Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 6 May 2025, 4:00pm - Slides Tab - Cotswold District Council Webcasting
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Speaking:
Agenda item :
Start of webcast
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Slide 1
Agenda item :
1 Apologies
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Julia Gibson, Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Julia Gibson, Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
3 Declarations of Interest
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
4 Minutes
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Agenda item :
5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting
Agenda item :
6 Chair's Announcements
Agenda item :
8 Member Questions
Agenda item :
10 Public Toilets
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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 Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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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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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Clare Turner
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Councillor Jon Wareing
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Cabinet Member
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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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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Andrew Brown, Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Fowles
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
11 District Homelessness Update
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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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Officer
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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 Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Officer
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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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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Fowles
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Fowles
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor David Fowles
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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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 Dilys Neill
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Officer
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Cabinet Member
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Cabinet Member
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Officer
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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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 Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Fowles
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
13 Progress Review - Task & Finish Group IHT Farming
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Councillor David Cunningham
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor David Fowles
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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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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Agenda item :
12 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees
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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 Dilys Neill
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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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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 David Fowles
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Councillor Dilys Neill
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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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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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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 Gina Blomefield
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Agenda item :
14 Work Plan and Forward Plan
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Andrew Brown, Officer
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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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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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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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Councillor Jon Wareing
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Andrew Brown, Officer
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Councillor Gina Blomefield
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Andrew Brown, Officer
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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.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:00:00
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:00:05
Hello and good afternoon everybody. A warm welcome to everyone present. We seem to havea lot of new people here which is very nice to see. And if there are any members of the
public I don't think so here, but a welcome to them as well. As always I want to acknowledge
1 Apologies
and welcome the cabinet members and officers who will be giving their reports to all the
members of the committee and also the officers present to support the overview and scrutiny
committee in its functions.
Before we go any further, I will go through the usual housekeeping.
Fire exits are marked.
The toilet facilities are to the left of the lobby outside this room.
Please turn off or put on silent any mobile device.
I have been to a few meetings recently and that has not happened, so just don't forget
to do that.
This meeting will be live streamed and will also be available to view later on the CDC's website.
If anyone wishes to fill in the proceedings, this is permitted, provided it does not disrupt proceedings.
And now could I move to apologies? I believe we have two apologies.
And yes, we have apologies from Councillor Slater and Councillor van.
Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:01:18
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:01:21
And thank you for that and do we have some substitutes? Yes we haveJulia Gibson, Officer - 0:01:26
Councillor David Fowl substituting for Councillor Tony Slater. Right I thoughtCouncillor Gina Blomefield - 0:01:32
that we might have another substitute came forward for Michael Fowl. Okay thankyou very much. Going on any declarations of interest?
3 Declarations of Interest
Good. Silence all around.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:01:47
So, but if there is anything which does come up later in the meetingwhich you feel you ought to declare, you can obviously do so then.
We now move on to the minutes.
The minutes of the 31st of March.
4 Minutes
I notified my amendments of the minutes to Andrew Brown earlier.
And these are the amended minutes with my changes.
Does anyone have any further amendments?
I know that my Deputy Chair, Claire, sometimes spots something.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:17
Is everyone content with those minutes and could I have a proposal and a seconder ofpeople who were present at that meeting?
John Waring is a proposer, Angus Angus is a seconder and could we vote on those please?
Have you, thank you.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:02:35
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:41
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:55
Thank you.5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting
Okay. Matters arising. The follow up on the town and parish council has been provided
with remote access to the town and parish council summit on the 4th of June as well
as a summary of the briefing. Has that, I don't know whether that has been organized
or provided. It's coming up, I mean sooner than we'd like to think with a bank holiday
in between. So I hope that it's been organized.
Angela Claridge - 0:03:35
Thank you. So just to say that invites have gone out to all town and parishes and a numberof other representatives. Reminders are also coming out over the next few days and also
an invitation to all district councillors both to invite you to the event on the 4th
June, but also for you to encourage your town and parishes in your ward. So hopefully that
will generate some interest, but we're already seeing a good number of invitees have accepted.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:04:00
Yes, I mean, you know, what my concern is for the people further off and further out,and I think you were, are you going to be providing that they can get remote access,
at least to watch it, and they will obviously, I'm sure you'll do a briefing paper afterwards.
But it is that, you know, and I think it's very good that hopefully you're encouraging
a sort of dialogue so that different parishes can see the smaller parishes. I understand
that some of the people you've invited, whether it's Chippenham or Taunton, they're very,
very much larger places. We're looking at the places with sort of under 2 ,000 residents,
under 1 ,000 residents, and how those parishes are going to cope. So, the parish councils,
I do hope that they are, you know, that they're very much included in this process. So, thank
Thank you for that update.
Was there anything else that people wanted to raise from matters arising?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:04:57
Okay, thank you.My announcements.
6 Chair's Announcements
Last Thursday we had the elections for the GCC and also two by -elections for CDC.
Tepary with Upton Ward, which was won by Laura Hull -Wilson, and the Watermore Ward in Sire
which is won by Nicholas Bridges.
I welcome both of them to the Cotswold District Council.
As Gary is no longer a member of this council,
I've asked Claire Turner to act again,
she's done it before very well, as deputy for this meeting.
This agenda is not particularly intense,
but can I still ask everyone to be succinct
in your questions and likewise,
can cabinet members and officers
be succinct in your responses?
We have got timings today and also, not quite hung on the wall yet, we've got a clock.
Because whilst I can see this time and Claire can see the time, none of you can.
So it makes it very difficult unless you, and we don't really want you to have your phones up and your thing and watching the phone.
You can't see how the time is going. So this clock I hope will help you to see how we're getting on.
So, thank you Angus for that approval. So, I think it's, and I welcome it going on the
wall in due course. I've got one at the back, you see. I've always had a clock. It doesn't
have to be up there all the time, Rob, but it would be very useful for people during
the meeting. So, thank you.
ONS no longer has a dedicated officer. We have Claire Locke who used to help me to assist
with making sure reports are prepared in a timely manner and assist myself as chair at
the meetings. I'm sure democratic service will fill the breach, but it was one of the
recommendations of the peer review group some years ago that O &S should be supported by
a dedicated officer who would include this role amongst their other responsibilities.
And I was talking earlier to some officers, and I didn't manage to talk to you, Rob, myself,
But it's fine if you're, I've been doing this for a bit of time now and I feel relatively comfortable and can manage it.
It is, if you did get a new chair in or something, I think they would appreciate that support.
So I'm just putting it out there as something which could still be considered maybe.
Regarding the work plan, approaches have been made to Bromford regarding attending a meeting
where earned -esque can hear from them, as well as inquire about how they're managing their properties, energy efficiency and their tenants.
We haven't, that's sort of scheduled sort of for October, we hope.
And Paul James is here today. He was here earlier. He's gone. He was here.
Our economic lead -off, so he's also looking into preparing a report on economic health for the district.
So that is also something maybe coming forward.
And finally, I may change the order of the agenda as David Cunningham has to leave at
six, and I particularly want to hear from him on the progress of the Task and Finish
Group, the last meeting which was just here earlier on.
So now we move on to public questions.
Are there any public questions?
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:08:21
Forgive me, I haven't actually been through a loop where we get to this period where twoyears on there's a possible rearrangement of Council, committee and so on.
Is it possible that you won't automatically carry on as Chair of the ONS in the next two
years?
The reason I'm asking is because I just think it would be right to thank you for all the
work you've done, if that's the case.
If it's not the case, that would be still appropriate to thank you, but not in the same way.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:08:52
Well, there will be a newly formulated council come in June, because of course Joe Harris is standing down.The current leadership of the Lib Dems will be chosen by somebody else.
Who is then put into cabinet means that they can't be on this committee.
So there's a lot of moving parts to change.
I don't have control of all those moving parts,
but I appreciate your support for me.
But thank you.
I don't know at this stage, and that's not entirely.
It's really to do with the administration, a lot of it.
So thank you for that.
That was not quite a public question.
But now I think we do have some member questions.
Is that the case, please?
8 Member Questions
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.
I have two questions, which is fortunate,
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:09:41
because that's the only two I'm going to ask.The first one relates to the complaints process within Cotswold District Council.
In a previous life, I worked in institutions where formal complaints from clients, and our clients are our residents,
were treated in a very structured way with a definite sense of an acuity.
So, is it possible for the monitoring officer and the chief executive to give ONS an overview
of how complaints are handled?
And if possible, to produce some MI around the frequency, not only of actual complaints,
but of resolutions and times, please.
Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:10:28
Angela, you'd like to respond?Thank you.
Thank you.
Angela Claridge - 0:10:31
And thank you for the question.The answer is yes, we can do a briefing note.
The Council's corporate complaints procedure did change in April anyway.
The Ombudsman advised all local authorities to go from a three to a two, so the process
has changed.
It's a little bit early to see how that's kind of bedded in, but yes, we can provide
a briefing note to members.
Something circulated by email I guess would be perhaps best with the details of the policy,
the response times and perhaps some stats of the types of area that complaints typically
arise from.
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:11:09
Thank you for that. My second question relates to one of CDC's statutory responsibilities,which is the maintenance and replacement of street signs. I would like to ask the Chief
If they could produce some MI on the status of that program and ask Yubico to give us
some detail as to how they are carrying out what is a very important piece of work for
us given that it is a statutory requirement.
Thank you.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:11:53
So in terms of a response, we have been liaising with Claire Lock in Publica in terms of wherewe are with the replacement street signs.
It's fair to say that process isn't running as smoothly as it could do.
And I'm aware that there has been a backlog of replacement signs.
We are looking into options to, I suppose, speed up the way in which those signs are
replaced because I think there is a backlog and a bit of a log jam in that
process but I can commit to providing members of this committee with an
overview of the process what the current status is of road signs that have been
or street signs that have been indicated that need replacement and what the
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:12:36
current process is. Thank you very much. Well thank you for that that's veryCouncillor Gina Blomefield - 0:12:38
helpful. Now we go to report back on recommendations as there weren't anyrecommendations of the previous meeting.
There are no reports that we're expecting back.
So we go on to the public conveniences.
10 Public Toilets
Now, I understand that, is it Maria Wheatley or, yes, good.
Sorry, Maria.
Hello, hello.
I'm prepared this report is here.
And together with Tristan Wilkinson,
we'll give us an update.
This is a result of the, it was a very good task of finished
group done by overview and scrutiny.
And its recommendations were largely taken on board by
cabinet and have been implemented and we are going to have an update of where they stand
now.
Thank you.
Cabinet Member - 0:13:24
Thank you, chair.Interesting view from this side.
I've experienced this before.
Can you see the clock?
Yeah, I can.
Yes, like a firing squad.
It's nice.
Anyway, so thank you for the opportunity.
Hopefully you've had the report back.
I'm going to keep my response relatively brief and invite questions and challenges from the committee.
So, headlines.
We are not where we hoped and expected to be, I think is probably the summary.
