Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 7 July 2025, 4:00pm

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 7th July 2025 at 4:00pm

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Speaking:

Start of webcast

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Councillor Gina Blomefield

1 Apologies

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Julia Gibson, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield

2 Substitute Members

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Julia Gibson, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield

3 Declarations of Interest

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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Michael Vann
Councillor Ian Watson
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Nick Bridges
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield

4 Minutes

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Minutes , 06/05/2025 Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Angela Claridge
Councillor Gina Blomefield

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

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Matters arising - summary sheet

Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield

6 Chair's Announcements

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Public Speaker
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Public Speaker
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Angela Claridge
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris

7 Public Questions

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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield

8 Member Questions

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Councillor Gina Blomefield

9 Report back on recommendations

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10 Overview and Scrutiny Committee Annual Report for 2024/25

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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Michael Vann
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield

11 Financial Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

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Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Gina Blomefield
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor David Cunningham
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Tony Slater
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Joe Harris
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Ian Watson
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Ian Watson
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor David Cunningham
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Patrick Coleman
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield

12 Service Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Mike Evemy
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Angela Claridge
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Ian Watson
Councillor Mike Evemy
Officer
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Ian Watson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Officer
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Officer
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Nick Bridges
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Mike Evemy
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield

12 Service Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

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Councillor Gina Blomefield

13 Farming Motion Working Group Update

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Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Clare Turner
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Michael Vann
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor David Cunningham
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Andrew Brown, Officer
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield

14 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees

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Gloucestershire Economic Growth Scrutiny Committee

Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield

15 Work Plan and Forward Plan

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Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Gina Blomefield
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Tony Slater
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Angus Jenkinson
Councillor Gina Blomefield
David Stanley, Deputy CEO
Councillor Joe Harris
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Michael Vann
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Councillor Gina Blomefield
Webcast Finished

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

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:01:28

Good afternoon everyone.

Just a few last minute adjustments and organization.

But welcome to everybody for the overview

and scrutiny meeting today.

We've got, as you know, a big agenda ahead of us.

It was also a warm welcome to any members of the public,

whether in person or watching online.

1 Apologies

As always, I want to acknowledge and welcome the cabinet members

and officers who will be giving their reports to all members

of the committee and also the officers present

to support the overview and scrutiny committee in its functions.

Before we go any further, go through the usual housekeeping.

Fire exits are marked.

The toilet facilities are to the left of the lobby outside the room.

Please turn off and put on silent any mobile device.

This meeting will be live streamed and will also be available to view later through CDC's

website.

If anyone wishes to film the proceedings this is permitted provided it does not disrupt proceedings.

Going on from there, could I have any apologies?

Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:02:40

Yes, we have apologies from Councillor John Waring and Councillor Spivey.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:44

Thank you for that. And do we have any substitute members?

2 Substitute Members

Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:02:47

Yes, we have substitute and Councillor Ian Watson is substituting for Councillor John Waring.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:53

Does anybody have any declarations of interest or items on the agenda?

3 Declarations of Interest

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:04

Well, should anybody find that during the meeting that something does, please let us know at that time.

Now, before we go into the main body of the meeting,

please can each of the members introduce themselves, starting with Councillor van.

Michael van Fairfoot North.

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:03:21

Ian Watson, Teppery Town Ward

Councillor Ian Watson - 0:03:26

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:03:29

Joe Harris, St Michael's Ward in Syrinsesper

Claire Turner, Blockley Ward

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:03:34

David Cunningham, Fosridge

Councillor David Cunningham - 0:03:38

Nick Bridges, Watermore Ward

Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:03:42

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:03:46

Tony Slater, Grumbold's Ash with Evening

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:03:51

Angus Jenkinson, Moreton Easton, Toddenham

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:57

Thank you very much for that. Now we should go to the minutes of the 6th of May. Now some

of you will not have been present at that meeting so obviously you can't vote as to

whether the minutes are correct. But we have also had, before we go into the actual minutes,

we did have the questions on the customers' complaints procedure and street sign repairs.

We all received notification of that.

And as well, further information on the homelessness update

regarding how the grant was spent and the current waiting

list numbers by category, which those three things are all very

helpful and it's wonderful to get that follow -up

from the meeting.

So thank you to everybody who contributed that.

I just wanted to ask a question.

I'll ask Andrew Brown whether that information will be added

to the reports.

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:04:51

So, Chair, we've published in the supplementary papers

for this meeting actions arising from the previous meeting

and it's the things you just mentioned

and they've all been closed off as completed.

So they have gone out as a supplement

and are on the webpage.

Thank you very much for that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:06

Now, are there any other comments or corrections

4 Minutes

to these minutes from those who attended the meeting?

I'm aware that Councillor Jenkinson did make some observations.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:23

Perhaps you didn't. I thought you had made a few.

If everybody is content that these are accurate minutes, those who are present, could we have a proposer and a seconder and then vote on things?

Councillor Turner proposes who could second.

And, well, Councillor Cunningham, thank you very much.

And could we have the vote on those minutes?

I think that's all that we have still.

Any abstentions?

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:59

No, I don't believe there are any abstentions.

It's because the composition of the overview and scrutiny committee has changed.

So there are people who are members who are no longer members and we got new members who obviously weren't at that meeting

So that is why we've any

Thank you very much

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:06:19

Now we go on to the matters arising

I've just got one matter on one item on that. I just wanted to find out whether town and

parish councils forum

have all the town councils been provided with the briefing on this particularly

important for those ones which were unable to send a representative. I think

our monitoring officer Angela Claridge has the answer on this. Thank you.

Thank you chair. So just to make everybody aware there is a newsletter a

Angela Claridge - 0:06:50

town parish council newsletter going out by the end of this week which includes

in it information in terms of feedback from the summit and a few other

relevant items relating to LGR. That will go to all town and parish councils by the

end of the week. That should hopefully give them all the information or at least sow the

seed in terms of more questions.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:13

Thank you very much for that. That is very helpful because it is very important that

they all are kept informed equally and that is excellent. Thank you. Does anybody else

have anything on the matters arising?

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Councillor Slater.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:26

It is just an observation really.

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:07:29

On page 7 OS .185, the last bullet, I don't want to go over old grounds, but it says concerns

were raised over the initial failure to identify that certain assets were in poor physical

condition and in need of significant upgrades, but there was a report done by the contractors

that currently manage the facilities.

And it was quite an in -depth review of all the facilities

as one of the input into the report that we did.

So I'm just not quite sure where that comment arose.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:08:08

Do you really feel this needs to be adjusted in any way

or are you content?

I mean, I can't, I'm turned over to the right page yet.

So this is on the minutes from the last meeting,

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:08:20

which the committee's just approved.

So we might have just missed the moment there, I'm afraid.

But yeah, it's reflecting the discussion at the meeting.

I'm sorry, I'm on the press, obviously.

But...

Right, well, thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:08:37

So no other matters arising as far as we're aware.

Thank you.

Right, chairs announcements.

6 Chair's Announcements

The first announcement, most important one,

is that Councillor Jenkins is now the Vice Chair,

and I will be looking for his support

in running the O &S meetings effectively

and keeping us within our 3R running time.

We also have new members of the O &S,

including Councillor Joe Harris and Nick Bridges.

Welcome to both of you.

For all members of O &S,

please take time to read through the additional paper

on the Executive Scrutiny Protocol

to remind yourselves of the purpose of this committee, if needed.

I'm aware that some people have huge experience and probably that's, you know, a thing.

But it is interesting and it just reminds you of where our focus should be

and what the purpose of O &S is at this Council.

Now I'd like to apologise for having to hold two meetings on successive days.

But the reports weren't ready in June, so scrutiny of the important topics going forward

to July's cabinet meeting had to be covered by UN and S this week.

I very much appreciate that all the reports to be covered

were provided to Democratic Services for the two meetings

in good time.

Thank you to Julia Gibson for tracing on that.

And I thank the authors for the effort

they put into achieving this.

It is a very full agenda today with important items.

So in order to provide enough time for the committee

to ask questions and hear explanations.

Please could I ask that the presentations themselves are

kept short on the basis that I hope everyone has read the

reports to give as much time as possible to the interrogation.

And likewise, can members be succinct in their questions

and cabinet members and officers likewise in their responses?

Now that's not to say just make it simple and very yes, no,

but to try and use the time wisely.

It is helpful if members can give page numbers and references when asking a question on a particular item

so that we can all immediately look up the reference. It does make it much easier.

And finally, I have to say I've got great sympathy for the Cabinet who will be including the topics from both our meetings,

today and tomorrow, in their one Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

So going on from that, I wonder whether we have any public questions.

Yes, questions.

Thank you. Would you like to come forward?

Public Speaker - 0:11:35

Hello everybody. Andy Farmer here asking a public question.

I'm also the secretary of the South Cotswolds Labour Party.

Two questions for me, both of which relate to item number three, the Farming Motion Working

Group update.

Question one refers to page 180, where there's a simple request to amend paragraph 3 .2, where

it currently says representations were also received from the South Cotswolds Labour Party,

requested exchange to representations against the motion were received from the South Cotswolds

Labour Party. Please can you make that amendment before it is voted on today?

Thank you Andy for coming again.

That's the first one.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:12:25

Thank you. We all get a bit confused. I'm sorry, I was going to say, and your second one.

And so now I think what we'll do is we'll take them together.

So thank you.

Please give your second one.

No problem.

I've got a printout of them as well.

Public Speaker - 0:12:37

Question two is a request to amend the report to provide transparency around the independence

of the analysis and transparency on the interests of the working group members that were tasked

with this report.

This is especially important given that the council funded report appears to have only

found negatives.

and has neglected to include any of the positives.

While some of the members of the public may see this as a coincidence, others may not,

in all cases the public deserves transparency of the interests so they can make up their

own mind with regard to the independence of the report.

So I request that a declaration is included in the report and it makes it clear that the

working group members were the Conservative member for Fosse Bridge, the Conservative

member for Sandiwell, Lib Dem member for Moreton East, Lib Dem member for Fairford North and

the Green member for Brockley. Secondly, at the time of writing, the Conservative Party,

the Liberal Democrat Party and the Green Party had all publicly stated their opposition to

the Labour Government's proposed changes to an inheritance tax and were pushing for a

U -turn. And then finally, at the time of writing, the Conservative member for Sandiwell derived

an income from farming and had a financial interest in a farming business, including

owning agricultural land and owning some of the finest

ewes and tups in the country, which Si Point commended on

that, but I think these declarations need to be shown

within the report.

So please can you also amend the report to clearly declare

these members' interests?

Thank you.

Right.

Thank you.

Thank you for all of that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:14:21

I'm now going to first of all probably go to our monitoring

officer, Angela Clarage, or for anybody else, for the actual

a proper protocol and then we can go into the discussion and invite actual members to

respond to it. But actually to get the protocol right in the first place. Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:14:50

I was just going to ask, well, which do you think would be the best thing?

I don't know whether Andy Farmer was planning to be here all the way through to the very

end, which is quite a long way on, and whether there is some way that we can respond before

he may have to leave. That was my feeling. So I'm looking for advice. Thank you.

Angela Claridge - 0:15:21

My advice would be if members were happy, obviously yourself, Chair, if you're happy

to respond to the questions now, then do them whilst Mr Farmer is with us.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:15:30

Councillor Harris actually asked our task of finish to look at this, and very conveniently

He's now on the committee.

