillors

with their necessary assurance

that their waste service is operating

as it should be.

And what's following on from that,

I would like the cabinet request that officers continue

to explore route level real -time reporting

that highlights repeated challenges.

So that's specifically with regards to the waste contract.

And I've given that to Nicky.

So obviously, Tristan, is there anything

that you wanted to say specifically on that?

Or was it self -explanatory, you feel?

No.

Okay, so that's our response in terms of the O &S recommendation.

Looking back at the agenda, it's a big heavy pack to get back to the recommendations.

It's on page 135

that we note the overall progress on the council priorities and service performance for Q3 24

25 and the response obviously to the O &S recommendation.

Do we need to vote on that one or not?

Because it's just noting, we don't need to vote on that.

So that's the end of that one.

Agenda item 13, and I think you'll find that is the last item on our agenda.

So thanks everybody for your attendance.

Wish you all a safe journey home.

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Cabinet - Monday 10 March 2025, 6:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

CabinetMonday, 10th March 2025 at 6:00pm

Agenda

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Votes

Cabinet

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:00

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:06

1 Apologies

Nickie Mackenzie-Daste, Officer - 0:00:23

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:35

2 Declarations of Interest

3 Minutes

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:59

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:01:27

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:01:31

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:02:09

4 Leader's Announcements

5 Public Questions

6 Member Questions

7 Schedule of Decisions taken by the Leader of the Council and/or Individual Cabinet Members

8 Decision taken under the Chief Executive's urgency powers

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:04:08

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:05:51

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:06:03

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:07:41

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:08:37

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:09:51

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:10:02

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:10:30

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:10:40

Public Speaker - 0:10:52

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:11:54

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:12:18

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:12:52

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:13:31

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:14:18

9 Issue(s) Arising from Overview and Scrutiny and/or Audit and Governance

10 Ubico Business Plan 2025/2026

Officer - 0:16:36

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:17:41

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:17:47

Officer - 0:19:01

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:19:12

Officer - 0:21:41

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:23:00

Public Speaker - 0:23:29

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:25:11

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:25:41

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:26:56

Officer - 0:27:10

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:27:48

Councillor Mike McKeown - 0:27:53

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:31:27

Officer - 0:32:58

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:34:18

Officer - 0:34:20

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:35:33

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:35:43

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:36:48

11 Publica Transition Plan Phase 2

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:40:22

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:44:09

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:44:11

CEO Rob Weaver - 0:44:37

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:46:27

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:51:15

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:52:41

12 Green Economic Growth Strategy outcome of consultation

Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:56:48

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:00:48

Officer - 1:01:04

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:01:05

Cabinet
Monday, 10th March 2025 at 6:00pm