There are some legitimate reasons for that, and I think
there are also some kind of areas where we just haven't
performed as well as, you know, the committee would
have expected.
So where are we?
So over the last 12 months since the decision was made to look at
the changing of the charges, so we have embarked on a couple
of pieces of work.
So we've closed some of the toilets.
That turned out to be a slightly larger,
more complicated discussion than we'd originally anticipated.
It is what it is, and I think it proved a little bit
of a distraction.
And I think the reality is that the team didn't go back
to the original kind of decisions with the same
intensity and urgency that we would now like.
So I think we just, we haven't moved things forward
at the pace that we would have liked.
I think that since last year, obviously, devolution has come into view.
I'm not convinced it has a material change to some of our decisions,
but I do think it's a factor in that the time horizon for the return on the investment
and some of the capital expenditure now changes.
And I think that there's a legitimate set of questions to be asked and to be answered around that.
That said, I think it's the current view that this council, if it took the decision to dispose of these particular assets to local towns and parishes,
they'd want to do that in a way that they were in good working order so that they could adopt those assets without having to incur any sort of additional costs.
So I think that there are some questions that we need to get
through rapidly.
I don't think it, you know, takes several more months.
I think we also didn't identify some of the dependencies that
were present in the execution of that, i .e., the physical state
of some of the assets and some of the upgrades that need to be
made in order to then proceed with the agreement from,
and the upgrade agreement from last year.
So, again, I think we just didn't get into the detail
and weren't robust enough in sort of understanding that.
And I think that leads to my last point that I think that
although the officers are perfectly capable in terms
of doing the work, I think that this actually turned out to be
a little bit more of a project with some moving parts which
weren't necessarily identified early on.
And I think that's required a different skill set that hasn't
something present in the team and I think that's something we
need to address.
So it sounds like a list of excuses.
It's not.
I think it's a list of kind of quite legitimate reasons why.
That said, I don't think that necessarily adds up to us being
where we are and it's certainly my intention after today to look
at working with the deputy chief executive and the officers to
how we can mitigate some of these and move forward at pace.
So I shall leave it at that for now.
Thank you very much for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:17:26
Before we open it up to questions, Maria, did you wish to add anything or were you just beginning to help support the...Maybe there will be some... Oh, David Stanley has got something he wants to say.
Thank you, Chair.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:17:38
I think it's worth saying that in terms of the support that'sbeen provided by the organization, by myself,
by officers to this action plan, it's fallen short of the
expectations that I think this committee and the tasking
finish group had in terms of delivering on those actions.
So I think, you know, I take responsibility for that.
I think it's, that needs to be said that we've not put the time
and resources against the action plan that the action plan deserved.
And I think there's been an approach to managing the action plan which is summarized by it
would just happen.
Clearly that's not the case.
And as Councillor Wilkinson has set out, there are a number of dependencies around the action
plan and some of those individual decisions.
So whether or not the Council invests in the paddle gates, whether or not the Council refreshes
some of the facilities, whether the council increases the charges or does something different
with the charges, whether the council disposes of now closed toilet facilities in a particular
way now needs to be looked at in the lens of LGR and whether there's a package of measures
in terms of how we can support localities moving forward.
But I think it's important for me to place on record for this committee that as an officer
group, we haven't put the emphasis on this that needed to be placed on and
certainly in the conversations I've had with current portfolio holder and the
previous portfolio holder, there has been a degree of urgency from those two as
members to get things moving and that's just been slower at being delivered.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:19:26
Well thank you for that and I'll say I realize that this was put I think it wasoriginally scheduled to come forward in January to be looked at so it that that
that even this examining of where we are now was delayed.
So I would really like anybody to come up with any questions
that they may have.
Catherine.
Yes.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:19:48
This is more of a thought than a question, I think.So I was on the original task and finish group.
I didn't agree with everything that was resolved.
But I think one of the things that was resolved
was that we did need to increase the price.
I think when we looked at the overall cost of using the
toilets across the district, the average charge per use was
one pound to 20, and we were charging 40p in the toilets
where we did charge.
Clearly, the busier toilets, it would be less per use,
because the cleaning and the stuff is, there's more use,
more 40ps going in towards the payment.
But I think it's quite disappointing that we're still
charging 40p when it costs, on average,
£1 .20 to use the toilet.
I mean, this is a discussion that we had,
but I would have liked to task my personal recommendation to
the Task and Finish group was that we put it up to a pound,
which would still not cover the cost.
But we're still charging 40p, which is a ridiculously small
amount, in my opinion.
So that's my first question is really why haven't we increased the charges
when that was something that we were always going to do. I think the feeling
was that it would mean that people would stop using the toilets but you know I
one of the reasons for putting the card machine in there is so people it's
convenient for people to pay and my guess is that if you're not fumbling
around in your handbag or your pocket for a pound coin you don't really notice
how much it's going to cost if you're desperate you know so that's one thing.
The other thing about that is at the budget meeting in February this year, I'm sure that
we heard that the council's recommendation was that we should be charging for services
however much they cost.
So we charge the cost of the green bin is what it costs to collect it.
But we're not charging for the toilets the cost that it is to use it.
And it's tourists mostly who are using our toilets, and yet we're asking our residents
to pay for it.
So that's my little diatribe about that.
Then for my own personal thing, one of our toilet blocks and stove has been shut, which
is the one in Moresby Road car park.
And I don't know how much research has been done into this, but it's going to have to
be opened again when we have the fair in store.
So next week it's going to be opened for a week.
So there's clearly going to be a cost involved in opening the toilets again and getting it
up and running, and then in future fairs,
if that asset is disposed of, are we as a district council
going to provide some sort of alternative facilities?
Because again, there would be a cost involved in that.
And if there isn't an alternative facility
to provide, we don't know where the people who've
got caravans with portaloos in them,
or whatever they call them, would dispose
of their human waste, and whether there
would be more problems with human waste clear up around the site if those
toilets weren't open. So that's another piece of work that perhaps needs doing.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:23:00
Thank you very much. Thank you for those. I'll certainly take part oneCabinet Member - 0:23:05
and maybeMurray can take part two because that's not something I'm particularly familiar with. I think I
completely agree. We set the principle that our services should be cost neutral
I think that this is a conversation we've had several times and not managed to conclude it for a variety of reasons.
We need to. I think that this goes hand in hand with the decision about the card readers.
You're absolutely right. I mean, I can't remember the last time I had 40 pence in my pocket.
But I think the cost becomes, the charge becomes less impactful when you're using digital currency.
So I completely agree with that principle.
We should just go and do it.
And I think that the upgrades will facilitate that.
Maria, did you want to come in on part two on the fare?
Officer - 0:23:58
Yeah, we are opening the toilet block at Molesbury Roadfor the fare for five days, I believe.
I don't have the cost off the top of my head.
Presumably there is a cost in reopening it,
making them fit for purpose.
Yes, they will all be, all the systems will be run through just
to make sure that they are all effective.
But then again, if that asset, if that building is physically
disposed of, then there is a problem for future fairs in
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:24:45
the most usage. David Stanley wants to come in. Thank you chair. Just on a couple ofDavid Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:24:50
points on the fee that is charged to cost recover it's absolutely right thatthis council has said that for discretionary type services there
should be a fee that covers the cost. Clearly with public conveniences that
fee is set based on what it costs to run those facilities.
Large part of that is the contract that we have for its
maintenance and cleaning.
Some of it is around the utility costs.
In the discussions that I've had with the previous portfolio
holder, who is the cabinet member for, or the deputy
leadership cabinet member for finance and transformation,
part of that is getting the evidence to support any change
in the fee.
and given that introducing those charges in non -chargeable areas makes the biggest difference
to the level of subsidy that's provided to the service, the view of the cabinet member
was to ensure that we'd done that and got the data to show what impact that had before
we considered any change to the wider fee that's charged to all users of all facilities.
So clearly rolling out charges that was agreed by cabinet back in February 2024 needs to
take place at pace, which is referenced in the update to this committee, but clearly
we need to do that more quickly to enable the card readers to be put in place.
On the facilities at Morgan's Road, I visited Stowe Town Council with the deputy leader
at the time, August 2024, when there was a discussion with the town council about which
facilities in Stowe were kept open and which ones were.
At the time, the council had indicated that it was the town centre facilities that would
be closed and maintain the ones in Morgesby Road.
Stowe town council argued passionately for that to be the other way round and the cabinet
member did change that decision.
Clearly, at the time that decision was taken, we did take into account the impact there
would be because of the Stowe horse fair and alternative arrangements were put in place
for the horse fair in the autumn.
Clearly, we will need to think carefully about whether or not it is something the Council
provides ongoing support to and there will be a cost to doing that or whether, as part
of that assessment, there are alternative arrangements that could be put in place.
but clearly it was something that was factored into the decision as to which facility in stone to maintain and which facility to close.
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:27:29
Thank you Madam Chair.I think one thing that we found in the task and finish group
was that people were not aware that this is a discretionary service that we provide these facilities.
And one of the things, one of the recommendations I remember was that we would put signs outside the toilets which said
CDC provide these on a cost basis.
Because I think it's quite important that people understand that it's done in that way, because otherwise they just go
well I pay my council tax, why do I have to pay for these toilets?
The other thing was, there's no point in putting a card reader on it if the 25 year old turnstile
can get walked through by an elephant, which is what happens.
When we had the gates before, people were just jumping over the top of them, or the
paddle gates just get pushed open and they get broken and that's the end of it.
So in order for this to work, we need to make them secure, we need to make them fit for
purpose and then we need to introduce a system whereby people can very easily make these
payments.
From memory, all of these were things which we recommended last time be done in a specific
order.
It wasn't, let's just put the price up and hope everyone would just, you know, pay and
won't worry about it because we knew that wasn't going to happen.
We have any dose of evidence from the people that look after the ones in Boulton on the
water where people are actively encouraged to hold the doors open so multiple people
can go in and out.
We also discussed having signs on the wall that said these doors will open after five
minutes.
Whether they did or not wasn't the point.
It was just to make sure that people didn't do that.
So I think if we want to make these pay for themselves, then we need to go back to the
recommendations that we made 18 months ago about how you can do it.
We can't supply two sets of toilets in every town.
In my opinion, if one of the towns has two blocks and one of them needs to be used for
specific things, they need to pay for that.
Or they need to put portaloos out for that.
But that's the, we need to get back to the fundamental point which was the council provides
public conveniences to encourage tourism, that's absolutely fine, but it needs to pay
for itself. So I think it would be a good idea if we went back to the original task
and finish group recommendations and put them in place as they were set out. Do you think
that's something that we can agree on?
Cabinet Member - 0:29:43
So I agree wholeheartedly. I think there's two things here. I think you're absolutelyright, I think that in a world of disconnect between the public's
expectations and the reality of what councils can and can't do, being really
clear about the things where we've made specific decisions to support things for
a variety of well -intentioned reasons is I think being clear with the public and
also getting some credit back to us as a council in that you know this is it we've
We're making this investment at the expense of other things we
could do with that money.