So I think Councillor Harris, please, could we, your response?

Yeah, thank you.

Well, thank you for having me back.

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:15:42

I think it's been 12 years since I last served on the OVV

and Screeting Committee.

So I know I don't look old enough is the cry.

But no, it's good to be back.

Yeah, I mean, I think on question one,

I think that's fine.

I think that's just clarifying the Labour Party's position.

I don't know about colleagues, but I'd be happy with that.

And then I think in terms of question two, I mean, yeah, that's factual.

The, certainly point one around the working group, just stating, you know, who the members

were and their political leaders and their ward, I think that's fine.

Again, I mean, I think it's, unless colleagues disagree, I think that's factual as well.

I think, you know, it's always a tricky one, isn't it, with declarations of interest, because

ultimately it's not for us to judge, that's for the individual to judge.

So I think, you know, in my view it wouldn't be appropriate to accept that.

Ultimately, it's for the Member for Sandewell to declare via his register of interests or

at the time when we're debating an item what he declares.

So, you know, I don't think that's appropriate and it's not for us to police.

So as far as I'm concerned, you know, for my colleagues to decide,

but I'm happy with the amendment raised in question one,

7 Public Questions

and then I'm happy with the two points raised in question two.

That would be my own view.

Well, thank you for that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:17:14

I know Councillor Drenkerson would like to also.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:17:21

Regarding the first question, I looked through the text

for that particular item.

And it doesn't state what the position is of any of the people

who communicated.

It simply states who they were.

And so that, I don't believe, is the place to make a comment

about what was actually said by the different people.

If we're going to introduce that for one party,

then we might have to think about doing it for others.

I'm using the word party not in a political sense,

but in a general.

And as far as the second one is concerned,

I don't think we've yet had the debate regarding

what we end up with as the final recommendation to go to cabinet.

I don't take the view personally that we are completely supportive of a negative view against the Labour Party

or the Labour Party proposal. I think that this was a non -political overview and scrutiny process,

which is not a political process.

And for my part, I did not follow, for example,

anything to do with what the Liberal Party might actually

say on the subject.

I simply looked at it on its merits.

And I thought that, on the whole,

that was my experience of what everybody did.

As to what we end up recommending,

I don't want to prejudge that at this point,

because we haven't decided, finally,

what it is that, as a scrutiny committee, we decide.

And I certainly have the impression

from the conversations that we had, that it was a mixed view about the situation.

Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:18:56

Yes, Councillor Cunningham, who was chair of this committee, were...

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councillor David Cunningham - 0:19:01

I would say I would agree with both points of view here.

Three points here says representations were sought from a wide range, were also received

from, it simply states that representations were received.

We didn't set out any particular view that anyone gave.

So if somebody wants to include that as clarification,

I think it opens the door to too many clarifications

around too many other points of view that went through.

We could then list all of the other people

that were against it.

So I'm not sure that it achieves a great deal

in clarifying that particular point.

For question two, the first part is a matter of record.

Each of our political affiliations are part of our entry on the web page.

The position of the parties, to be perfectly honest with you, did not play a part in any

of the discussions that I remember having at any of the meetings.

In actual fact, one of the very first things, and I mentioned this before at the previous

O &S meeting, was that we came to the conclusion very quickly that the government's intention

was very well meant and that we could absolutely see that abuses of the inheritance tax regime

at that point needed to be curbed.

So I don't think there was any point of, at any point was there any shying away from the

fact that we, that the approach that was taken had well meaning.

We just thought that the information that we had received since then meant that we didn't

necessarily agree that they had considered all of the potential unintended consequences.

In terms of particular interests, that is a matter of public record as well.

Interests are on the web page.

If someone wishes to look them up, then they are free to do so.

They're not required for that particular council.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:21:14

Right. Does anybody else want to give a view on this?

I don't know whether Paul James or any of the other officers or anybody else.

Andrew Brown from Democratic Services.

Okay, just a couple of points I'd like to make.

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:21:33

Firstly, we're in the process at the moment of reminding members to update their register

of interest.

That's a piece of work that is active and underway at the moment.

And secondly, I think the public questioner asked for the report to be amended.

So this version of the report has been published and is in the papers, but there'll be a new

version that goes to full council and that will be published tomorrow.

So whether the committee agrees today can be picked up in that next iteration of the

report.

And I think what I'm hearing is members are happy for the members of the task and finish group and perhaps their ward still be will be listed clearly in that report.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:22:15

Yes, right. And in fact, just as clarification, it's not going to cabinet. It is indeed, as Andrew said, it's going to go to full council.

And this is not the final iteration of it. So we're going to be discussing it later.

and you're very welcome to come and still be with us at that point.

If that's everything, so there will be amendments

and we will include some of your observations.

So thank you very much for coming today.

Going forward, we go to members' questions.

8 Member Questions

Does anybody have any members' questions?

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:22:53

I've just got one, which is a follow -up to a question I raised,

and I cannot remember exactly when I raised it.

But I wanted to have an updated report on the use

of the electric vehicle charging points provided

by CDC, including the ones at Trinity Road.

And Claire Locke said we should wanted a bit more time

to go before we could actually have a realistic sort

of pattern of use.

But it would be useful to know

when they're being used, how long, and by whom.

So I would still like, if that can be forwarded through

to Claire to have the, I think, I have used it myself.

The connected curb app works well,

and it's a very straightforward.

Once you've got all your, I don't know, the app going

and you're putting your payment methods and all that stuff.

But once you've done it, it's fantastic.

So, any other questions?

Any from, really?

No. Right.

Then report back on recommendations.

At the last meeting, we didn't make any recommendations,

9 Report back on recommendations

so we don't have any report back.

And now we go on to the O &S annual report.

10 Overview and Scrutiny Committee Annual Report for 2024/25

I just wanted to give my thanks to Julia Gibson and Andrew Brown

for putting this together.

And it's good to look over the work covered in the last year,

including the recommendations that were made to Cabinet.

I am going to say something more at full council, but as we have

very full agenda today.

Is everybody happy for me to take this and vote on it as it

stands on the recommendations?

And this report goes to full council on the 16th of July.

Does anybody have anything that they would like to comment?

Chair, you're talking about the overview and scrutiny committee

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:24:40

annual report?

Yes, and I think I've jumped the page.

I would like to make that.

Oh, sorry.

I'd like to ask some questions.

Can I ask, am I being, am I missing something

that there's no reference to the public toilets inquiry

that was done by us?

And there's also no mention of our connection

to the county scrutiny committees

that two members of this group participated.

Yes.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:25:15

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:25:18

So I'm pretty sure that the public conveniences work was in the previous year and was included

in the last annual report to full council.

So it was.

Yeah.

And the connection to the counter council committees seems like an omission.

So we can add something in there.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:25:41

Actually, I'm going to say in defence of the democratic services, they weren't included

in previous years. So we're actually all the time, work in progress, overview and scrutiny

is improving and it's including more things. In fact, we didn't even used to have these

chairman's reports. So there's a lot more going on. So it's good and always good to

how other people are picking up and pointing out other things that should be included too.

So thank you for that.

So we've now got to – could we have a proposer and a seconder?

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:26:20

You may not be saying so at the full Council meeting, but you've been an excellent chair.

Thank you for that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:26:28

Thank you very much.

So now, going back, well, you're going to propose now on this and have a seconder on this annual report.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:26:44

Councillor Cunningham, Councillor Havan, a proposer and a seconder, and could we now vote on this, please?

Thank you very much, that's wonderful.

and I will be saying something more on it, but tonight's not really the night for that, I don't think.

I still won't be saying a lot then.

11 Financial Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

We now have the financial performance report, and we have here David Stanley, CFO.

and oh there we are sorry you've hidden Patrick completely in cancer come would

you like to come up to give your reports please will it be cancer Coleman going

first and as I said keep the introduction as far as possible to the

point because we've all read the papers with great interest and avidly

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:27:55

This is a report that will be considered, as you said, by Cabinet this week.

And therefore, it's fortunate that I'm not in a position to comment on it yet, because

it's more appropriate for me to do that at Cabinet and to listen to your questions, and

Stanley's introduction.

Thank you.

David Stanley, please go ahead.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:28:24

Thank you, Chair.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:28:28

I will try to keep this as brief as possible, given the time.

Financial performance reports is the out -turn report for the year ended 31st of March 2025.

It covers the revenue budget out -turn, the position on the capital programme, but also

includes information on transfers to and from earmarked reserves.

It builds on the Q2 and Q3 monitoring reports that both this Committee and Cabinet had December

and January because we split the Q2 into two parts.

And back in March, early April for the Q3 report.

The out -term is positive.

So there is an increased surplus over what was budgeted for.

So the budgeted position was a 516 ,000 -pound surplus.

The out -term position is a £778 ,000 surplus, so £262 ,000 better than the budgeted position.

That compares to the Q2 position that said a £250 ,000 surplus would be achieved, and

the Q3 position that said £435 ,000 would be achieved.

So ending up at 778 is really positive.

Could still be seen as a little bit negative.

I'll give you a balance view, given that movement in the year.

Were we being too negative, too cautious, or unrealistic in those estimates and forecasts that went through to Cabinet?

I don't think we are.

There has been quite significant change in the way the Council organises its services and the way those finances flow through.

But Table ES2 in the report on page 54 highlights the movement since Q3.

By and large, the significant movement is around housing benefit overpayments.

So £236 ,000 additional income has been recorded for that particular service area.

And that's around ensuring that the year -end position on housing benefits in terms of those

that owe the Council money through fraud and error.

is correctly identified on the balance sheet,

and that matches what's recorded on the council's

housing benefit system that's provided by Civica.

So most of that is around an adjustment to make sure

that we've identified and seeking recovery,

both on the financial system and on the Civica

housing benefit systems.

There was some adjustment to a historic closing balances.

There was also an improvement in the Trinity Road

service charges and some of the energy that is generated

from the solar panels on the roof and some core costs recovered.

There were some minor movements on fees and charges.

The public contract continued to deliver a surplus

or an underspend, depending which way you look at it.

Treasury management was less generous

than we thought it would be.

So we may have been over -optimistic in Q2 and Q3.

So we ended up with a 60 ,000 -pound adverse movement

between Q3 and out -term.

And finally, in terms of significant movements,

The total cost in year of the Phase 1 of the publicer review came in lower than the 182 ,000

provision that was included in the budget.

And that's broken down in Table ES2.

What that really means, and I put this in context, paragraphs 2 .4 to 2 .8 of the report

are really important for members to acknowledge and frames the current position.

So if members cast their mind back to 2324 and also to 2223, the Council to support its revenue budget took 1 .852 million out of the financial resilience reserve.

The Council, through a motion in November 2023, said we need to put that money back.

With the 778 surplus of which 516 goes back into the financial

resilience reserve and the planned position for the

current financial year, it is in vigids that will put 1 .874

million back into the financial resilience reserve.

So the context of that is the government launched on the 20th

of June two significant consultations that we've been

waiting for, for a number of years, first consulted on in

April 2018 around the Fair Funding Review.

Fair Funding Review 2 .0, that's its official title,

it's not just me putting the 2 .0 up to make it sound like

it's new, is due to make significant change to the way

in which the government funds local government.

It is highly, highly likely, based on some analysis I've

seen from PIXEL and what MHCLG have done in terms of writing to us, that we will come

out of this badly. We'll end up with less funding in future years than we've currently

got. The positive on that is that's the position that the MTFS has been setting out for a number

of years. Certainly for the last three years, we have been predicting that the cliff edge

is coming, be that in 25, 26 or subsequently that was moved into 26, 27, considering the

position the government took.

So the out -term position, which is far more beneficial

to the council, enables a greater amount to be retained

in EMR reserves to mitigate that cliff edge of funding

that we've been predicting for two or three years,

coming through in 26 -27.

In terms of the overall surplus position,

516 goes into the financial resilience reserve.

The proposal in the report and the recommendation to Cabinet is to transfer the additional amount

over the 516, which is the £262 ,000, into a transformation reserve.

There is already a transformation reserve that exists.

There's £200 ,000 in it.

To ensure that adequate funding is provided for a broader range of transformation activities.

So when the Council looks to address that budget funding gap in 26, 27 and 27, 28, there

may be a requirement to forward fund some investment on an investor -save basis to spend

money today to generate future efficiencies.

There is also the issue of local government reorganisation.

There will no doubt be pressure on the Council to ensure that it is providing members with

clear advice, clear analysis, and a clear decision that this council will need to take

in November initially, but then the implementation of the government's choice, which we may not

know until mid -2026, can be funded as well.

Just in terms of capital, the capital position that's outlined in the report is slippage

stroke underspend of just short of half a million, $428 ,000.

That's slightly more slippage and underspend than was forecast in Q3.

By and large there's two areas that have contributed to that slippage.

One is around a slightly reduced level of expenditure on disabled facilities grant.

And the other one is on delays in completing the roll out of the AUKs funded off street

residential parking scheme, electric vehicle charges in the council's car parks.

That is not likely to complete until August at the earliest, given challenges in getting

both DNOs, the energy companies, and connected curb to put the EV charges in place in the

brewery road car parks.

We've sought an extension from the Energy Savings Trust who administer that grant funding.

That was approved last week.

So we have indicated that the earliest we'd be able to close that off is September.

So we need to slip that contribution and the budget into the current financial year to

enable that to be delivered.

I'm less concerned about DFGs, a bit more concerned around the position on the EV charges,

but we are working with officers across the council to ensure that we are realistic with

both the funders, the Energy Savings Trust, but also putting pressure on

connected curb and the DNO to ensure that can be delivered on time and to

give members confidence that will be within the budget that was agreed at

Council way back in the early part of last calendar year. Don't have anything

more to say but happy to take any questions. Thank you very much David for

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:37:16

that. Councillor Colman, did you want to add anything at this stage or are you just waiting

to hear all the hard questions coming from the members of the committee?

Nothing at this stage, Chair.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:37:25

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:37:31

Councillor Cunningham and then Councillor Slater, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councillor David Cunningham - 0:37:36

The question I have is on commercial property.

£170 ,000 adverse variation.

I couldn't see and it could easily be the fact that I just couldn't find it.

I couldn't see anything anywhere regarding a plan to address that issue.

Thank you.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:38:04

So in terms of the 170 ,000 -pound adverse variation, it largely relates to one particular property,

which clearly is in the title.

It's the former Wilco's store in Great Bridge in Tipton.

So for the duration of the financial year that's just ended, that property was unoccupied.

The council had the hit in terms of the reduction in rent of income.

There wasn't any.

but it also had the costs associated with an empty property in terms of the liability for empty property rates,

security of that particular premises.

The positive position is due this week, I believe it may have been last week,

I'll double check the exact date, that the new occupant and the lease of that property was due to be completed

with Worley Stores Ltd in brackets, Great Tipton.

They have taken occupation early in July following a four -week fit -out period.

The position on that is they get six months rent -free, but they're taking on the liability

for business rates at the point of occupation, and that has been signed off in terms of a

rental income of around about £80 ,000 per annum.

And the MTFS and the budget that's been set for the current year reflects that position.

So there isn't a plan in place to mitigate that within this report

But the council with its commercial property holdings has now let that particular vacant property

Some of that variation was also due to an over rented position with our

commercial property in Seaford with Tesco's and also revision to the rent following

Renewal of the lease around the super drug in Hereford both of those are reflecting the market position

which is less rental income on the renewal of those lease terms.

Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:39:52

We have got Councillor Slater.

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:39:56

Section 2 .7, first paragraph, the income variation.

The public conveniences were 33 ,000 light on the forecast.

Did that forecast include an assumption of rolling out the new barriers and charges to

all the facilities that we reviewed?

On a positive note, the cemetery is 30K down due to lighter usage, I think the service

describes it, which is good in a way.

Car parks income, I sort of returned to our old friend the Rugby Club car park.

Do we have any figures that relate to the number of season tickets and usage of that car park?

And are there any particular car parks that are short of income?

I don't know if we could go down to that granular level for targets and forecasts.

That is me.

Thank you.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:41:03

So in turn, public conveniences, there is an income budget of around $105 ,000 for the public conveniences in a full year.

It was understood at the time the budget was set that that coincided with the recommendations from overview and scrutiny committee

in terms of the delivery of charging to or the rolling out for charging to all

those facilities and at some point a revision or a review of the fee that's

charged to ensure cost recovery. As members of this committee will know

there was an update provided by the previous portfolio holder that had

responsibility for toilets that that didn't take place but there is a

a programme in place with an update that will be coming to a future Ovi and Scrutiny Committee.

And I think the timeframe that was given was three to four months from the last meeting,

so we're looking at September time, that will provide an update.

But there is a project plan in place to roll out the charging provision so that cardless

or cashless charging can be put in place.

But there was also a position on the quality of the paddle gates, particularly at Baughton

on the water and that's also been reviewed.

In terms of cemetery fees, those cemetery fees

were reviewed about two years ago

and they were under recovering their cost.

Clearly that's a demand -led service and I'll leave it there.

On car parks, the car park income

has generally across all the council's car parks

maintained the level of income that has been budgeted

for in terms of fees.

Where the shortfall has come from is income from both permits and penalty charge notices.

What I've been doing with the services understanding what the options are to improve our position on enforcement.

Because without adequate enforcement you're not going to ensure that that income that is due to the Council from people parking without paying or overstaying their welcome is due.

So that has been put in place with 2 .6 full -time equivalent individuals being employed by the

Council following the resignation of the previous postholders earlier in the financial year.

So we're reviewing that in terms of the income expectation.

I'm not aware from the analysis that we get from the car parks that there are any particular

issues in any particular locality.

And I think the fact that car park income has held up following revisions to the tariffs,

that that doesn't indicate that there is a particular problem and certainly the broad

numbers that we see on a weekly basis in terms of the overall car park income, which isn't

broken down by car park, have been above the budgeted level throughout the first quarter

of this financial year.

But the budget for the current year was adjusted down to reflect the actual level of activity around PCNs

But clearly with an action plan in place to improve

enforcement then options will be considered as part of the budget for

The year coming as to what a more realistic level of income would be from PCNs

Thank you councillor Harris

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:44:31

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:44:34

Yeah I want to pick up on that theme around parking and you know it's it's a

lot of money isn't it that we're missing you know 82k from permits and penalty

charge notices so you know you've talked about enforcement then at the present

day is enforcement happening every day of the week?

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:44:56

I shall confirm what the current position is certainly under the previous

enforcement regime that we had in place, it would be fair to say that enforcement was sporadic

and not necessarily covering all seven days that the car parks were chargeable for.

The recruitment activity that's taken place is to ensure adequate staff are rotated across all the districts' car parks

and across all the chargeable days, but I will confirm in a written response, once I've caught up with the team,

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:45:30

exactly what rotor is in place. And then are you able to just comment on there's

some sort of there's reference in here to sort of machines not working and I

know this was sort of reported on around the time that number of residents were

having issues with the machines so is that now is that all my fixed and is

there is there anything you sort of want to comment on that in terms of lessons

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:45:53

learned or how we deal with that? So in terms of the car park ticket machines

not able to take card payments. That happened over a period in the summer and that identified a

particular issue in the way in which when the machine, car park ticket machines are

unable to communicate effectively with

metric

HQ, there was an issue with duplicate payments.

There was also an issue earlier in the year which

Councillor Harris is referring to where the

contract with our card processing company wasn't renewed in a seamless way.

So there was a break in our service with them. That has been resolved. So there

was a period of time during August where the Council was unable to accept card

payments on its car park ticket machines. That was rectified and what is currently

in place is World Pay processed that payment, that contract was renewed, but we did have

at the time an alternative way for individuals to pay for parking using the app on Pay by

Phone.

Where we are currently is we have started a piece of work to look at replacing the car

park ticket machines in the car park.

There are 31 of them.

There is budget in the capital programme for the current year to enable that to happen.

Two officers went to Car Park Ticket Machine Expo, I don't think that's its real name,

at the RICO Arena in Coventry in May and have fed back to Commissioning and Procurement

Board some broad options around what those machines would do.

So that's looking at having cashless machines with much clearer screens to enable those

residents who squint at the machine or where they're placed in direct sunlight an easier

way to pay. That will also address some of the connectivity issues that are prevalent

mainly in the brewery car park but not ostensibly to that car park where if the car park ticket

machine cannot get a reliable mobile phone signal, it holds that payment and then batches

that up at the next available opportunity which does lead to duplicate payments. What

the council has done since the beginning of April has instigated an automatic refund process

where we identify duplicate payments every week.

Those are automatically refunded at the time and the team have been reviewing payments

that were taken in the prior financial year on a month by month basis to ensure no individual

was adversely impacted by that.

But clearly that's part of the specification that we looked at in terms of new car park

ticket machines to ensure there are alternative arrangements in place should those car park

ticket machines not be able to process those payments.

The issue is arising because prior to around 2022, the process of making a card payment

in the car parks for parking did take a very, very long time, depending on the quality of

the signal that was around.

So alternative software was put in that had the adverse impact of holding payments back

until a signal could be received, but in doing so that created a second problem that was

identified and we put adequate mitigation in place to ensure that residents aren't charged

more than once for parking at our car parks.

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:49:27

Last question if I may, Chair.

Just to the cabinet member, Patrick, I appreciate you've been in post, what, is it a month,

something like that?

So I just think it would just be useful to hear.

I appreciate it.

You might not be able to go into the detail, like a bit of an overview.

You know, having a look at the out -term position and the finances more generally, it might

be useful to hear from yourself about your perceptions and views so far.

If I may.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:49:55

Thank you very much, Councillor Harris.

Yes, I was going to say, all my life I've been waiting for a job like this.

It's almost true and indeed that last exchange on car parking which is a very

important revenue stream particularly in terms of being able to finance our car

park maintenance but also in terms of financing our overall budgets. I just

wish I'd had the opportunity to attend the Recoa Arena and the Expo on car

parking because there's no doubt that the technology in car park payments is

not quite up to date and you think the speed in which car payments are taken

now at voluntary organisations of these little card machines now that they use or at fates,

won't do it anywhere and we're always a little bit behind the curve.