I think you're absolutely right.
We should be doing that across the board.
I think that's just the principle we should have.
On your other point, David, I think you're absolutely right.
I think I've seen nothing in the plan that to me feels materially
different today than it did 12 months ago.
I think it is about execution.
And I think that the thing that's going to come out of
today is a renewed vigor around the project.
we need to turn those recommendations into a
deliverable project.
It's got a good old -fashioned Gantt charts and dependencies
and a critical marked path in it and work our way through it
until the job's done.
And you're absolutely right.
I mean, I knew nothing about public toilets 12 months ago,
and I'm learning all of these things.
Like everything that we do, it's far more complex when you get
into the detail of it.
And if it was straightforward, it wouldn't need us to have
these conversations.
So I completely agree.
I think point one, we should absolutely as a council, that should be a principle.
And point two, I think we need a robust plan to turn the recommendations into something
that we don't need to talk about again.
Councillor Clare Turner - 0:31:35
I'll clear the tone for a moment.And there we are.
Yes, it's been looking a bit dodgy.
Thank you for that.
I'm sure that it does look as though you're going to a thorough view, which I think sounds as if it's going to be.
I've Councillor Waring, then I've got Councillor Jackson and then Councillor Farras. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Jon Wareing - 0:31:53
Point 12 in the report talks about encouraging key partners to allow public access to their facilities.I think this is client cuckoo, frankly.
One of the reasons given by the owner of Borton Vale car park to cease coach parking, which
was a complex situation, but part of the cost base of running that facility was the sheer
volumes of people that were not paying to park in his car park, but using the toilets
in said car park.
I know of at least three hospitality venues in Borton Village who find it quite unacceptable
that people are coming in, they're not spending any money, but they're spending a penny.
It costs for loo roll and cleaning and all that kind of basic stuff.
I think this is annoying to people actually, to be on the receiving end of a message saying,
Oh, wait, can you lose up to members of the public, visitors, and what have you?
That's irritating, in my view.
The second piece is, given that four of the Town and Parish Councils rejected taking on public conveniences,
can you provide all the Town and Parish Councils with the running costs, the actual running costs, of each of the public toilets?
Because no doubt as we move towards the unitary authority, there will be consideration of
will these assets become something that parish and town councils need to take on.
And if so, they need a good deal of time to think about it and prepare and to work out
how they might possibly do that.
Because I can't imagine the unitaries being interested in running public leaves all over
the county.
Thank you.
Cabinet Member - 0:33:48
Point one, I agree.I think that that's fanciful.
I know the owner of Linwood, for instance, who, you know,
anybody who goes into Sire and says,
he's got several cafes around the place, drives them nuts.
You know, it's just, you know, these are people running
businesses on wafer -thin margins.
They don't need to become a kind of public service on top of what
they're already trying to do as well.
I think on your second point, John, you're absolutely right.
I think that basically we need to set out a business case for the towns and
parishes to decide whether or not they are willing and able to adopt these and
also be really clear that if they don't they're probably going to disappear so I
think they you know they need to be really clear there is there is no third
option I think that if these go into the unit tree then it's very debatable as to
whether or not they would survive.
They might do, but with all of the other pressures,
this doesn't feel like a kind of top ten issue for a new unitary
authority to me.
So, yes, we will look at, I don't know whether we can get
specific, where in terms of every single,
but we must be able to, you know,
get pretty close in terms of the running costs of each,
you know, Fairford versus Lech -Leht type question,
I would have thought.
So, yes, we will do that.
There you go. So it is available. Perfect.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:35:19
Thank you. Before we go on, I'm aware that four of the public conveniences are free.And that's one of the other issues that you have to look at.
As far as I understood it, town and parish councils were very reluctant to take on the extra costs.
And of course you have a contract which covers all of them which of course if each uptown and parish council has to have their own
Contract that can be more expensive
Well council Neil, can you come back when we I would just make it those things
Okay clarify
Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:35:54
Oopsie so for stow in particular the issue wasn't so much around the running costs as around the ownership of the buildingWhether they could actually own it or whether they would have it
to peppercorn rent they were prepared to look at you know funding the running costs.
I don't know if they've had that discussion around the Morgesbury roadblock
with the town council I don't think it has been had so maybe that would be
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:36:15
something for the future. As I think I said there's still a lot of work to beCouncillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:36:22
done around this one clearly. Councillor Jenkinson. Firstly, thank you chair, I amshocked. We have a body that is actually expressing candor on the fact that we have not lived
up to our intentions. That is really astonishing. I can't remember the last time I saw a government
body admit and politicians say, we need to do better. That's really, my congratulations
to you. The second question, the key questions are this. The first is, is there a reason
reason why in principle you cannot simply commission somebody, some company, to go and
do the job, the jobs that need to be done.
I agree that each one will have certain specification differences, but what is to stop this just
being commissioned and done?
And I take the points you've made earlier on about the various varieties and so on,
but that's also something that can be specified.
And the second question is, given that however you are going
to approach it, when would you recommend to us that we invite
you back or expect to report back from you that the job
has been done?
Cabinet Member - 0:37:39
So, first point, Angus, I think I suspect the reason is cost,and I think that's a business case thing.
If it's going to cost an amount of money to outsource this or to
bring in additional expertise.
Does that cost get recouped through return on investment?
I mean, I don't know of any other pots of money that,
so I think that just comes down to reconstituting the business
case through that particular lens and whether it stacks up.
I think on your second point, I'm going to,
I don't want to speak on behalf of the officers.
Why isn't there just an ordinary process of saying,
okay, we need to do it and there's a financial way of doing
it that our financial guy can tell you how to do it.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I think it's come down to priorities and urgency,
and I think the reality is that we have not been paying
sufficient, we haven't applied sufficient energy to this,
and here we are explaining ourselves.
On your second point, Maria, I don't know if you want to say
anything in terms of timelines.
What's an acceptable kind of reconvening of this?
Officer - 0:38:54
I would probably say three to four months.Thank you.
David Stanley, please.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:39:01
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:39:04
Thank you, Chair. Just in terms of the investment that may or may not be required in each of those facilities, I'll make some numbers up.Let's say there's a £250 ,000 investment the council needs to make in those facilities
to enable meaningful conversations with parish and town councils.
Pre -LGR, that wasn't part of the, I suppose, timescale.
It was more a slow burn conversation with parish and town councils.
And the lens that we were looking at that investment through was given there's an underlying
a subsidy of around about 180 to 200 ,000 pounds of revenue cost.
And there wasn't a view that making that level of investment
to bring facilities up to a very high standard was justified
because it would take you so long to recover that through
a fee and then what fee were you going to set.
But I think it's absolutely right with the LGR lens to
revisit that and understand in order for communities to still
have those facilities in the future, let's go back and look at what that cost may be.
And that will be looking at do the doors open inwards or outwards, because there's a recommendation
that they should open outwards just not being kicked in.
Do we need to put turnstiles on more of those facilities to stop people evading a charge?
Do we need to make other improvements?
And also looking at the way in which the current provision of cleaning and maintenance is done
to ensure that that can be disaggregated.
I think Maria will probably confirm that when that contract was elected.
Dan Foe was looking at the ability, given we were looking at closing facilities in towns that had more than one facility,
there is that scope to do that, but clearly we need to think carefully about what facilities are left,
because the geography of the district may mean taking some facilities out and passing
them on to other parish and town councils doesn't necessarily bring with it a cost reduction
either to us or the parish and town council in terms of its running costs.
But it's certainly right to revisit the level of investment required if, I suppose, the
council's priority is to ensure that we can have meaningful discussions with parish and
town councils about where those facilities sit in the future.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:41:23
Thank you. And thank you for everybody. I feel that we ought to be making a recommendationfrom this discussion, that we actually ought to recommend that the Cabinet actually gives
us more priority. It's drifted on for a bit. I think you say that you might be able to
get a report on in four months' time. I don't know how, as I'm looking at Andrew, whether
you would like to formulate something?
Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:41:49
So I think you've said it's about making this piece of worka high priority.
So if that's the proposal, if you want to have a seconder
and take a view on that as a committee,
that could be a recommendation to cabinet.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:42:00
I think that's basically what we say.It is a high priority.
Proposed seconded by Jacobson.
Could we all vote on that?
That's unanimous.
So thank you very much.
Thank you for your work and I'm sorry more work is required.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:42:24
Sorry David, you can ask the question now, don't worry, we can break rules.Sorry, I was carried away.
Councillor David Fowles - 0:42:34
Ironically, given where we are now, had I been a member of this committee,had I been a member of the ruling administration, had I been all sorts of had I beens. I would
never have recommended this course of action in the first place. And I would have taken
the view that I tried to express when we looked at closing the Visitor Information Centres,
which was that our biggest income generator in our district is tourism. And a lot of our
businesses benefit from that. And a lot of people are employed in that sector. And so
we get income into the Cotswolds through that, through business rates, albeit a percentage
and so on and so forth. We never really took a holistic approach. We're very good as a
council at looking at these individual cost centres such as green rooms, visitor information
centres and so on. And I've always taken the view that we should have provided visitor
information centres and so on. Easy to say that when you're in opposition. But I just
wanted to make a couple of comments. Firstly, I think you should be congratulated as the
new Portfolio Holder for coming here and trying to apologise for the work that your predecessor
did and I feel that perhaps that person should have been here rather than you, so all credit
to you for standing there and saying it. But the questions I really wanted to ask were
in relation to usage. So Maria and you as the Portfolio Holder, given that we have toilets
that have closed. Could you give us an indication as to what level of response you may have
had from residents? I take on board someone says that most of the toilets, how people
can guess at that. I do not know. I use them. I am not a visitor. But whether you have had
comments from people about the closure of toilets, certainly on the doorstep in Sire
and Cessna during the county council elections, people were concerned. They said it felt like
the council was in meltdown that you're closing the toilets and putting chains on them.
And secondly, I'm quite interested in the stats in terms of the usage.
Having put the price up from the previous figure to 40p, I think it's in human nature
that if you're going to charge your people will, to quote you and Stouffer, having looked
after that myself, people were doing things in fields and that's inevitable.
They're going to try and break in or let other people and then no matter how much money you
spend on it, they will always find a way around it.
So I'd be interested to know whether the usage of the toilets has gone down.
Is it possible to get a feel for the transactions as opposed to the income?
I know we doubled the price,
but
I'm just wondering whether people are using them less now that the figures have gone up and whether you've got a lot of complaints from
people about the closed toilets. Those two specific questions.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:45:27
Some facilities were charging 20p, some were charging 30p.Thank you, Maria.
Officer - 0:45:33
We were enjoying the financial year 2024 -2045.We had 44 complaints overall for all across every single site, seven of which were related
to the closure of sites.
So seven separate.
Does that combine you and Portfalo all of them?
But it all passed on to you?
And through the contractor as well.
So all consolidated.