As to the rest of your remarks, I'm sure that they're very welcome. I think it's not just

fortunate that we're showing a positive position on the out -turn for the end of the last financial

year which is in this report before you today. That reflects the careful work done throughout

the year by staff throughout this authority and indeed in public and the

other organisations that we rely upon and that's very encouraging indeed it's

pleased to see the amount of detail that is covered in these reports and the

foresight of some of our forebears. There's a possible exception of those

who when they were desperately trying to find somewhere safe to put the receipts

from council house sales something like 50 years ago chose to put it in areas

that turned out to be very prosperous in some cases 40 years later. We were

talking about, where was it, Hereford and Tipton and somewhere else. But on the

other hand over the decades retail has been quite strong so I'm not intending

to be critical of the people who made those decisions following the sailor

council houses all those years ago. And I'm glad for the point about finally

about the White Way car park because that was an important partnership with

Rugby Club it's clearly benefited them and should we ever decide to build any

kind of new car park more than one more than flat in so and says that we shall

need an overflow car park but until then it is an asset waiting to be used but

thank you very much it's nice to see the positions reversed

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:52:21

thank you was there anything else councillor Harris or should we move on

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:52:26

Councillor Watson. I think give someone else a go. Thank you chair I've actually

Councillor Ian Watson - 0:52:28

got two questions I'll say the first one first. On the on the budgeting that we do

and I'm not going to judge anybody's budgeting on one quarter in the year but

looking long term do we do kind of forecast accuracy on our inputs to say

we are, you know, plus or minus 10 % and over time is there a trend that we're getting better

or getting worse with budgeting?

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:53:09

If I may, just in terms of how we approach the revenue budget, so we do look at the

out -turn report and particularly focus on those areas that have been either both adverse or

positive in terms of the variations and build that into the review of those budgeted areas.

What's been more challenging about the financial year just ended is November 1, a significant

number of services transferred from Publica to the Council.

If you cast, if members cast their minds back to the December and January reports, we deliberately

in the Q2 budget monitor did not include planning services because it was so volatile in terms

of the staffing cost.

Clearly that's not a sustainable position to have such reliance on agency staff that

it is in effect causing a significant overspend in that service.

That's something that Helen Martin, the director for communities in place who has responsibility

for planning services is absolutely all over in terms of understanding what the resource

is and is ensuring that access to our financial system ABW is there for her and the team to

review exactly how that budget is performing.

I think it's fair to say the approach we take isn't zero -based budgeting.

We don't start from scratch and go what do we need.

It is incremental.

But we are as part of our ongoing review of is the budget at the right level, putting

more pressure on that level being lower than accepting it needs to be higher.

And that challenge does go into service leads through the annual budget setting process.

But you'll appreciate with a 1 .6 million -pound funding gap identified for 26, 27, which increases

to 4 .9 million, that pressure will become ever greater.

And the way in which the Council provides funding for those services and the way those

services are provided will need to be transformed.

So part of what we're looking to do as part of the budget -setting process to ensure over

the next two years a balanced budget can be set is looking at both cost

reductions, savings, income generation, but how we can provide services more

efficiently and effectively but also improve those services. So the out -turn

report is helpful in that but I wouldn't be looking at the out -turn report saying

there's a £236 ,000 housing benefit, therefore we're going to increase the

income that we expect them to bring in.

That's part of the conversation, but it's in partnership with

those service leads to understand what those

in -year pressures may be.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Councillor Ian Watson - 0:55:54

The second point is that, you just mentioned transformation,

we've got LGR coming, we've got a lot of changes coming.

Everything I'm hearing from colleagues, from different sources is saying that there may be a delay,

even from the government, in implementation of LGR, might slip a year.

Would that mean any financial risk that we would have to consider?

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:56:28

In terms of local government reorganisation, I think the government have made their position clear,

both in the initial devolution white paper that came out in December and in subsequent

correspondence including the feedback that we had on the initial application that went

in in March.

The government has said for those authorities that aren't in the first tier, and there's

about six areas in the first tier, the expectation and the plan they're working to is for local

government reorganisation to take place on Vesting Day, which will be the 1st of April

2028.

At the moment the government have said there is no indication that's going to change, but

we will keep a very watchful eye on that, given the capacity the government may have.

But we need to work towards that deadline and be prepared for that change.

But also we need to ensure that the services that we currently provide are still provided

right up until that very last moment. So midnight on the day before vesting day

is when we stop providing that services service and it moves over. In terms of if

it is delayed is there a financial impact? I think if the government

indicate that they cannot meet that deadline and that results in a council

being financially worse off as a result of that or an area being worse off I

think representation would be made to government to make sure

that no individual authority or group of authorities in an area

are adversely impacted.

I do refer you to the Fair Funding Review 2 .0.

That will start the process of shifting resources from

authorities such as ourselves to a different type of authority.

So the government are very clear that they think the way local

authorities are currently financed doesn't meet the

demands that certain services have.

So when you take areas such as Cotswold, which is a

lower tier authority, it is high tax base and low need,

they are seeing more demand for services in high need

and low tax base authorities.

So there will be a movement of resource from us to

another part of the country because local government

finance redistributes itself.

So no additional money is necessarily going in, but the way in which that cake is sliced

up will be changed.

And I think that is a more immediate risk to the Council over the next two to three

years.

The Government have indicated both in the spending review and in that consultation we

will get three years of funding announcements.

We might not like them, but it will give us a degree of certainty, and then we can plan

effectively from that point.

Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:59:20

I've now got Councillor Chinggis.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:59:25

Once again, I'm appreciative of the depth and thoroughness of

your reporting.

I enjoyed myself, so to speak, going through it all, and it's

always an impression that you have a real mastery

of the situation.

I've got two questions I'd like to ask, and I'm conscious that

we're almost out of time.

So I'd like to think that the questions are important enough

to be asked, but I'd also appreciate, I can appreciate

that the answers might need to be brief,

at least at this point.

The first one is a little bit more in the nature

of a comment, perhaps, but it's also a question.

I was walking through the car park in Moreton -in -Marche

a few days ago on Saturday.

I noticed that once again after months there are four spaces

marked for EV cars but they've been empty for months so that's a loss of

income for conventional parking and nothing has been put there in terms of

doing it. And then I came to the one that was there and there was a man and he was

clearly in trouble. It looked like he was trying to tear his hair out and the

situation was that he had an EV car, he'd gone to Sirencester because he was low

on fuel, the machine in Sirencester didn't work, he looked around for the

next place, he'd come to Moreton in Marsh, and the machine there didn't seem to be working

either.

I spent a good deal of time with him trying to help, and I contacted officers and I contacted

the cabinet member.

And to cut a story short, it turns out that these particular, both of these machines are

supplied by a company that is not reliable and they're not really effective.

Now, the problem is that not only does that cause a problem in terms of our income, but

it causes a problem to an individual who relies on us, and it leads to stories.

And one story like that can lead to the loss of hundreds of sales of EV cars, if not thousands,

if it goes out.

My thought is that it's inappropriate to have spaces which are not occupied by cars and

inappropriate to have machines that are not functional.

Would you be willing to look into this matter and make sure that we put this right?

That's question one.

Yes, indeed.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:01:40

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:01:42

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:01:45

The second question is that I appreciate the depth of

transactional data and the analysis of what it ends up

with in relation to balance sheet and so forth and

profit and loss.

And we have all of this analysis, but when we

criticize the government or refer to the situation with

the Treasury, we're often implying some kind of position in terms of value judgments about

how money should be spent.

And what I don't see in these reports is a relationship between the bare statistical

and data about what sort of money transactions are happening against the charts of account

and so on, and our financial model, our business model of what we're doing, and the priorities

that we have.

So, given, for example, that we only have a few years left, given that curtailing income,

curtailing how much we spend has effects, just as we're talking about the effects that

we would be having from the government, I'd like to see clearer analysis about what the

effects are and where our priorities are so that we can relate how we are spending money

to those priorities.

For example, it is really critical that we address the

problem of an area plan.

Is that adequately resourced?

It may not be so critical to deal with something else.

So an analysis that says this is what we're trying to do,

these are where our priorities are and that is why we are

allocating the money the way it is, would to me be very helpful

for the whole council.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:03:18

So in terms of a brief answer, we've been liaising with the

The next agenda item report authors in terms of the service performance report to ensure

there's greater alignment between the financial outcomes and the delivery against the Council's

priorities and objectives.

I'll give you a poor example.

It's not a real one.

The service performance report says we're doing fabulously well on planning.

We're delivering every planning application, responding to that within the time frame,

and everyone's happy.

The financial performance report says that's great, but you've been overspending by a quarter

of a million.

It's getting those two things lined up, and where we've been working together is ensuring

we're sharing those data sets, and making sure that we're bringing those two reports

to the same meeting, so that, and in time, looking at ways we might be able to merge

that data, so you're getting a better understanding of how that money is spent.

particularly over the coming months as the Council looks to set a balanced budget for

26 -27, looks to understand what it can achieve within the resources it's got over the next

two or three years, that will become an ever more important question.

But that's where we're trying to do in terms of the backward -looking performance, and clearly

we need to think in light of that question how we do that for the forward -looking when

we come back to members in February and say this is the budget and this is what

it is doing this is what it objectives it's going to deliver against but I take

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:04:50

those points on board. Chair if I may very briefly sorry I can guess that

Councillor Jenkinson has some further insights to offer. It's beginning to

be my I would say vision but objectives that hand over time whether that's in

three years or four years time to the new authority,

vesting day we call it, don't we?

That whatever the issues are with the disappearing councils

that go into the new council,

people will say on that new council,

takes over seven or takes over three and a half or whatever,

well, at least we had no trouble with Cotswolds.

It was all fine and dandy.

The accounts were straight, the servicers were working,

all the electrics were charging the cars

and all the energy saving and climate change that could possibly be dealt with are in top position.

Partly I say that because even when we do that, ten years later we might be forgotten, but at least we'll have done it properly. Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:05:50

Thank you. I've got Councillor Cunningham coming back in.

Councillor David Cunningham - 1:05:54

Thank you Madam Chair. In light of all the things you just said, that comes back to 2 .5 here. This is what you're talking about, right?

2 .5 and 2 .6, the relevant departments will be held responsible, if you like, for reporting

back as to whether or not their magnificent delivery also comes with a magnificent budget.

In terms of that, it says, take steps to identify management actions that will address underperformance.

Who will take the steps to identify it?

Will that be you, the 151?

And in terms of redressing it, where will that go?

Will that go to cabinet, to full council,

or will that be something that's decided internally?

Thanks.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:06:41

In terms of taking steps, that I see as the responsibility

for budget holders, heads of service, and the directors.

That if we identify underperformance

within either both the expenditure or the income,

That's reported through the quarterly financial performance reports that come to this committee

as part of pre -scrutiny onto cabinet.

And it will be for that report that goes to cabinet to say we've identified underperformance

on service X.

This is the response that management have provided in terms of how they're going to

address that underperformance.

And depending on what the nature of the underperformance, that might be relatively straightforward.

We're going to manage our staffing cost.

we're going to increase the enforcement of the car parks.

And it will then be down to Cabinet to determine whether

that is adequate enough to address the financial

performance, whether they're assured that those steps that

are being set out can be delivered, whether that

addresses that financial performance.

I don't think it would be appropriate for me, as the

report author with Michelle of the financial performance

reports to dictate what that change might be, but clearly we may have a view as to the

scale of the overall financial challenge, and as you have seen in financial performance

reports both last year and the year before, we made some recommendations within those

reports that were accepted by Cabinet 2, particularly around vacancy management, use of consultancy

and having a clear sign -off process. So if we are facing a challenging financial

position in year, there's ways that can be mitigated through other actions that might

be outside the direct control of those budget holders.