There were 384 ,350 users during 24 -25
and that was an increase on the previous year.
I don't have the exact figure on me,
that was an increase from the previous year. We may be able to attribute that to tourism or weather or anything else that we have no control over or it could be as a direct result of the cards of people being...
Easier to pay? Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Apologies, David.
I'm trying to check on how you want a chair from here on.
I would take a different view from the one we just heard from Councillor Cunningham.
So if it's being reopened, I'll give it and if we're not reopening it, then I won't.
I think...
What we have got...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:47:14
Sorry, we have the same question next, a different time.Please excuse me.
Sorry.
I won't dare, dare, cos it's like a hand in a chip.
Please forgive me.
Is that why you're sitting further away?
I think everybody is aware of the problems we have, how the cabinet take it on and decide
how to prioritise this under their budget restraints and how they feel best. But there
There isn't actually a sort of thing that, you know, sometimes there are things you can't
put off because they actually need to be done because otherwise they're unsafe and could
be dangerous.
So, I'm sure you will be looking at all these things.
It is something which clearly is important, and we are providing some of those facilities
for free in some places, so that is obviously an extra burden.
But putting in the credit card machines is another cost to themselves, so it's a difficult
balancing act.
But thank you, everybody, for that.
I think, and I'm sorry I slightly brought it out of a different place.
We will go on to the next one, which is going to be, thank you both, thank you, thank you for your...
Thank you, have a lovely time.
Can't wait to come back, good, that's what we like to hear.
11 District Homelessness Update
This is the district homeless update.
We have got Caroline Lucas and Councillor Leighton, I believe.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:49:27
Thank you both for being here. I don't know how you want to go. Judith, you want to setoff? Thank you very much indeed. That's fine, yes. I'd just like to
Cabinet Member - 0:49:36
say we haven't got CarolAnkersold because she's off sick this afternoon. Well, for a while, I think, completely a week.
But we have got Tom Sea instead and we also have John Doering at the back, should he be
required.
So what we're looking at here, as you know,
is the strategy for preventing homelessness in the district.
But before we look at that, I was looking at,
which I'm sure we all get, the LGA First magazine.
And I was looking at that for April and May.
And under the heading, record number
of children in temporary accommodation in England,
It's more than 164 ,000 children.
It is absolutely astonishing.
Luckily, we do not have numbers anything close to that.
And I believe in April, because the numbers change
all the time.
I can't give you a definitive number for today.
Tom might be able to, but I can't.
But I believe in April, we had in the district 30 people.
So that would be adults and children.
I don't know what the makeup of it is in temporary
accommodation.
So this is the strategy is here, and it's our response
to the growing need for a robust plan to prevent homelessness
in our community.
And the document you see, which is attached,
is the main report with Annex A and Annex B,
outlines how we intend to shift from reactive measures
to proactive and preventative approaches.
It takes into account current challenges we face, such as the slow process of dealing
with empty properties, something close to Delis' heart and many other people as well,
and addresses the perception that our current system sometimes lacks the enforcement teeth
necessary to ensure accountability.
But it's within the legal duties that housing must provide a full
and accessible housing opportunity service,
which includes preventing homelessness and providing safe
and appropriate emergency accommodation to vulnerable
residents where no other accommodation is available.
Now, I'm sure you've all seen and read the strategy and the
papers there, and you'll have seen the recommendations.
So the key themes are monitoring and data integration,
addressing empty properties, collaborative and cross -sector
engagement with other councils, other partners, health services,
the police, and local training bodies,
and voluntary organizations.
We held a meeting with the MP because the MP's office asked
for a meeting, and we thought, people don't quite know how the
system works, so we had a briefing on that.
We are looking to be briefing and training parishes and towns
as well.
But we had that meeting along with voluntary sector from
Syrancestor initially and with Bromford,
and that was at the beginning of April.
We will continue that collaboration with those
partners, and we'll be having another meeting June or July.
I'm not quite sure we've got the date confirmed yet.
So there's a lot of things going on here.
We also at the back you see there's an action plan,
an implementation, and it's a comprehensive blueprint for
making homelessness both rare and short -lived.
I don't, I guess you've all read anything,
and I think we're probably ready for questions if you like now.
Well, thank you for that introduction.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:53:26
Who would like questions?Oh, did this.
Thank you.
Sorry, I'm going to ask about empty approaches, of course.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:53:36
But first of all, just an anecdotal experience.About 18 months ago, I was in Cirencester in December.
It was freezing cold.
There was a guy sitting in the doorway,
obviously, with nowhere to go.
I found it very difficult to try and find anyone
who could do anything about it.
I think it was, was it Streetlink, is it called,
that I ran?
Yeah.
And I didn't really manage to get any help for him.
Has that improved or?
So the question is, has that improved?
Well, if...
Does it work?
Cabinet Member - 0:54:11
It didn't seem to work then.I couldn't...
I was very keen to find somebody he could talk to
Councillor Dilys Neill - 0:54:16
and I couldn't just identify the right person.Officer - 0:54:19
I can sort of talk in a roundabout waybecause obviously I don't know that particular case or situation.
But yeah if people see anybody rough sleeping then Streetlink would be the
first port of call to report that. The website did go through quite a big
update at some stage as well. So that would then go through to P3. No it won't.
That's a lie. That will go through to Julian House who is now the provider of
outreach services in Gloucestershire and they will then follow that up and go out
and go to the place that people have reported seeing somebody.
And then they would report back to us
if they do find somebody and have a conversation
and find out what that person wants to do.
So that would be done immediately, would it?
So yeah, so as soon as it goes through, then within 24 hours,
they would go out to find that person.
He might not have still been there in 24 hours.
He was just sitting out there in the freezing colds
trying to get something done immediately that wasn't possible obviously.
Yeah I can't say that people will go out immediately because it depends on
staffing etc but what I would say is that you know we we try very very hard
in this district to have little to no rough sleepers at any one time and where
somebody does find themselves on the streets then we do react very quickly to
that situation so as soon as we become aware of it we will try to act upon it.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:55:57
Thank you I've got Councillor Turner then Cunningham then Jenkinson.Councillor Clare Turner - 0:56:04
Thank you so I've got a quick comment and hopefully quick question as well.Sometimes as councillors we come across people who are at their sort of nearing
the homeless stage and we're trying to intervene and help them.
I just wanted to say that I was very pleased to see in the document under the partnership
section the acknowledgement of trying to identify
barriers to service delivery and reducing bureaucracy
and communication and so on because I think sometimes that is a place where it
falls down a little bit and people, particularly when we're talking about some of these issues around mental health
and things, and they find it extremely hard to navigate the system at that stage.
So I thought that was great that that was acknowledged and included.
And just a quick question is the rough sleeper numbers,
I've had conversations with people in the past who think that's an undressed note.
I just wondered if you could very briefly describe how those numbers are generated.
Thank you Tom.
Officer - 0:57:00
Sorry, got used to it.So in terms of the first point about how we communicate with people,
It's something that we've done a lot of work around and still continue to do so.
I think it's something that especially where we've got our housing first scheme in the district as well,
that we have, we've had to adapt to how some people want to engage with us,
as opposed to the way that we may prefer to engage with people.
So I think that that has guided our path a little bit as to adapt those services.
And even in the last couple of weeks, I was completely rewriting email templates and things like that,
so that we could properly reflect the work that we're doing and try to get the most engagement back that we can do from people.
What we don't want to do is we don't want to lose people drifting off.
And now I've forgotten what was the second thing you asked me?
Oh, to do Rough Sleepers.
So in terms of Rough Sleepers, so like I say, Julian House took over the outreach contract at the start of April.
So we are currently going through a piece of work with them to update how we're doing some of those things.
So basically they will keep a record of everybody in the county that they believe are Rough Sleeping if they get reports in.
Like I say, they will go out and they will visit sites and they will update us accordingly.
And then we would get our figures back off the back of that.
There are some individuals, and I don't want to start getting onto an individual basis,
but there are some individuals out there who we know do have accommodation,
but due to their own circumstances and that may be mental health,
it may be other issues that we do know that they do sit out there during the day,
which can create a bit of a confused picture sometimes.
but it's a few and far between. I'm not talking about large numbers.
Thank you. Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:59:07
Thank you. Councillor Cunningham, please.Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:59:09
Councillor David Cunningham - 0:59:13
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is possibly a question to be split.The £369 ,327 that you're going to be getting in,
Do you have a plan for how that will be spent to deliver on the
four priorities?
Officer - 0:59:31
That is a question that Caroline would have been able to answeroff the top of her head, and I cannot, I'm afraid.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:59:41
So in terms of response, certainly for preventinghomelessness and the homeless prevention grant,
we do work closely with the service to ensure that we're
the potential use of that grant to avoid, I suppose, the Council picking up costs that
could otherwise be charged to the grant.
So whilst I don't have exact details to hand, certainly when we've been through this in
a budget -setting process, I think Caroline does bring forward a report to Cabinet that
sets out how that grant would be utilized.
And certainly the discussions we have when looking at previous grant usage, there's sometimes
some underspend that goes against the reserve and that we use to deploy that
reserve to support additional activity in the year. So I think the assurance I
can give members is there is a clear plan but I don't have that plan to
hand but we'll provide that in terms of updates and members of this committee.
Councillor David Cunningham - 1:00:36
Thank you. Then could I just put that into the minutes that the Deputy COO andpossibly with Caroline's help will provide ONS with that breakdown for the
25 -26 year. Thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Jenkinson.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:00:50
Thank you, Chair.Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:00:54
First, I just want to acknowledge the work that you're doing and express appreciation for it.I think this is making a difference to people's lives and it's very important work and the people who are doing it should be valued.
And I can see that there is an attempt here to develop a really coherent strategy for addressing it.
Thank you very much for that.
And I know that it will be done with goodwill and energy.
My questions are, firstly, there's some very useful data here.
Thank you very much.
One of them is the median house price.
Now, median, as everybody knows, means there's 50 -50, 50 above and 50 percent below.
We are currently got a strategy to build houses in such a way that 40 percent of the houses
should be affordable, social, and so on,
so to address the needs of people,
to be able to find a place to live.
And there's a quite remarkable ratio between what people earn
and what houses cost.
I mean, it is nothing like what used to exist in the past,
as you know.
So the question, although it's not directly related
to homelessness, do you have a point of view
that we as a council should consider
about this relationship between addressing at 40 % level the need for houses that are affordable,
and at the other hand 50 % of the houses are above the property price of 440 ,000.
Is there a disconnect between those? That's the first question. Do you want me to address them all?
I'll take them one by one.
I was going to say that it may be better to address those questions to the housing strategy
team who I think would be probably better placed and better informed to be able to provide
Officer - 1:02:43
an answer to you around that.Cabinet Member - 1:02:48
What we ask for with the 40 % is quite a high ratio and it is affordable. That does notmean social. So social will come in underneath that level and it all depend
on the viability of the development and they will argue against it but we've got
that in our local plan and that's what we're hoping to get. We've got a
housing team that works with that so this team here, the housing, you know, the
homelessness and the temporary accommodation team is a separate entity
to that. But we've got, you know, we are working very hard in the council with a
strategic housing officer looking for strategic housing for social housing and
we've got a housing officer who deals with the 106 monies from development
looking at how we spend that and how we work with that and make making sure that
we utilize that totally. So this is really not the place to be discussing
that problem, and it is a problem, I agree,
and the wages and the cost of housing is well beyond
people's affordability, many people's affordability.
Thank you.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:04:03
There's homelessness in the sense that somebody's roughsleeping, but there's also other kinds of homelessness around,
as has already been mentioned.
I had a family member in my extended family a little while back, five or six, six or seven
years ago, who spent a year without a home to stay in.
I don't think he ever slept on the street as such, but he was ringing up at six o 'clock,
seven o 'clock at night to a mate, can I stay, can I doss on your lounge floor?
He was sleeping in his car, things like that.
So there's a range of different things, and I'm wondering to what extent that is an issue.
And the related one, I think we know that a number of people who are homeless have other
difficulties as you've already alluded to.
Could you say a little bit more about how you work with other partners, the other agencies
and so on, to address the more complex, wider issue of homelessness rather than just taking
someone off the street and giving them temporary accommodation?
Officer - 1:05:09
So in terms of working with other organisations in Gloucestershire, there are a large numberof organisations. You've got things like P3, you've got things like Signpost and Sire ancestor,
you've got Gloucestershire Night Stop. There's a number of different organisations that we
work with and what's right for one person isn't necessarily what's right for another.
And, you know, not all people want social housing either.
Sometimes people don't, they want to go through other routes.
They want things that are maybe less restrictive or that they
can move into more quickly.
So for example, in Science Sister, we do a lot of work
with Mouldy Court, with Homebury, with some of these
other places to try and allow people to move through the
system in a way that suits them.
And we do have some success with that.
And talking about that, I've again forgotten what your first question was.
I apologise.
It was the question of the person who has no home but is not rough sleeping.
Such a surface.
Yeah, that's fine. I can talk about that.
So yeah, I mean, we get split between things really.
you've got you've got potential to people that will come to us at a very
very late stage and at that stage it's very hard for us to do much more than
pick them up and ensure that they've got some temporary accommodation to go to.
You've got other people that come to us much earlier and that gives us the
opportunity to try and prevent them from ever becoming homelessness, ever becoming
homeless, ever reaching that point in time. We have a stable team at the moment
and people are working very hard to ensure that they move people through.
So you'd like to say you do get people that are sofa surfing, we would normally call it,
and you do have people in very unsettled situations, sometimes people that are
moving between several different people. But you also get people in
caravans, you get people coming out of mental health institutions, you have
people coming out of leaving hospital, you have people coming out of prison,
You've got people fleeing from other areas into our own area,
and that could be due to domestic abuse.
It could be due to other threats to them.
And that's something that we have to manage and we have to
ensure that we're acting in the most fair and transparent way
for all of them to ensure that we find accommodation for them.
Cabinet Member - 1:07:45
I think also we've got to remember that some people will be made homeless just like thatand that's an emergency. And there are other people who will know that they're likely to
be made homeless because they might be having a landlord that is, you know, finishing their
contract giving notice and they need to come and be put on a register and they can come
on the register at the council. If you need a temporary emergency accommodation, quite
lot of people don't want to be taken out of where they are currently living and
then being sent somewhere else because the temporary emergency accommodation
may be in you know we've got three three areas we've got also we've got safe
housing in a different area and so they are away from their comfort zone so they
don't always choose to take that on they might have the accommodation that is
available for them but they don't always necessarily want to do it and take it on.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:08:44
Thank you for that clarification.Councillor Fowles?
Councillor David Fowles - 1:08:52
On priority three it talks about promoting Streetlink through regular social media campaigns.Could you explain to me a bit more how that works, Streetlink?
That's question number one.
I won't have three so you will remember the second one.
The second one is providing ongoing and regular training sessions for parish councils and
have I been in a situation that Delis had been in?
I wouldn't have known what to do next to help that person.
So I don't know whether you or the portfolio have a view
on whether more training should be provided.
But first question, could you explain StreetLink
and secondly training members?
And I would also think that maybe local businesses ought
to, especially in our key market towns,
be more familiar with what to do when someone's on the street
in the middle of I know Simon Sisters an ongoing issue there. I know that what you
referred to earlier is sometimes people are there not through choice but they're
not homeless but they happen to spend time on the street but I'd really like
to know a little bit more about Streetlink and the training. Thank you.
Officer - 1:09:57
So I'll probably let Councillor Layton pick up the second point but in terms of StreetlinkSo Streetlink is a website that you can go on
and that you can refer somebody through.
You don't need to know their name,
you don't need to know anything about them.
All you really need to do is pinpoint a location
for that person at that point in time.
Now I appreciate sometimes that can be difficult
because that person may move.
For example, if they're in a caravan or something like that
but it's trying to say, well, at this point in time
on that day at this time, that's where that individual was.
And that alerts us to the fact,
obviously if you do know their name
or you can give any description, then that's always helpful.
That may alert us to the fact that maybe we might know
this person or we might know them from before
and they've ended up in this situation.
And then like I say, that will go through now
to Julian House and they will pick that up.
They will go out to visit the location that's being given
and determine if we need to become involved or not.
Sometimes you do have some people who don't consider
themselves to be homeless and they may be transient, they may be passing through the
district and obviously Councillor Neill has mentioned about the Stowe Fair and you do
have people that pass through around that sort of time but you do have other people
as well that they travel all over the country and so it's understanding that the people
in our district at any one time.
Training.
Cabinet Member - 1:11:31
Well, we did have a member's briefing, which I believe mighthave been in December.
I haven't got the date to hand.
I believe it was December because I couldn't attend it.
And I was away for a bit of time in December.
Training, we can always put on training and do another
briefing, if you think that's necessary.
or you could just look on the, it'll be online on our, you know, on our recorded training sessions.
Councillor David Fowles - 1:12:06
I was thinking particularly in my own experience, and I have friends and family who've seen someone on the streetand want to help but don't know what to do. It's not just about where you refer them to,
it's almost like the training that you can get when you're doing the people, especially in retail,
who have got some indication they have got to mention how to behave towards them.
That is what I was really thinking of because you don't go up and say what are you doing here,
why are you homeless.
I personally would benefit from some training.
I didn't attend that session in December.
So I could just ask you as the portfolio holder maybe to consider putting on another session for members.
Is that something you could do?
I am sure we could do, yes.
Cabinet Member - 1:12:52
There is also out there is signposts who are out in the streets in the evening and theywork when they collaborate with us and we've had meetings with them.
So they are also very much around in siren -cessor.
I mean, as I said before, it was, you know, when we had our meeting with the MP, we were
talking about siren -cessor cases.
I don't know how much homelessness or what reports we get from other areas like Morton
or chipping candy or you know.
Yeah.
Officer - 1:13:25
In terms of rough sleeping outside of Cirencester,it's nearly non -existent I would suggest.
You have the odd person approach every now and again,
but usually because it's not a usual site,
you tend to get a big flurry of communication
if somebody is rough sleeping in one of those other places.
Not to say that it is more common in Syrancestor, but I think if somebody sees somebody sat outside the bank or something like that in Syrancestor,
you know, I don't think people contact always in the same sort of capacity.
But also in terms of you mentioning about businesses, it is a conversation that we've had internally because last year in Gloucestershire,
a piece of work was done around hidden homelessness.
So people that, maybe this is not so much around here,
but you have people that ride buses all night,
or you have people that will sit in betting shops all day.
So they have somewhere to sit
and it's how do we sort of locate some of those people
to say, well, actually we are here
and we can provide some support and some assistance.
You know, so there is a conversation internally about
how do we get that message out to some of these other places to
make sure that we are advertising our service as much
as we possibly can.
Cabinet Member - 1:14:55
And we were talking about collaboration with other placesin Cirencester.
I mean, we've got the long table now so people can go in there.
If there is any concerns, the long table can be contacting us.
The same with the guys in, I forgot what they're called after,
just said it, signpost, sorry.
And they also do, they do a meal once a week,
I believe on a Tuesday.
So they are very much engaged with people who are maybe
rough sleeping, as we said, but there aren't that many of them.
But the people who are coming into the town or need help,
and they can contact us.
and we've got a very good relationship with them too.
Councillor David Fowles - 1:15:39
Just to say as a comment, as someone who's probably more in the siren system,more than perhaps the majority of people in this room,
my perception of the siren system is it's occasional, it's not a long -going problem.
Ironically, the long tables arrival did actually remove a very nice place
for someone who was sleeping in a very deep entrance.
But, you know, and I think the change in the profile of some of the banks, because someone
used to wait outside the bank, which is quite a clever place to wait, really.
But since it's now the white stuff, it's no longer used.
But I don't have this perception that there's a regular problem in siren system.
It seemed to me that we've got it pretty well buttoned down.
But for me, it's the occasion where you do come across someone and you want to help them,
but you don't know what to do.
I had an occasion recently where someone fell over in the middle of Marketplace in Sire
and Cestor and it was just like the Samaritans.
People were just walking by.
This elderly gentleman was bleeding and it was terrible.
I went to the pharmacy and they didn't want to know.
In the end I managed to persuade a taxi driver because this guy could barely walk to get
into this chap's cab and get him up to the hospital.
But it was, you know, I felt really quite impotent not knowing what to do for the best.
Yes?
Well, thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:17:01
Sorry, I was just going to come in if you don't mind.Officer - 1:17:05
Yeah, like I say, it's just about ensuring that people have got as much information aspossible through whatever avenues we've got to do that, and to ensure that if people do
send anybody rough sleeping or even if we put rough sleeping to one side, if they believe
somebody may be homeless or believe that they may be threatened with homelessness.
The earlier that we know about that situation the better chance we have of
trying to address it and trying to ensure that they don't become street
homeless ultimately and exactly as you said you know we don't have big numbers
in Sire and Sestino if you go to other large towns you know it's quite a
visible problem and we've worked very hard over the years in the
was to ensure that that's not how it is here which gives us the opportunity that
if we are made aware and we are alerted that we can deal with it as quickly as
we possibly can.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:18:06
Well thank you. Councillor Neill. Sorry I didn't quite work through my list ofCouncillor Dilys Neill - 1:18:10
questions. First of all Juliet Lina I'm going to ask you this. So in StoneThe main bulk of empty properties are in accommodation for older people and I don't know whether it's possible.
Those are the sort of, are you talking to, you said you're encouraging landlords who've got empty properties to get them occupied.
I mean I think the problem locally is that we're just oversupplied with that type of accommodation.
and I've tried in the past to find out whether it's a problem just in Stowe or
across the whole district and not achieved an answer but I don't know
whether that conversation can be had with those people where they're having
difficulty marketing the property. I think again this is not quite, we are
Cabinet Member - 1:19:00
looking as part of the homelessness is that the team are looking about emptyproperties and bringing them back.