But clearly it is down for the budget holders, the heads of service and service directors

to assess performance, make some recommendations and then for cabinet to be assured whether

that's adequate enough. And then if they're not assured, to be sending

those individuals back to consider alternative ways to address that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:08:55

Thank you. Now I know that we have slightly overshot but it is my

chairman's privilege to actually ask my questions too and I think we did earlier

to the meeting quite on in a quite a timely fashion. They're very short

questions and there's four of them. I just wanted to sort of go through those.

there was any opportunity at some point to raise the fees on planning.

I know that they're controlled by the government to some degree.

I was going to go through them all and then,

because it's probably quicker doing it that way,

I wondered also whether the tablets trial for the elections,

whether this was going to continue, whether it was suspended,

and was the, have we analyzed it to see whether it saved any money in inputting the data.

And then I'm slightly confused by this on -street residential

electric vehicle charging points, because GCC have been

in touch with me directly about putting some into Chipping

Camden for the residents.

Is that completely separate to anything that CDC is doing?

Because obviously I just hope that you are liaising with each

other, that you're not going to try to put them in the same

places or something of that sort.

I also noticed that the printing costs have gone up a lot,

printing and postage, or postage.

I mean, obviously, postage has gone up hugely,

and I wondered whether those costs can be split

between the different services to give a clearer idea of where

and how we could manage that better going forward.

And then finally, the last one was on, I think it's 3 .5.

It mentions that the, that if CDC is feeling slightly

challenge on our financial front, that it will have to look at either asset

disposals or undertake prudent borrowing. I don't know if there's anything you can add to that.

Thank you.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:10:50

So if I may chair very quickly, planning fees. So when the planning fees were

increased by 10 % the year before last, there was provision in that for that to

go up by inflation every year. That went up by 1 .7 % in terms of the statutory

fees. This committee will be considering the outcome from the Planning Advisory Services

review which will include whether or not the services through its discretionary services

getting cost recovery. And that's where I would see the change in terms of either the

fee or the way in which the planning service more widely approaches particular applications

through what's known as a PPA, a planning policy agreement.

Performance agreement.

Where if developers want particular outcomes in particular timeframes, that's agreed and

paid for by the developer.

In terms of tablets, the Council was undertaking a trial with Civica on the use of tablets.

Given there are no scheduled elections for this authority in the next 12 months, I don't

see that continuing, but it will be down to the returning officer in consultation with

the election services manager should there be a future election to determine whether

or not that is a good use of money and whether that more widely promotes a safe, fair election

in terms of its administration.

In terms of the AUKs funded that we applied for a grant from the Energy Savings Trust under this particular scheme to put EV charges into our car parks to enable those without the ability to charge on street somewhere to go to.

So that's been a separate provision to what the county are talking about.

Finally, on printing and postage, we have been reviewing our spend on postage as part

of a commissioning and procurement board paper which has identified our top 20 in blocks

suppliers.

Royal Mail, we're in the first top 20.

That's something we are looking at to determine where that spend is coming from.

And in terms of printing, that is something we are going to continue to consider, whether

we can move away from having quite lengthy reports printed on paper and move to a paper -free

environment for committee meetings.

But clearly, that is a conversation we will need with members to understand what the opportunity

is but also what the barriers may be and what we need to do to address that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:13:32

Yes, and I did add one little one at the end, which wasn't so little really.

It was about asset disposals, if necessary.

Yes, sorry, I forgot to write that one down.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:13:40

So in terms of that particular paragraph, the Council has an underlying need to borrow

because of its capital programme in 26 -27.

It would be remiss of me as your Section 151 to say that we were going to go and borrow

money, particularly when 50 -year money today is at 5 .99%.

It is a very volatile market and it's particularly expensive.

So we are reviewing our ability to generate additional capital

receipts that may come from asset disposal, but also

looking at do we need to spend the money in the capital

programme in the first place, which is another way of

avoiding the need to borrow in the first instance.

So that will evolve over the coming weeks and months as

we look at both the composition and timing of the capital program, but also review what

sources of finance are available to the Council, because we do have limited capital receipts.

I think at the moment we are looking at around four million of capital receipts, but clearly

the capital program is greater than that number, hence the underlying need to borrow.

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:14:48

Just to add, Chair, in my experience the Council, particularly in most recent times, has been

remarkably successful when declaring capital assets surplus at achieving both a purchaser

and a very reasonable price. And I think I can name the Cotswold Club and the old station

without naming any numbers as to which were particularly welcome when the prospects initially

weren't too good.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:15:13

Well, thank you everyone for that. And thank you. I think we're going to have a very busy

time in November looking at some very serious figures. So please everybody prepare yourselves

for those. Was there, oh gosh, got the sunlight straight out of me now. Hello, perhaps? No.

Not really. Was there anything, I don't feel from this we've got a particular recommendation

to put forward to cabinet unless anybody, my Vice Chair, do you have any opinion on

this?

Chair, I'm slightly biased because I made two suggestions for things that were going

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:15:43

should be looked at and I understood from the cabinet member that they would be.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:15:53

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:15:58

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:16:03

Right, well, thank you very much. Thank you for your time and for giving clear responses.

We move on to the service performance.

Have we got, yes, we have got Alison Borodin like me.

Yes, please.

It is very helpful if you are here.

Thank you.

12 Service Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:16:56

Mike, do you want to kick off on this one, please?

I don't have a lot to say.

Andrew Brown, Officer - 1:17:03

Obviously, Alison is here and her and her team compiled the information that's in front

of us.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:17:11

So really, this is a formless report.

I'm sure that members are familiar with these reports, with maybe the exception of Councillor

Bridges at his first ONS meeting, similarly the leader, but I'm sure, former leader in

fact.

I'm sure he's very familiar with it too.

So clearly welcome what ONS has to say in its role scrutinising the performance of the Council.

We'll see, we will be as a cabinet looking at this report on Thursday,

so we'd welcome any contributions that the committee may have.

Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:17:49

Alison, would you like to say anything now, or would you just like people to start firing tricky questions at you?

I can give a brief overview of people and heads.

Officer - 1:17:57

Yep, I think that'd be very helpful. Thank you.

So this report concerns quarter 4, which is January to March 2025.

And overall performance for the council has been mixed.

Some highlights on the progress on actions taken during the quarter on the R Cotswolds R Plan include

the Phase 2 transition plan was approved by cabinet and full council in March

with the employee consultation began in April and the successful transfers to the council started in July.

Cotswold Home Solar continues to be actively promoted and delivered with 27 households

having already installed solar panels with an additional 18 households placing deposits.

Planning consent for the zero carbon affordable housing development in Down Amptey was granted

on the 12th of March.

The first of two of 14 strengthening communities events took place over the February half term

which bring together statutory and community organisations to promote services in the district's

larger settlements and the final version of the refreshed green economic growth

strategy was adopted by cabinet in March 2025. Some highlights and service

performance that are better than target, customer satisfaction remains high

with the council, percentage of planning applications determined within the

agreed to time scales remain above target for all application types sitting

at between 83 % and 90%, 100 % of high -risk food premises were inspected

within the target time scales, and visits to the leisure centers

and gym memberships remain strong,

with memberships exceeding the end -of -year target by over 11%,

and the number of visits reached over half a million people

for the year, which was 9 % above the annual target.

Some service performance that's not quite hitting target,

affordable homes, so during 2020,

or during the financial year,

a total of 56 affordable homes were delivered

across the district, with six delivered in quarter four.

This fell short of the initial 74 that were forecasted

by the registered providers at the start of the year.

The shortfall is primarily due to delays

caused by project rephrasing,

which have pushed some planned completions

to the 2025 financial year.

Notwithstanding this, since the adoption

of the local plan in 2018,

the district has delivered a total of 886 affordable homes,

which averages 126 homes per year.

And then the number of missed bins rose to 102,

101, sorry, per 100 ,000 collections,

which exceeded the target of 80.

This increase is primarily driven by operational

challenges, including staffing shortages and the prolonged

absence of a narrow access vehicle, which was off the road

for two months.

These issues particularly affected properties on routes

that require the specialist vehicle.

Recruitment efforts are underway with interviews held to address

the staffing gap and improve service resilience.

Additional, there was some flooding in January, way back

then, which caused some temporary disruptions.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:20:52

Great. Well thank you very very much for that. I've got Councillor Cunningham with his hand up first and

Councillor Slater. Oh and Councillor Turner.

Councillor David Cunningham - 1:20:59

Hi Alison. I mean I must admit I cheat I just look at the orange bits really I

just flick through and see what's not going that well if you're doing it

well I don't need to ask any questions do I? I can see that there's quite a bit

of orange around the Cotswold guide and the local plan but given what's going on

with the MPPF and everything else, I think I can understand why there are issues there.

One a bit closer to my heart is the replacement street signs. We just don't seem to be getting

on top of that, do we? I mean, we've had the numbers in and we agree that it's difficult

and they've got a backlog, but I haven't really seen anything that says what they're going

to do about it. So I'd quite like something to come back from them, not from you, but

from them if possible, about what they're doing about it.

I think the EV charging points, we have already covered that

and we know where the issues are there.

The housing strategy have also covered that,

so I'm pretty comfortable with that.

The GCC safe crossing, I think that's something that's probably

going to be ongoing.

and so that needs to, you know, the big boys need to help us out with that one, so I understand

what that one is.

Deliver a district council cultural strategy that's going to be reconfigured as a plan.

Why is that off target?

That seems to me to be a fairly straightforward thing, really.

I know that LGR is in there, but there doesn't seem to be any reason why we couldn't put

together something which puts together what we think we'd like to have for cultural strategies.

Is that one for you, Mike Ralston?

Thanks.

Thank you.

Yeah, if I can answer all of them, I think, David.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:22:51

I'll let Alison add any detail.

I'll do them in reverse order.

The culture strategy is going to cabinet on Thursday, so I think, yeah, maybe it was Amber

because it wasn't yet, but it's happening this week.

The safe crossing, noting that the Cabinet Member for Highways is sitting in the room,

and it's in my ward, so it's something very much that I would like to see happen.

There is clearly an issue with the volume of pedestrians now on the Spine Road,

and we've got obviously a cycle path that goes across it, so we would like a safer crossing there.

On the street signs, yeah, Public Realm and the street signs now sitting within the portfolio

of Councillor Pellegram, and I have spoken with her about it.

I don't know if Alison can give us any more information, but my understanding of it is

that there wasn't a clear process in the sense of UBK were fitting that work in around their

other work.

So I don't know if Alison's able to give us any further information on that.

If not, I think we're going to need to sort of come back with a written reply on where we are with that.

Officer - 1:24:12

I don't have an update on the street signs, but the reason that the cultural strategy is amber is because these are the time scales.

If you see it says September 2024, so that was the time scale that was put in at the start of this plan.

And whilst the plan is meant to be a moving document with where

time scales are after the local plan update gets reported to

cabinet, whether they update theirs because it was meant to

have already been completed, if that makes sense.

So whilst it is meant to be a moving document until sort of

the okay is given, we don't update where the targets are.

So it is, it was meant to be delivered back in September.

Obviously it's being delivered in July, so it is off target,

but the action is that they are still working on it and it is going to cabinet enjoy.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:25:02

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:25:06

Thank you. Council Sleater. Thank you Chair. Does this section include the

Councillor Tony Slater - 1:25:13

council priorities report as well? It does. Good. When we do the report can we

make sure that the updates are quite specific on dates? There's one or

to, for example, on page 135, second paragraph, doesn't really matter, but it says at the

end of the summer, so I'm assuming that's this summer, whereas some of the others are

a little bit stale in their updates, for example, 136, first paragraph mentions April 24 for

a planning application.

So if we could just be a bit specific on those.

On the performance report itself, on page 29 of that report, it's about the planning

enforcement cases.

I'm pleased to see that's now included.

This is one of those which is reward versus cost.

So I note that the staff levels are now approaching full capacity, but is there scope to employ

additional temps to look at the backlog of 561 cases because obviously that's

that's an important brick in the planning armory.

I'm mixing my metaphors.

That's all I can say.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:26:37

If I take the second, the last point you made Councillor Slater. So at the back of

is our new chief executive. I'm sure that she will be in discussion with our director

of communities in place who has the responsibility for planning and you know if it's deemed suitable

that temporary staff might be available and could help us deliver the backlog within a

budget then I'm sure that that will be looking at that but clearly that's a it's a matter

for the officers concerned to consider,

in light of their budgetary constraints,

whether they can remove or reduce the backlog

that they are setting.

And I am aware, obviously, that there is a prioritization

there within the enforcement service.

So, you know, those cases that are most egregious

get dealt with first.

And it might be that there are some

which are less harmful that take longer to be dealt with.

and I'm also very aware that there have been cases

that have been there for a long time

in probably most of our wards, including mine.

And in response to the first point,

Officer - 1:27:46

I understand this, I believe you called it stale,

of the priority report.

So for the next quarter, I'll look into popping in

specific dates so that everyone knows

what year they're referring to

and if there is anything sort of older

that keeps getting refreshed.

We'll remove that.

Thank you. Councillor Turner, please.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:28:09

Councillor Clare Turner - 1:28:12

Thank you. I was going to mention enforcement too, so that's already been covered, but just to note that I'm looking forward to it as an item on our work plan in November, so we hope you can talk about it in great depth then.

I also wanted to flag up the safe crossing issue which we have touched on already but

I note that there was some reallocation of shared prosperity funds. So does that mean

that is now an additional barrier or I suppose my question really is, is there anything more

that we could be doing to push this forward given the importance of it and the consequence

of not having action on it?

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:28:51

I'll have a first go at that and then maybe David at the back might be able to add.

My understanding is that essentially the prosperity funds you've got to spend them in the year.

So you know you have to spend that money.

So what we don't want to do is have our money allocated that can't be spent.

So that was why the monies were reallocated.

I think then these things have to be considered on an annual basis.

So as and when we find something, a scheme that we could agree with GCC, then we have

to look at sources of funding for it.

But what we don't want to do is to tie that money up for something that then we can't

deliver.

David is in there.

I don't know.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:29:29

So just in terms of the way that fund works, it is given for a period of time.

So the last round of funding ended on the 31st of March.

We had to demonstrate how we'd spent that so where projects couldn't progress, that

funding was reallocated.

The allocation for UKSPF and RUPF for the current year is around about 40 percent of

previous year's allocations.

Therefore, there's been a review of the projects that are eligible based on the level of funding

that's available across the wider piece.

I think Paul James, who looks after those particular grant

funding areas, will provide you with a more comprehensive update

as to how we've treated previous applicants and previous projects

that couldn't be delivered within the timeframe of one

funding window that might be eligible for the current

funding window.

Officer - 1:30:23

If I could just add, the only point to add, first of all,

is that the UK shared prosperity and the rural England prosperity

funding for the current year is only allocated on the basis of a year so it

has to be for projects to be delivered by the 31st of March 2026 and there's no

prospect of this particular project being delivered within that timescale. I

think the second point that's worth making is that we have contributed from

a different fund towards the design of the scheme and that work is currently

underway and until that work is completed we won't have any certainty

around costs or timescale for delivery.

So I think once that work is completed,

we can consider where the funding might come from.

For example, Cilin and Section 106 money

and whatever successor to UKSPF or REPF there might be.

Thank you.

Councillor Turner.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:31:18

I have a couple more questions, if that's okay.

Councillor Clare Turner - 1:31:20

So on page 109 of our papers,

the narrative around misbin collections talks about the absence of a narrow access vehicle

for a couple of months. I am assuming that was some kind of mechanical issue, not a lack

of staff to operate that vehicle. Given the importance of that type of vehicle in our

area, what actions have been taken or are being taken to make sure we are not without

one for two months in the future? I will give you my last question as well, which is on

separate subject and that's around the leisure centres and on page 176 of our papers or 38

of the report it talks about monthly site inspections, assessing the areas and each

is rated from one to five with an average rating of 2 .99. So is five the highest and

one the lowest? That's the first part of the question. Secondly, I've had feedback from

regular users at the Chippenhamden Leisure Centre who've reported issues to me again.

So is it possible to understand the satisfaction from that specific centre separate from the others

which tend to get perhaps a little more attention and focus on them financially and I understand

the complexities of Chippenhamden with the school's involvement and so on but it would

be helpful to understand better what the satisfaction and usages around that specific site.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:32:50

So far, thank you, Councillor Turner. So yeah, in terms of the vehicle, my understanding

is there's only one and that's the issue. And therefore, should we have a backup and

therefore the cost potentially of that, should this situation recur? So I know this is something

that Councillor Pellegram is talking with officers about to seek to find a

solution so we don't get to a recurrence of vehicles off the road for two months

because clearly obviously that's led to a deterioration in service and it'll be

largely to the same people all the time having the problem so which isn't

satisfactory and clearly we need to find a solution to that so yeah I'm totally

I'm confident that she's talking to officers trying to find a

solution and, you know, that we will obviously seek to make sure

that the service is up to its appropriate standard going

forward.

That may require capital spend or it may not, but at this point

I don't have the answer to that.

Officer - 1:33:57

And on the issue of the leisure centres, yes, so one is low,

five is high, so the expectation is five would be the best.

with, I suppose if you put a target of three, is the average that they do, they slip to just under.

I know that the service do break them down by sites.

I don't have that to hand, but I can get the service to give provider written response to the committee.

Thank you. Councillor Harris.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:34:25

Councillor Joe Harris - 1:34:27

Thank you. Welcome Mike. That's a bit weird, isn't it?

Yeah, a few questions, if I may.

I think first picking up on Claire's point around our leisure centers, I know this is

an issue I've been raising frequently around the cleanliness.

It's an issue that a number of residents have raised and there are some pretty hair -raising

photos I've seen of dust and body hair around our sites.

So I think it's interesting that they make reference to the fact that they do, we do

have some KPIs around cleanliness, but maybe a request, we want to be constructive.

It might be interesting to just sort of get under the skin of that a bit, so maybe in

future if we were able to sort of have that information in a bit more detail around leisure,

but obviously leave that with you guys to comment on.

Yeah, so there's that.

Can I just pick up on the freedom of information requests?

I note from the report that we're below target.

I think we've got a statutory requirement to publish those within a certain amount.

We've missed that.

So it would just be interesting to understand why that has happened.

And I note, looking at the report, that the service area hadn't given any information.

We were still awaiting information from them.

So I don't know if we've had that.

Just be interesting to understand that a bit more.

Do you want to pick that up?

And I'll, do you want to pick that up and then I'll come to my next question.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:35:56

Does Angela want to come in on the freedom of information?

Is that what you're, yes?

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:35:59

I absolutely can do, Chair.

Angela Claridge - 1:36:04

So freedom of information, the service around that, the admin and management is provided by colleagues in public,

but I'll take that away and ensure that we get an update for you, perhaps circulated by email.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:36:17

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:36:21

I was going to make an observation on Councillor Harris' point around cleanliness.

So just to, I'm sure he knows this, but to make all members aware that Councillor Hodgkinson

as the portfolio holder is very aware and is in conversations regularly with the contractor

on the subject and is monitoring it.

I know in response to some correspondence from Joe.

So, yeah, he's very aware and working hopefully to see if we

can get the cleanliness of our leisure centres to a standard

that we would all expect.

Councillor Joe Harris - 1:36:56

And then just my final point, I'll note that missping

collections has risen again compared to the target.

And I know that the statistics don't always tell the story.

I think, you know, Mike, a question for you more than anything.

You know, we have frequent instances of missed collections and it tends to be our usual customers.

It tends to be in specific areas and it tends to be the same people.

I'm aware of one of our residents who, certainly when I was the council leader, I think I counted, emailed me 100 times in just a few years because it kept having a missed collection.

I was told that we don't want to apply a sticking plaster to particular areas, but actually

a sticking plaster might not be the worst thing in the world if it solved the problem.

So considering that, considering what we've heard about the street signs, I think Yubico's

fantastic.

They've done a brilliant job.

It was our creation.

But maybe just a view from you, Mike, about whether you still think we're getting good

value for money from Ubico considering these little

annoyances that keep rearing their head and we don't seem

to make a lot of progress on.

So it would be good to know if you still think we're getting

good value and what some potential solutions might be

in terms of what we're asking of Ubico.

Thank you, Joe.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:38:17

Obviously it's our company and, yeah, if I didn't think that we

were, I would be raising that directly with them.

They have obviously following the round changes last year things have largely

settled down but as you can see and it we're still not providing the service to

the standard that they we have set to them in terms of missed collections. So

one of the things I'm really keen on is that we improve the customer

experience and I know Councillor Wilkinson when he took over the

portfolio from me and now Councillor Pellegram who has that portfolio. I've discussed it

with her. The importance of how we deal with the missed collections and service failures

which are when essentially there's the lorry might be full or the lorry might have broken

down because from the consumer from the residents perspective they're the same thing but they're

the same thing from the, from UbiCo's perspective.

So, yeah, there is definitely a work, and Andrea is getting stuck into seeing how we

can improve and how UbiCo can improve the service that they're giving.

I mean, I think we've been very fortunate for very many years in having a really good

service and, yeah, from UbiCo in terms of the collections that they do for us.

And yes, it's a little bit disappointing that the numbers gone the wrong way in the fourth quarter of last year

And you know, it's now 101 against a target of 80

Which obviously is not not good enough. So, you know clearly they are

We are challenging them to to get it back below 80 and deal with some of the the underlying issues

But as well I think is that it's about

having real clarity and particularly some things that how we surface when we

don't collect on our website and therefore how members of the public know

when the collection is going to come and to remove sort of anxiety or extra

things that our residents need to do in order to report things that haven't been

collected that we already know about. So yeah there's definitely more work to do

Councillor Harris on that but you know I'm confident that you know working with

them that we can deliver the improvements in the service that we all

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:40:55

Councillor Ian Watson - 1:40:57

want. Thank you for that. I've now got Councillor Watson. Thank you chair. First of all and as it's my first time

subbing on this committee I'd like to commend the officers for the the format

of the reporting which I find very good. We've got time scales here about five

years, four to five years, clear targets and we are tracking, we have got trends and even

benchmarking on some of them. So thank you very much for that. That's great work.

My question relates to on some of these goals and especially in the first part, we have

got responsible cabinet member and I am guessing the senior officers who are looking after

this stage. What I'm interested in is firstly if this message gets packed to

individual officers in the group that's working on this and if so how is that

done? Does it become part of their performance?

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:42:00

I'm not sure I'm sure officers are aware that their name is on the report. I'm

is an officer question if they are able to answer that.

Officer - 1:42:15

Yes, so these updates come directly from either the lead officers or the officers that are

involved in these work streams.

So all of these updates that are in the Annex A comes straight from the source basically.