We really ideally would, I mean, in many places people
would be looking at stuff that we already own,
but we don't own anything.
But, and it's getting hold of the landlords.
The issue with the retirement homes,
we've been through before, but that is, again,
it's not particularly to do with this area, this field.
So, but it's not forgotten, I can assure you, Delis.
Okay, well, I can talk to you about it on another occasion.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:19:36
However, a couple of just brief points.Firstly, in the second part, page 43 on 2 .2,
it says, the housing team are responsible for maintaining
a fair and transparent choice -based letting system,
HomeSeeker Plus.
And I mean, I'm sure that it is a fair and transparent system,
but the perception of some people who
have been unsuccessful in HomeSeeker
because it isn't fair and transparent.
And I don't know what you can do to make people understand
better how the housing that's allocated through HomeSeekers
is allocated, because I come across aggrieved people
on a reasonably regular basis.
Cabinet Member - 1:20:24
Have you got anything specific?I mean, we're talking about the gold, silver, bronze ratio.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:20:35
I have contacted the team about specific instances where somebody who's living in Stowe has appliedfor something and told that she was pretty much at the top of the list and then somebody
who's lived somewhere else, maybe Whitney or somewhere obscure, has suddenly been allocated
that property.
So I've asked about that, but it's that sort of question.
Cabinet Member - 1:20:57
I'm going to let Tom answer this in a minute, but if there are times when they might bethere on that list, there might be an emergency family that needs to have a property and we
have to supply something, that might be the case.
Officer - 1:21:15
I mean, in terms of it's fair and transparent, the policy that we use and that we allocatefrom is freely available online so people can go on there and review that.
In terms of you're talking about the properties being allocated and you know
if you've got somebody from Stowland they're not coming at the top. The
difficulty is you've got some properties in the district who are likely
the older properties which don't have any kind of restrictions on them around
local connection. They don't have 106s which say that there's a first
preference to those particular properties in the parish. So with those
properties it will just be ordered from emergency gold silver bronze for
everybody that bids on that property from the entire district. However
there will be some properties in Stowe and in other places which have got 106s
on them or other agreements that have come through the planning stage which
state that there is a first preference to people that have a local connection
to that parish and those people will then get pulled above other people and of course
you will then have the opposite situation where you'll have people that say well it's
unfair why are these people coming above me but just because I've got a local connection
so I think the argument sort of goes both ways a little bit and that's the purpose of
the policy is to ensure that what we're doing and how we're allocating and how we are assessing
people's priority for those houses is done in a fair and equitable way.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:22:44
I think it's just if you're aggrieved that you haven't had the property.You're not going to go to the website and look at the policy, are you?
So, yeah, I'll just try, yeah.
Then the other thing is, you were talking about domestic violence.
This is just a tricky one.
So if there is an incident of domestic violence, the victim gets placed.
I mean, what happens if you've got an abusive person still in the house?
I mean, obviously, people who have caused an offence or committed a crime that doesn't involve them ending up in prison.
I mean, they've got to be placed in housing too. That's always going to be a very difficult situation, isn't it?
I just wondered how you dealt with that particularly tricky scenario.
Officer - 1:23:24
What do you mean if the perpetrator is left in a property?Yeah, that's really what I mean, yeah.
I mean if they're left in a Housing Association property then it will be for the housing provider.
They will need to decide firstly if that person is not on the tenancy then obviously that's
something that they need to address and most likely they'll be asking them to leave the
property.
If it's a joint tenancy then that person may have some rights to that tenancy.
But again that'll be for the housing provider to decide whether it's reasonable to leave
that property or not. I think we're just making an assumption here as well
Cabinet Member - 1:24:03
because it could be any I mean if it's a if it's a privately owned property theperson leaving needs to have emergency accommodation we've got nothing to say
about the person left behind in their palatial property it's it's not. As Tom was saying if
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:24:26
If the person who's left is the person who is actually the tenant, the other person whomight then be made homeless.
Officer - 1:24:41
Sorry, we do have situations like that in numerous different tenures of properties and it could bethat they're in social housing or private or they may be homeowners even and people will approach
and we may then, like you say, you may have then the perpetrator may then approach us as well.
But we have to work with that person in exactly the same way, with exactly the same thoughts and feelings as we would with anybody else.
You know, and it's exactly the same, you may have offenders, you may have people who have done awful things in their lives.
But from our perspective, they still need exactly the same service provided to them,
They still need to go through exactly the same options and availability and we will treat them exactly the same as everybody else with the respect that they need.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:25:27
Thank you. I've got some questions but I know Councillor Jenkinson wants to come back in.I am conscious that I do want to leave time to speak about the IHT on agricultural property as well.
So Councillor Jenkinson, shorten to the point please.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:25:41
Thank you, Chair.I just want to address the issue of the cost ratios.
Forgive me if I missed it here, but there is a relationship
between the costs of the services you're providing
and the funding that you receive in order to provide
that from the government or raised from local residents.
I'm not sure how that works.
So there's a relationship there.
Now, it may be that there's a surplus of funding over costs, or it may be the other way around.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's the other way around.
Whichever it is, there's then a relationship between that and our overall understanding
of the value of what we are doing within the totality of the budget.
So, we allocate, for example, let's say there is a cost, net cost of doing this of x, and
that net cost of x is going to fit within the totality.
How do we go about thinking about the value of making that investment, let's say, in looking
after our community within the totality of all of the things that we put money into?
I hope the question is clear.
Cabinet Member - 1:27:01
Shall we send that over to David?I was going to say I think I needed Caroline for that one.
Officer - 1:27:07
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:27:14
In terms of how the council addresses I suppose the value it attaches to particular outcomes,The Council has a corporate business plan that sets out its priorities.
That's largely around provision of affordable housing, addressing the climate emergency,
so on and so forth.
And the Council's limited resources that are set out in its revenue budget, its capital
program, its MTFS, are framed by that.
But what the budget process doesn't do in the way that some larger scale projects that,
say central government deliver, is a tax of value to an outcome.
So we don't say that by preventing one case of
homelessness that would be, let's say I'll make a number up,
10 ,000 pounds, therefore investing 10 ,000 pounds in a
service to prevent 10 ,000 pounds of expenditure is worth doing.
So we don't do it at that level, but we do frame the budget and
the MTFS around the priorities of the council that are set out
in the council business plan.
I'm not sure if that provides any greater understanding or
clarity, but that's sort of how the way in which resources are
directed is directed against the priorities that have been set
out in that plan.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:28:32
I'd ask the question in a different way that may besimpler.
When you look at the net cost, which I wouldn't be surprised if
there's a net cost, is there pressure on that net cost to
say, gee, that's an awful lot of money relative to other
things or is there some other view on it?
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:28:51
In terms of understanding where we are with homelessness costsand trying to prevent that, we know that off the top of my
head, if we needed to place an individual in emergency
accommodation at short notice, that is going to be
very expensive.
So the whole strategy is built around trying to prevent getting
to that point.
So we're aware of that.
But I wouldn't say it's a conscious decision around
setting the budget that we're looking at, well, if we prevent 100 cases and we would
ordinarily have to provide those cases in emergency B &B accommodation, it's going to
cost this, that and the other.
We do have other provision in terms of how we deal with homelessness through hostels
that the Council provides, and we do have the ability to work across Gloucestershire
in terms of understanding where the nature of the supply and demand of that temporary
accommodation could be.
But it's probably fair to say that when looking at how we build the budget for this, we are
looking at how that is funded.
And largely you'll see from the report that we do get homelessness prevention grant.
And what Caroline, as the business manager in that area, will be doing is understanding
how that can best be used to give the right outcomes at a reasonable cost.
not necessarily the lowest cost, because there is no such thing as a lowest cost to this,
but trying to ensure that we're making the best use of that resource and getting the
best outcomes across a range of different provisions.
Some of that will be supporting our own provision through hostels.
Some of that will be looking at ways in which the budget is split up to do preventative
work.
Some of that will be looking at ways in which we can have to – might have to make emergency
placements.
It's done in the round and what I've been looking for since the earlier question is
the last time the Homelessness Prevention Grant budget was taken to Cabinet and I think
it was last taken for 23, 24 because there was a two -year allocation.
So I will liaise with Caroline in terms of making sure that comes back to Cabinet and
would come through this committee in advance.
Thank you.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:31:02
Can I just give a suggestion as a result?Thank you, David.
That's helpful.
It seems to me that as a suggestion, therefore, it may
be worth building in another strategic objective for the
work that's being done, which might be put in a simple terms
as optimizing the process.
So if we start with saying, these are fundamental things
that are really important, we want to do them, then it's not
that we're going to say let's cut costs as such, but what we are going to say is are
we really doing this in the optimum way, are there better ways, as simply an ongoing discipline,
because there's always a better way of doing things at some margin. And that might be an
important part of the discipline of how we do things.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:31:56
Thank you. I'm sure you'll be noting that, and I'm sure it's all part of the ongoingwork of allocating things to the budget and trying to get the
best outcomes from the budget allowances that we have and
whatever grant funding and other help we can get in,
including from charities and things.
My questions were on page 29, just out of interest,
the ten year split.
It's got only occupied, private rent, social housing.
It doesn't actually have affordable.
Is that swept up in the social housing?
Normally they're sort of treated as different.
It's only a small thing, but people do get confused between this thing being social housing
and affordable.
And I think it's quite a thing.
And then on the next page off that 31, we've got XXX affordable homes delivered between
the...
39s.
Oh, is it?
And XXX I've got.
Yes.
That's 30.
Right.
Thank you.
That was the one question.
Then...
I see. Oh, God. I wasn't...
Do we have the number?
Do we have? It's XXX and XXX.
We will have a number for that when that goes to cabinet.
Yes. I'm sorry.
And because...
Well, thank you for that.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:33:22
I just thought that it was sort of...That was an important figure and it's not there.
My actual question is that there was somewhere in your report,
it mentions that you're wanting to build better relationships
with private landlords to see if you get more housing
through that area.
And I don't think for one reason or another that there's going
to be a lot more private housing coming through in that way.
But there are organizations like Leaf Living who actually
are building houses to rent and they're actually working with
councils quite well to provide that sort of tenure.
and I just think that that might be an area worth exploring.
And my final sort of real comment was that I'd love to have the breakdown
on the waiting list or the home seekers between gold, silver and bronze.
I know that, I mean, I'm not saying that I won't remember people seeking homes,
but how many are allocated between those different categories,
because I actually like did a sort of hair of people getting,
I don't know why I didn't get that house, it was ideal for me, blah blah blah, but they
seem to be on a higher rating. Just so that I have a better understanding of that, that
would be helpful. Thank you.
Cabinet Member - 1:34:40
Can you just remind me of what you wanted from the tenure split element?Social and affordable housing.
Social housing.
Private rent. That might be considered affordable.