So it's not me just putting anything in, it is straight from them, so they do know.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:42:38

Maybe if I can add that it would be my expectation and the new Chief Executive is sat at the

back of the room that essentially she will be reviewing this and reviewing it with her

officers and it's our corporate plan.

So clearly we're looking to our officers to deliver it.

So my expectation, I'm sure this was done by her predecessor,

is to look through these and make sure that we are making

the progress that we expect, or if we're not,

to have the conversation and to share that with myself

and the portfolio holders if we've got any blockages

in terms of making things happen.

If I may respond just very briefly,

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:43:22

Councillor Ian Watson - 1:43:23

I would thank you for the answers.

Let's say, for example, a planning goal is that every

officer within that group is aware of this and is working

towards this as a priority.

I'm just interested in the mechanism of how we get there.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:43:48

I'd just like to add that when I first went on overview and

scrutiny, these performance reports were much more

difficult to read.

They were not as clear.

And the comparators, we used to compare ourselves

against West Oxfordshire and Forest of Dean.

And now we go to outside council.

So it is a much clearer and better, and I commend everybody

on producing that.

So thank you.

That's been a huge improvement.

I've now got Councillor Jenkins.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:44:18

And I'd like to thank all the officers who are involved

in compiling these reports, and I'd like to thank all of the officers who are involved

in doing all of the things, all the performance that we are evaluating.

I think that although we pay attention to the things that might not seem as well as

good as they could be, and I'll do that in a moment, I think it's important to pay credit

to the amount that we do do clearly very well, and we do the very best that we can.

And I'm sure that others would join me in that comment.

I'd like to, first of all, address the question of targets.

And if you are trying to improve the quality of an organization,

quality of a system, quality of a process, the first thing you

do not do is set an arbitrary target.

The first thing you do is find out what the system is actually

capable of doing.

And you then try and improve that.

So some of these targets exist because they are statutory.

We're supposed to achieve the numbers, and others have at some stage been defined as

this is the target that we're supposed to be achieving.

Can you first of all give us how many of these do we have some scope over deciding what the

target should be?

And then my question will follow from that.

Officer - 1:45:38

If you give me just a moment, I'll count for you.

Officer - 1:45:43

Officer - 1:45:58

The top of my, yeah, I would say about 60%, 60 to 70 % are non -statutory targets.

Great, okay.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:46:03

And therefore, maybe a third to 40 percent are.

I have been bringing up the question of how you actually

report and present, and I note that there's a lot more

graphics this particular time.

I think those graphics really help us.

I echo what Councillor Watson has been saying about the

improvements there, and also the chair.

So it's really easy to see in very many cases.

For example, I pick out 9 to 13, 16 to 18, 22 to 26.

These are all the original numbers that were on these, not the page numbers as they are

included in this particular report.

All of those, you can see quite clearly a certain pattern of what's going on in it.

However, in a number, in none of them do you actually use a

controlled chart.

And I'd like to make the recommendation that you consider

the next step, which is to start using controlled chart analysis

in order to understand it.

I'm very happy to once again go in and explain that.

I don't want to take up everybody's time, but in

essence, what a controlled chart does is tell you whether the

system is actually in control and producing a reliable set of

results within some tolerance or whether it is not in control.

And the reason that's important is you tend to blame people and

blame things when they go wrong if the system is just

incapable of doing it.

So if you've got a statutory target of X or our own target

of X and the system can't deliver it,

you'll never deliver it until you change the system.

So it's only if you use techniques like that that you

ever really find out what's going on, and lots of our things

could do that.

I'd really like to see us improving that element so that

we can actually look at it and say, and it's really easy to

see, I can reference, you could look at something like number

26, which is, I think, on page 164.

There you can see fairly easily that there's a pattern.

There was an anomaly going on.

I think it was called COVID.

And then there's a pattern of things that are going on.

It's fairly stable.

Results are happening within a certain pattern.

And that is happening.

And if you look at some of the other ones, like the miss bins,

it's really easy to see exactly when something happened.

In other cases, there's a stable pattern, then a kink in it,

and then another stable pattern.

So something happened at that point.

What happened then?

Something changed.

Could we possibly think about using these kinds

of additional tools?

I'm addressing this also, of course, to the cabinet member.

I'm not asking you to decide yes or no at this point,

but would this be something you would be willing to investigate?

Officer - 1:48:58

Absolutely, yes. If it would be beneficial, and I believe it would be,

then yes, it's absolutely something that we can look into for future reports.

Thank you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:49:09

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:49:12

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:49:15

That was a nice, clear and quick answer, so that's appreciated.

And I think, yes, it's a work in progress.

It's always good to actually understand what is going on in the Council, who's working,

what's going well and what's not perhaps going quite so well.

So thank you for that, Angus, and thank you for your offer for help on it.

Has anybody else got any questions on this performance report?

Councillor Bridges.

This is my first time talking.

Councillor Nick Bridges - 1:49:44

So I'll ask a question because I want to break the ice.

There's a section here called delivering housing and it's all in green which suggests we're

all very happy with it.

Given the change in housing towards a tilted balance, does that mean that most of this is going to change from green to amber next time we see it?

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:50:11

I'm not sure exactly which section you're referring to.

111. Okay so the delivering housing bit. I think one of the things I

would say and obviously your meeting tomorrow is going to be reviewing two

papers that are going to cabinet on Thursday one of which is the report from

advisory service, and the other one is a report from

our offices about progressing the local plan.

So, if those reports and the recommendations within

there are agreed, you know, we will need to look at

our plans, essentially our corporate plan, in light

of agreeing and the time scales for agreeing and

updating the local plan.

Now, clearly, you know, we as an administration, you know,

we want to have affordable housing, ultimately social

housing, it's the only truly affordable housing in

the Cotswolds, and that's one of our corporate

objectives, has been for the last six years of our

administration, and so that, you know, that will still

be reflected, you know, in our corporate plan.

I think the matters you're referring to are relating

to decisions that the Planning Committee may make and the Planning Committee has

to make its own decisions based on every single application and is not therefore

a matter for the corporate plan in that regard. But clearly you know what we are

seeking to do is we want more social affordable housing in the Cotswolds.

that remains our priority.

Exactly what that says when we update this plan in light of the changed circumstances.

I can't say that at the minute.

But yeah, clearly we have to be careful, obviously, though, to separate the matters and the decisions that the Planning Committee makes based on the merits of an individual application

from the progress of the local plan and the local plan will obviously be looking

at housing and the provision of housing across the district.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:52:36

Right, thank you. I've got a question on the retrofit. I became aware we have

Justine Manson who's apparently delightful and expert on retrofitting

particularly in our older and listed properties in the Cotswolds and as a

result I've invited her to come and give one of her workshops or whatever courses

in Chippin Candon. But I notice in the papers here that she is going to offer

community events and free home visits until September 2025 which is quite soon

and I just wondered why there was that deadline and why we wouldn't be able to

have more of these events across the Cotswolds to inform our

residents of what can be done to improve their energy efficiency

in their homes.

Thank you.

I don't know the answer to that question.

Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:53:28

And I don't know if any of the other offices in the room know

the answer to that question.

If not, we'll need to take that away and come back to you

with an answer.

I think that's the answer.

Well, thank you for that.

I mean, it would be, it does seem,

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:53:42

I think it might indeed be a typo, so I don't know.

I don't know what period she's been employed from.

She's only been here since January,

so I think September 2025 seems quite soon.

Was there anything else anybody wanted to say?

Was there any recommendation?

I think we're going to be taking Councillor Jenkinson's

offer of help in putting extra depth into these reports,

and that's really an action

rather than a recommendation to cabinet.

Would that be, Andrew, would that be your way of looking at it?

Are you happy with that?

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:54:21

Okay, good.

Was there anything else that anybody else wanted to add or any recommendation that we wanted to make?

We could thank the people who are here.

Recommend a thank.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:54:35

We certainly give a thanks to people, but actually that isn't something we should really go forward to,

But we do thank everybody who presents these reports

and so on.

So thank you very much indeed for your time this evening.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:54:53

Yes, as we've got a changeover now,

and I know that the next topic is perhaps going

to be quite long.

Could we have a vote to break the meeting now for 10 minutes

for a comfort break?

Are you happy to do that?

Okay, everybody's happy to have a break. Thank you very much. See you later.

12 Service Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

13 Farming Motion Working Group Update

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:55:25

Right, well thank you everyone for coming back. We now move on with the next topic tonight, which is now tonight, just after six o 'clock.

It's the farming motion.

First of all, I want to give Angus Jenkinson,

who is CDC's counselor for regenerative agriculture

and ecology, thank him very much for all the work he's put

into this while Counsel Cunningham was away on holiday.

It involved immense amount of research, many meetings,

and interviews with people and of experience

in the farming sector.

And I think that whilst this is not the final report,

but this broad report we've got now is really excellent

and we will now be refining it at this meeting this evening.

So thank you.

Also thank you to Councillor Turner,

who did the questionnaire, which was absolutely brilliant

and was really helpful in formulating

how he wanted to look at this, so thank you for that.

Councillor Thayer is not on here.

He was seconded into the Tasker Finish Group

because he is a farmer and he also made his contribution.

So that was helpful to us all.

Now, I don't know how we're going to take this forward.

Councillor Cunningham was the chair.

Councillor Jenkinson has been working on this too.

Perhaps between the two of you, do you want to be going through this?

We've got Paul James too, who has put together the report

and has been working on it too. I'm very flexible about how you want to go forward and open

up the debate on this.

Councillor David Cunningham - 1:57:10

Thank you Madam Chair. I mean I'll just, I mean I'm going to make the assumption that

people have read through the report. Just as a bit of background as to how we got to

here, I think is relevant. A motion was put forward by Councillor Judd in March outlining

the concerns that had been raised to her about the potential impacts of the changes to IHT

on the farming community. That motion was not carried, but at that meeting, Councillor

Harris, who at the time was the leader, raised his own concerns about what the impacts may be,

but felt that the council needed to do more in the way of research in order to make any

representation, if that was a decision of council, to the government to highlight the feedback that

that had been given by various parties with regards to how the changes to IHT would affect

the local community.

Is that a fair comment, Joe, do you think?

Is that how you remember it?

Yeah, I can say something.

Yeah, okay.

So I think the terms of reference for the group were fairly straightforward.

It was to engage with interested parties and to report back to council key messages and

evidence to make sure for a strong representation.

We did not go outside of the financial implications of the changes to IHT, although it was very

quickly recognised that the implications were going to have much more widespread effects.

So that came out very quickly.

I would say, I haven't done my own Oscars speech,

but just to say thank you very much

to all of the members that took part.

They gave up quite a lot of their time in doing this,

obviously to the officers who helped to clarify

and put together the report.

It very quickly came to light that the recommendation

for changes that the government were putting forward

were clearly well meaning. There is an issue with inheritance tax and people perhaps manipulating

the rules as they were in order to not pay the relevant amount of inheritance tax. So

that was very quickly identified and we accepted that. And the feedback that we received was

that even the people that were being affected by this were aware of what was going on and

and were cognisant of the fact that there was the potential for abuse.

But they felt that there had been a missed opportunity in how the loophole, let's call

it, could be closed, and how it would be beneficial to the government in order to achieve what

they really wanted if they were to make some changes.

So, the purpose of the Task and Finish Group was to provide the leader with additional

information in order to put together a response to government with concerns and recommendations

or concerns and observations, let's say, of the input that we had had as a Task and Finish

group from people that had been or would be, they believe, affected by it.