Social housing will come from a housing provider such as Bromford's.
Officer - 1:35:00
Bromford has two types of housing. He has social housing and affordable and they're not the same.I think what it is is that this tenure split has come from a set of data which doesn't split between the two of them.
So that social housing figure is inclusive of both affordable and social rent.
Well thank you for that. I think it would be useful.
We can...
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:35:25
Useful to actually split them because they are different in many respects.And so I think it would be useful to have that split. Thank you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:35:40
Anything else? No, Councillor Waring has been quite quiet.But the, so I don't think there's any recommendation.
We really thank you all for the work.
We hope that Caroline Gisselle gets better soon.
And thank you very much for doing such a thorough report
for us.
It is something which is so important to prevent
homelessness.
You know, if you don't have a job at home,
you can't get a job very easy.
There's a whole lot of other grants and support
and everything else.
much harder to provide somebody who hasn't got, they can't even have a bank account properly. So, you know, there's also so. Councillor Fowles.
No, I in thanking the portfolio holder and the officer, I actually
Councillor David Fowles - 1:36:22
wanted to thank you particularly because you stepped in.I think the way you dealt with the questions was very considered and very sensitive and very accurate and thank you. Well done you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:36:35
Thank you both very much.And now I'm going to turn to David Cunnighan, moving him forward so that we actually have
a chance to, I don't know how long this will be, but anyway, it's important, very important
13 Progress Review - Task & Finish Group IHT Farming
to ask a Finnish group from Oviuens Krupne into the impact on inheritance tax on the
farming community in the Cotswolds.
Thank you Madam Chair.
Councillor David Cunningham - 1:37:00
It will be actually quite a quick update for you.We had one online meeting and one face -to -face meeting which we held earlier today.
What we have done so far is agree the terms of reference.
We have, actually Councillor Turner has put together some excellent questions
that we are looking to whittle down into an online questionnaire which we're hoping to put out to various people.
We have had input from various members of the committee which have, I think, really
highlighted the fact that this is not quite as simple a task as it was originally envisaged
as being.
As Councillor Jenkinson has done, it has highlighted a whole raft of possible unintended consequences
consequences, which we think are important but not necessarily the approach that we are
looking at because we want to keep the focus on the inheritance tax and the impact it will
have on farms. But we should recognise that there are these unintended consequences. So
some of the questions that Councillor Turner has put together are asking those questions
as well. We have had less success on agreeing the people that we'd like to come in and talk
with regards to an open day here, it's not an open day, it will be an invitation day.
But I think we're going to work certainly over the next few days and put together something
for Monday by email where we will have a better idea of what the questionnaire will look like,
we'll work with Democratic Services on that. And then to get to the point where we can
agree what is a sensible and pertinent number of people to invite to come in and discuss
the issue because we really don't have, it's such a broad issue of unintended consequences
that we could have 50 people come in and spend days talking about it and we simply don't
have the time for that. So progress has been made in terms of finalising what it is that
we think we're looking at. Some great progress has been made by Councillor Turner in terms
of putting together some questions. We will be highlighting, we think, to Council what
we believe are issues that the government perhaps have not considered.
And then we are hoping to have feedback from the people that come in that will help us
formulate something which is more of a, have you thought of this type approach to the government,
rather than just don't do it or do it.
Because we've quickly realised that actually that isn't the right approach.
That there is something that needs to be done, but is it being done in the right way?
we think not, and we just want to formulate a way to put that together in something that
the Council can put forward to the Government and hopefully we'll have some sort of traction
with them. So, ongoing, much bigger once we dug into it than we thought it was necessarily
going to be, Shaukara. But we are doing what we can to get to a point where we will have
something meaningful for Council by July.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:40:08
Well, thank you, and thank you to your other members.I'll pass the pass in a minute.
For all the work you're putting into it.
It is a rather open -ended sort of thing,
quite difficult to think.
And when you've actually got to present a letter,
which isn't going to be reams of pages long,
and really clarifies it, that takes,
it's going to be, it's quite a struggle.
So I think you're doing great.
I'm sure it will come out and will be a very useful document
and a very interesting exercise for all of you
who have been involved because I am sure you are learning a lot more about all sorts of
things than you ever realised. So thank you for that. I am going to ask Councillor Fowle.
Councillor David Fowles - 1:40:46
Is part of your liaison or engagement going to involve the two MPs? Particularly one ofthem because he is a farmer. I just wondered whether you are considering that.
Councillor David Cunningham - 1:41:01
David Cunningham. Yes, we are. We intend to contact both of the MPs. We are looking topresent all of the people that we do invite with the questions that we are putting together
so that they can come in pre -prepared so that we don't have a situation where people are
bombarded with requests for information. We want to give them the chance to come in with
the pertinent information which we can then collate.
So yes, both MPs will be contacted.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:41:33
Does anybody else want to add anything?Councillor Jenkins.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:41:39
I think Councillor Fowl's question raises an interestingthing and I'm not, which it could be a rabbit hole to go
into it, but there's a distinction between a person
who owns a tract of land, let's call it an estate, on which
farming takes place on one or more farms and a person who is a farmer. And that is part
of the... because the person who owns it is the person who is liable to the tax, but the
person who is the... the people who are the farmer are in a different situation. And that's
just an example of the rabbit hole that Councillor Cunningham was referring to.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:42:23
Thank you. Did Councillor Turner want to add anything?Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:42:29
Right. Well, thank you. I hope that gets you off to your meetings in due time. So thankyou. We now move on. I'm sorry we all moved back. Did either Delos and Angus, did you
have your reports? I haven't had them circulated to my knowledge before this meeting.
12 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees
I haven't had another HOSC meeting.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:42:49
There hasn't been another HOSC meeting and there won't beanother one until June or July, so it's quite a while.
But I did bring, I was at the doctors recently and I picked up
a few leaflets which are sort of pertinent to some of the things
that we've been discussing recently.
So a lot of the emphasis is on trying to get people to go to
the right place rather than just holding up to A and E.
And I've been wondering how that information is disseminated
because it hasn't sort of hit my letterbox or hit my social
media or anything.
But obviously there's a lot of stuff in practices,
whether people actually want to pick it up and read it or not,
I don't know.
But there's things like click or call first and keep any clear
for real emergencies, which give people ideas of what they can
do calling 111 for advice, winning the GP surgery for
advice, using our community minor injury units, which are
very underused, I think, or going to the pharmacy.
It's that sort of thing.
Or self -medication.
And then the other thing that they're very keen on is
advising people on how to keep well, how to keep warm, general
health advice, having vaccinations, dealing with
mental health issues, dietary advice, I mean, eat well.
It says find the tips to eat well and stay healthy.
Active, how to stay active, and things like cost of
living advice.
So this is the sort of things that we've been discussing at
the HOSC, and it was just nice to find them distributed in my
liquid GP surgery, but how many people actually pick them up is another matter.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:44:40
Well thank you for that. Actually my husband was doing gardening, got sort of stabbed by ahuge great thorn and did go to Moreton Hospital. It is undutilised. He said, oh gosh,
should I really go there? I said yes, definitely, that's where you go, you know, and it's
terrific and I do think they are undutilised. I hope that there's a desire
to see more consulting going on there. I think I mentioned at the last
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:45:01
ONS thatI'd asked for a review of our minor injuries unit for,
well, our community hospitals to be included in the work plan
for the HOSC, and I hope it will be within the next few months.
I just got sort of a question for you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:45:14
You know, we heard this morning that the government is planningto put more money into GP practices, and obviously,
I don't know how this is going to be allocated,
but are you aware of all of GP practices in the Cotswolds who
would be pushing to get this extra grant aid to improve them?
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:45:32
I'm going to be able to tell you about that, but I can tell youthat at HOSC, I think two or three months ago, we had
somebody from a winchcomb surgery where they had actually
put out a letter to all their patients saying that because of
financial constraints, they weren't able to provide all the
services they wanted to.
So when they'd lost staff, for example, nursing practice nurses,
some of whom were real clinical nurse specialists virtually,
they hadn't been able to afford to replace them.
And so they were saying, you know, our waiting lists,
you know, our waiting time to see a GP as long as you'd like.
You may not get the services we'd like to provide because
of lack of funding.
I think it's generally disseminated across the country
that, you know, these sort of things are a push.
Don't go to hospital if you can avoid it.
and it's pushing more things back into primary care,
which is great as long as the funding comes with it.
Angus has been talking to some GPs in Worton this morning,
and he's going to tell you the same thing, I'm sure.
Yes, Councillor Jenkinson.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:46:39
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:46:40
First to your question, my answer to your questionis ditto without the additional leaflets and so forth.
We haven't had a meeting.
With regard to your second question, the one I'm answering now on practices, we have a
double practice in Moreton, in Marsh.
They invested – they raised money and invested in – with the help of a grant – in a significant
building which they saw as supporting their needs way into the future and as a result
of a series of unplanned developments, well, from our point of view, they were not expecting
them.
They've exceeded capacity.
They don't have enough space for the people that they have to have, and they're being
asked to put more people in and more people in, and that's without lots more people coming
on board.
So they're absolutely stretched.
They absolutely need more resources.
And they're concerned that they're way down the pecking list because they got money 10
years ago.
How are we going to get money again?
So this is a very serious problem, and it's very serious
not only for them, but for people in the town, and for our
strategy in terms of planning and housing and so forth.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:48:02
No, and I think actually Ditas was talking about actually thestaffing, which is a problem throughout the NHS,
not enough staff.
But this government grant is going to be for the buildings
and for improvement and that.
So they are different ones.
So I'm not thinking that it's necessarily
going to give a GP at this point.
It doesn't sound like it.
But let's hope that there is going
to be more money going into primary care for that.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:48:27
Well, we knew from our planning meetingsrecently that there are local surgeries which
are in dire need.
We had the planning application through from Techbury
where they were in desperate need of a new surgery.
And we allowed that through a planning committee.
It was very controversial.
And then I think at least one of the surgeries in siren system,
is it the Phoenix surgery?
I don't really know.
It's not fit for purpose anymore.
I think that's going to be rebuilt as part of the
Chesterton development.
But, you know, I worked in a surgery that desperately needed
replacing, you know, people, the staff were having to use cupboards
to take blood and stuff like that, which is, you know,
completely unsatisfactory.
So investment in the bricks and mortar is certainly a good thing
but there also needs to be, you know, if we're asking the public
to go first to primary care rather than piling up in a
hospital, primary care needs to be better funded.
So that's just another thing.
Maybe we need another task and finish group to write another
letter to the government about that.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:49:33
They're using the photocopying room for such purposes.No.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:49:38
I do agree, and I'm going to put Chipping Camden surgery, which is waiting to have alittle development.
It is desperately needed.
Not only is it not building up it, but actually you can't access to it.
It's very poor, and so therefore it's not fit.
But thank you.
Now, Angus, do you have a report, or you've also not had a meeting?
I answered that question already with the word ditto.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:50:00
Remember I said there hasn't been a meeting.Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:50:07
Councillor David Fowles - 1:50:10
It's a little too early to ask the question of both colleagues, but as far as you know,are those two committees continuing in this so -called shadow council for the next two
years?
Is that still the plan?
Or is it up for renewal or what?
That's general question number one.
Specific question number two is, I suppose it's through you, Dylis, finding out what's
happening in Tepary would be a really good thing because on the doorstep, you know, a
lot of frustration down there about having spent so long getting planning.
I don't know quite where, whether you've got a view on that personally.
I've got no idea how that's progressing, but I've got no idea how that's progressing.
That would be…
And as a member of the Phoenix surgery, although not a doctor, as far as I know, certainly
Phoenix in Cirencester in South Cernia is fine, but it was Phoenix in Tepary that was
the big issue.
I can't remember, I just remember when we were looking at the application for Chesterton,
which was a jolly long time ago, 2018 or something like that.
I mean the surgery, the old surgery in the high street in Tepary was leaking and all
sorts and that was taken over by Phoenix.
So anyway.
I might have got the name wrong.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:51:22
But certainly if you look on the calendar for GCC, there are HOSCs in there.Yeah.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:51:36
My reading of the situation is that the previous administration, that there is a requirementat national in the Act to have such a scrutiny committee, but that the previous administration
was not enthusiastic about having a lot of scrutiny of their economic activity.
So they've certainly downplayed it compared with how it was before.
They've reduced the number and they've reduced the significance of the matters that have been brought to us since then.
Well, there's a new administration and I can't say what will happen with them.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:52:16
Right. Well, thank you. Have you got meetings presumably coming up before perhaps the next meeting or maybe not?I don't know. Perhaps not because of all the changeovers.
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:52:27
It was quite a long break before the next house I noticed.It might even not be till the beginning of July.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:52:37
Anyway, well, thank you both for being very good and going down to Gloucester and attendingand reporting back so fully, which is really very helpful.
Right, now we move on to the work plan and forward plan.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:52:53
Chair, we had two items on housing, two different topics, and I'm not sure that we've addressed– we seem to have addressed one of them, but were we actually dealing with both of
them at the same time, because that was never made clear?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:53:12
I believe it's the same – they were the same, yes, it's the homelessness and things,it was under –
with two different titles and two different bits of content to go with it.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:53:51
I think some people did, we did move between the two reports during it. It was, if yousee it on the agenda, it was all covered off. I don't know exactly, I did think it was a
little confusing and of course we didn't have Caroline Clislet here, maybe she, has she
maybe in a way that maybe that would have been presented slightly differently.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:54:19
In future I would urge democratic services to make those kinds of things much clearerto poor people with limited bandwidth such as myself.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:54:31
Councillor Jenkerson, I'm not going to completely, I'm not going to buy a complete that story,but anyway that was the agenda item. Back to the work plan. I made some adjustments
to these as the July meeting looked very busy,
so the ecological emergency has moved to September.
The local plan which is due to be discussed in July will be
an update and not the final plan.
But given the importance of the planning advisory service pass
at their recent consultation for CDC,
placed on getting the local plan agreed,
I'm sure there will be many questions and invigilation
on this subject by this committee.
It is incredibly, one of the most vital things,
our local plan. And of course in July we'll also be formulating the
recommended letter to be sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on how the
changes of inheritance tax could impact farmers in the Cotswold District. Does
anybody have any other comments on the work plan or forward plan?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:55:34
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:55:35
Chancellor Jenkinson. I'm looking at July and seeing a number of potentially meatyYou've just been referring to the area plan, which I think in itself could take up the
whole meeting, frankly, given its significance, complexity, variety and so forth.
But we have on top of that, I don't know whether a local government devolution update is a
ten minute report or an hour of conversation.
14 Work Plan and Forward Plan
We have the farming motion working group update, and I don't know how complex that will be
as a conversation piece.
So again, asset management maybe we
have the ability to extend conversations
to fill the time available.
And it may be we can bring these up.
This is a brisk item.
But it looks to me like there's rather too much for July
in order to address the real priority items.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:56:31
Well, we are very aware of this.I actually don't think, I don't believe that, well, it depends.
Who knows what the government might announce, but I don't see the local government devolution. I've got Andrew Brown will come express things
I don't ask it managers to have no particular idea how that might take again
Andrew might be the answer on that and my annual report which has to be done in that July meeting
Won't be too long. So
Yes, it is going to take some managing Andrew yes, please. Can you tell us more?
Andrew Brown, Officer - 1:57:08
Thank you chair. Yes, I think the point's well made and we're already talking to officers about whether the asset management strategy can maybe be retimetabled.I think as has been said that we'll try and make sure the main focus or the main time can be on the local plan.
The devolution item is going to be a verbal update from the chief executive I understand, so potentially doesn't need lots and lots of discussion.
It will be more of an update.
I also need to advise you as well, the service performance
report and the financial performance report that you're
expecting in June, those are now tracking to the July
Cabinet meeting, which doesn't help with slimming July down.
So we might, yeah, we're going to need to give that some
more thought as well.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:58:00
I wasn't aware of those coming.I mean, we do, this year, we seem to have been struggling
getting the reports in on the time that we need to discuss
them, and then we have some meetings, which, you know,
lovely tonight, if it hasn't been too long and too heavy.
But it's not making our workload,
distributing it in a very good way.
And, you know, these things now in July are really important.
I mean, if we're doing the financial as well and performance,
I'm really, we have done it before,
and people may not be super enthusiastic about this.
We have actually added in an extra overview and scrutiny
when we just got to get through this stuff.
Otherwise, we don't get another meeting until September,
August, there's no meeting.
So, you know, that's like...
Councillor Neill.
Just sorry,
Councillor Dilys Neill - 1:58:47
Andrew was saying that we might have a very thin meeting in Juneby the look of it.
If the financial report and the service review are taken out, is there something that could
be moved forward?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:59:02
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:59:06
Thank you, just to explain why service performance and financial performance is going to theJuly cabinet is to ensure those are taken together and we can't produce what will be
the draft out -turn report by the June deadline.
So, despite the best efforts of Michelle, Hazel, and the team who are trying to frantically
close the accounts and having a conversation this week about have the numbers stop moving,
there are some other more strategic choices we need to make around the out -term position
and the accounting for that that we won't have in place to enable you to scrutinize
or cabinet to decide.
So, it was decided to take both reports and put them into July so that both the service
and financial performance are aligned, and you'll see from the Future Work program for
September, the quarter one financial and service performance reports will come together, and
that pattern will repeat, because there was in the March cycle for cabinet a service performance
report, and then in the April cabinet a single item on the financial performance reporting.
So it's to ensure those two go together, but because of the timing of finalizing the out -term
position, which we'll do during May, we wouldn't get that in time for you to consider with
the rigour that I know the committee would like to give it.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:00:29
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:00:29
Well, thank you for that. I mean, it is true that June is going to be impossibly thin.What is democratic services? What is the solution to this? I mean, we have got this really important
stuff to do in July and it is vital. I mean, honestly, it is absolutely vital.
Andrew Brown, Officer - 2:00:47
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:00:53
I think I can just add in that given the area plan, the interest in the area plan, let usput it, I can imagine a lot of questions from parishes, from people, to us.
I can imagine member questions on it as well.
So taking up that earlier time, which we didn't have any of it today, for example, we've seen
in the past it can be quite full.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:01:22
Councillor Waring wants to come in with something, but Andrew did you want to come back withanything before that?
Councillor Waring perhaps you've got something to add.
Councillor Jon Wareing - 2:01:31
Yeah I just wondered looking ahead have we finished talking about public air and thetransition?
Is there no future observation about that process?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:01:45
It is a bit of a distance. You're absolutely spot on. I dare say there won't be anythingnecessarily ready for June though. I'm not saying that we're just going to say let's
have this one because it could be available. I see a little whispers going on there. What
is your thoughts?
I think in terms of public, I think local government reorganisation
Andrew Brown, Officer - 2:02:10
has kind of obviouslychanged the council's approach to that, so it's potentially a line of inquiry in that
discussion.
Phase 2 has been scaled back quite significantly, is my understanding, but it's still on track
for July.
In terms of officer proposal, we'd suggest potentially cancelling the 2nd of June meeting,
given there's going to be no substantive business.
It can be very hard to bring anything forward, particularly given the time of year.
We've got annual council and everything like that.
And then maybe we need to think about having two meetings in July, potentially.
But let's take a view on that a bit nearer the time when we know what the Local Plan Report is looking like.
And we have a better idea of how substantial a decision that's going to be.
Because I think that's a bit unclear at this time.
I think it's an update. It's not going to be the Local Plan proper.
I think that's unlikely.
So, yeah, that would be the opposite of the proposal.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:03:08
Well, I think that's, but the real thing is if you can,all these people really need their reports whenever it is,
even for the Portland financial performance reports.
We really do need to know that when we're going to get them
and things, I feel that we're slightly, you know,
fumbling along to these meetings.
And I mean, obviously, lots of people will close their life,
at least I certainly do, to make sure I can get to overview
and scrutiny and of course if it's then cancelled I sort of reorganise things to
and then we have got to fit it into July and July comes up around soon
enough but they are so important these things so and also some of them have got
to be looked at before cabinet or not you know it's all that it's it's it's a
process doing it in the right order it's really important that we get it right so
um please can we have a look perhaps you can get back to me even have a bit of
discussion about what we can do and the best.
Andrew Brown, Officer - 2:04:02
Yeah, we can give it some thought.I mean, the thing is that the picture changes.
And that's what we're always trying to,
we're always having to adjust, in part because of the cabinet
work plan or because of other work streams
officers are working on that then impact
reports they're bringing here.
So yeah, we'll do our best.
But I think potentially having two meetings in July might be the way forward.
Maybe have the local plan on a standalone meeting if it looks like that's going to warrant
it.
That would be a suggestion.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:04:40
I could do my chairman's report with this.The things which aren't, you know, that has a beginning and end but doesn't have much
of an interrogation.
But I'd quite like to tick more things off the list because the other ones are also important.
So thank you. We'll obviously have to have a look at that. Thank you.
Thank you. That was a good suggestion. Remind us about looking at where publica sits and how it's now.
I mean the devolution thing has sort of thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, of course, so it makes it more complicated.
Thank you. Well, thank you everybody for being here. Thank you all for your contributions.
And brilliant, thank you.
- Minutes , 31/03/2025 Overview and Scrutiny Committee, opens in new tab
- O & S toilet report May 25, opens in new tab
- Appendix A - Public Conveniences 2025v2, opens in new tab
- Annex A CDC Preventing Homelessness Strategy 2025-2030, opens in new tab
- Preventing Homelessness Strategy 2025-2030 (1), opens in new tab
- Agreed Terms of Reference Farming Motion working group, opens in new tab
- O&S Work Plan 20250425, opens in new tab
- Forward Plan -March 2025 - May 2026, opens in new tab