The recommendations cover quite a wide gamut of potential unforeseen consequences.

And I would say that although we concentrated on the fact that the main concern from farmers

was that the inability to be able to pay the inheritance tax bills that could potentially

be landing on their doorstep. The Task and Finish Group also did recognize that there

were potential consequences that went far and wide into issues such as food security

and land values and the potential for disruption to farming, not only here but in particular

in the district where we ask the questions.

So the recommendation from the group is that the council,

if they agree, asks the leader to write to the Chancellor

of the Exchequer, given that the issue was on IHT

and therefore an Exchequer matter,

and highlights where the information that's

gathered has uncovered unintended consequences that could have far reaching implications

for the farming industry.

So the report as it stands has more information in the appendices, but the main thrust of

what it is that's being recommended is contained in the report.

And I think it's fair to say that the decision as to whether or not the leader will send

the letter I think will depend on the debate that we have, not only here but definitely

in full council, as to what we believe we can achieve through that.

Although I do think that if nothing else Cotswold District Council does recognise, and we've

definitely achieved a level of knowledge from the interviews and the conversations that

have been had, that there is the potential for a very large impact.

So I think if nothing else, a recognition of that by this Council and a flagging of

that to the Exchequer is what we are looking for Council to do.

So if anyone has any questions, then fire away.

Thank you for that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:03:27

I wanted to know if Councillor Jenkinson wanted to come in at this point or is he a few extra

notes?

or I just he is also I'd like to hear from you.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:03:41

Thank you chair and I'm was had the privilege of being able to chair most of the meetings

because you were not available on holiday.

So I was glad to be able to be useful.

What I think we need to do is address this document as a practical document.

I agree with Councillor Cunningham that the evidence that we gained who were present is

that there is a concern about this proposed measure of the government, that there will

be unintended consequences, as you've said.

And those unintended consequences, in a sense, also include the fact that we perceive that

government won't achieve all of the objectives that it would

like to achieve that actually we would support them achieving.

So the proposals that we're making are a combination of

those which we think would enable us to protect farmers,

those that help us to improve the future of farming,

and those that would help the government to raise further

funds while at the same time creating a better situation for the farming community as a whole.

So there are a number of suggestions for how we could do that and specific points.

I'm very grateful to Paul James for all the work that you did in drafting this in short

term and all the other officers who were very active and extremely busy with all of, you

than what we are dealing with at the moment.

So thank you very much for the work you've done.

So I've been in conversation and discussion

with Andrew Brown and Paul James.

There are a number of little points

that I think we can correct that really are important

from the point of view of presenting to the Council

clearly what the situation is and to reflect back

the motion that was actually approved so

that we clear the air there.

And in the process of doing that,

That will make sure that what we do recommend is less likely to be perceived as politically motivated

or in some way created without proper consideration.

So I'd like to go through some of those specific points in the first place just to tidy up the opening of this.

and then I'm sure that various members might have comments to make specifically

on some of the points raised. I have a number that I'd like to propose with your

approval, Chair.

All right, well I think we'd all like to hear more.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:06:31

If anybody's got anything else they'd like to say now, we'd like to hear from Councillor Jenkinson

and note that your further changes or alterations just for clarity and for

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:06:49

So, if we go to points 2 .2 and 2 .3, the important issue to note here is that a motion was brought by Councillor Judd.

And this is what triggered the whole process.

The motion has been shared with the Task and Finish Group and the Council, of course,

and it made a number of critical comments about the proposed inheritance tax

and recommended that the Council writes strongly and urgently.

A counter motion was raised, as we've heard.

It was proposed by Councillor Harris and seconded,

and it is this alternative motion that the task and finish group was actually set up to respond to.

And so therefore it's really important that we are clear that we did not respond,

that Council did not take the first motion and approve it, the Council took the second motion and approved that,

and what that did is create a much more neutral field for us, a more open and clear field for us to actually examine the situation.

What actually are the facts?

So if we now come back and say, well, we actually see that there

are some problems with what you are doing, then we are doing

that on the basis of the investigation and so on.

So I'm proposing that we would make significant changes to 2 .2,

and I'm very happy to go through that now, but I've also agreed

with Andrew Brown that I can give him some specific wording.

it's essentially simply saying that a motion was brought during the debate that took place.

A further motion was proposed and that is the one that was voted on.

And then in 2 .3 it indicates what that is and I think we would actually want to quote the actual motion that was approved at that point at 2 .3.

So that's, and I've written two already to Andrew Brown and the other officers with that information.

So that's the first, and I think it's in a sense somewhat, you might say a somewhat trivial point,

but what it does is make sure that there is no imputation, that this particular process is driven by a political political group

or that it was prejudged before we went into it,

because overbue and scrutiny does not prejudge issues.

And then when we come to 3 .2, where a number of

representations were made, I think it's also worth adding

that other reports were received and investigated

by various members of the task and finish group.

Obviously, for example, the Treasury itself

provided a briefing which was available to us and we were all

reported on that.

Lords provided a briefing.

We investigated and were aware of that and studied that.

Other parties had provided reports so that, for example,

in addition to what was given to us in the meeting itself by

DEFRA, other reports were provided to us that we were

able to analyse and there were other commentators who had

reported on the matters that were raised in it.

So, I think we can make reference to the fact that we took note of evidence or information

that was provided that had good credentials to it, such as those.

Those are the matters that I think would be helpful in terms of the preparatory context.

We have what follows then is five proposed key messages to the government.

I think I must know three, four, five, yes.

And then we have six alternative policy approaches and seven alternative options.

The five deals with the fact that we discovered various

matters, and I think that one of the key ones that is missing

in this list is the point that was made on a number of

occasions, that there are indeed individuals who have acquired

large quantities of land specifically for the purposes of avoiding tax.

And this is not only something that the government might want to prevent or might want to take

a cut as a loophole, but it's also seen by the farmers as something that distorts the

marketplace because it affects the price of land in an adverse way.

So farmers are completely supportive, at least all of the ones we got and others, are supportive

of the notion that the government should try to prevent this tax loophole and do what it

can.

The critical distinction that came up in the process is that farmers are people who earn

their living from farming.

Wealthy individuals who buy large amounts of land are not earning their living from

farming.

They're already wealthy people who are investing and have sources of income and are using this

to avoid tax.

And this is something that is included in the set of recommendations.

And I think that the point about it is that it gives them the ability to say what is actually

being recommended again and again is actually do not leave it at 20%, because leaving it

at 20 % is still an incentive to buy land, because it's better than 40%.

So what you really want is to be able to investigate.

And the point that's made in the report is that we as the Council cannot necessarily

go into all of the details, but we would urge the Treasury to look into how it can ensure

that you can investigate that those individuals who are high net worth individuals anyway,

and that farming is not their primary activity,

that they should continue to pay a full 40 % inheritance tax.

And it is the, that would mean that you could raise the money that you want

and mitigate the situation for genuine farmers.

Then various other matters, keke, which are concerned with how we ameliorate the situation

because there are real concerns about it.

I'd like to pause at that point and see if there's anybody want to respond to that issue,

wants to ask a question.

Yes, Councillor Turner.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:14:04

Councillor Clare Turner - 2:14:06

Just to say that I think the comments you've made reflect the conversations that I was

listening to and heard, so I would agree.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:14:16

Any other comments from anybody at this stage, including Paul James or anybody else?

No?

Right.

Take a breath and go again.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:14:27

So that would mean adding into the key general points that under 5 .1, that particular matter.

And I think that in addition to the point about succession

planning not being simple, we should also note that we did

receive comments that it has been helpful or can be helpful

to trigger amongst family farmers the awareness of the

need to do succession planning and to do it in a timely way.

So the problem that farmers have is that it is not a straightforward succession issue.

You know, in another environment, here's two million pounds or whatever, it's passed to

you, you sell off the house, you sell off this, you cash in the shares, whatever it

is, and you've got some cash, it's easy.

What we're talking about here in succession is somebody deciding to spend a lifetime managing

a farm.

That's a life commitment.

And there may be more than one member of the family who'd like to do it or no member of

the family who'd like to do it.

So succession planning has to be carefully done, and it needs time to plan that, and

it needs time for people to agree.

So the point that's made here in the second last bullet on 5 .1 is important.

It's not a simple process, but at the same time, we can say that this particular measure

has triggered a beneficial aspect in terms of looking at it.

I would say that those are the key points, and then we can come to the matters specifically

in terms of alternative policy approaches.

So under 6 .1, I think we should add, maintaining the full 40 % IHT on landowners that are not

primarily farmers, do not derive the majority of their income from farming activity.

And, or at least consider maintaining the full 40%, provided of course that you can

have a means of ensuring that genuine farmers are taken care of.

It's not in this document, it's not something we discussed, but I'm inclined to think that

And there are so many different varied anomalous situations that

there needs to be a process in which there is a fallback check

at the end of the day for individual farmers.

Otherwise, I suspect that some harm will be done.

I think that's a matter.

So I'd like to see that.

And I'd like to see perhaps, it's not numbered here,

where is it?

By the way, we did have representation, just came in late, on rollover.

There have been various matters on rollover relief, and it may be, Councillor Cunningham,

that you have some more expertise in this matter.

But the suggestion that has been made by farmers to me is that rollover, and in the group that

we were in, is that rollover relief is actually something that is being pushed by certain

people who want to do it, it is not something that should be considered a

central benefit to farmers. There's an agenda behind it. I don't understand, I

can't comment, but if anyone does then that would be a matter to

actually question whether the system of rollover relief, how we respond to it. But

at the moment it simply says reviewing it. Thank you. I think Councillor Conlon

would like to cover the rollover relief. It's basically what the sale of farmland

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:18:36

for development generally and you can then buy more farmland with that money

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:18:43

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:18:46

with rollover relief. Thank you. Exactly that's what it is. It also ties

back in with the holding the farm for a period of time which allows you to take

into account the fact that someone is farming for as a lifestyle choice, a

lifetime and the two things I think working together are a strong way to

ensure that the people that are taking the farms over are able to to mitigate

the potential impacts by virtue of the fact that they are showing through their

actions that they are indeed committed to what they're doing.

I'm sorry Councillor Cummy I knew that what I'm not clear about is exactly what

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:19:28

is it that we are recommending about this particular measure?

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:19:37

We're asking that it be reviewed so that they consider a system of rollover reliefs.

It's very important that we don't get into the situation where we start to tell the exchequer

how to do their business.

That's not what we're here to do.

What we're here to do is to highlight issues that we think we've discovered in conversations,

and that's one part.

And the second part is to look at alternative policy approaches.

How they actually implement a rollover relief system is not something that we should be giving them direct information on.

We're not tax experts, that's for damn sure.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:20:11

I agree, and are you comfortable that this gives sufficient information as to what the problem actually is for farmers?

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:20:18

I think it's one aspect of it and I think part of the thing that came out of the conversations that were had and are in the report is that this generational aspect of the farms, especially where we have situations where older farmers hold on to the property, hold on to the farm in their own name, is something that needs to be addressed.

It can be addressed through succession planning, but it also can be addressed in terms of understanding

that there is a benefit to the farmers passing the farms down in a quicker management.

But I really don't think that we want to get into the detail of what type of rollover relief

that we want the checker to do.

I don't think we want to be in the business.

I don't want to be in the business of that.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:21:12

May I just clarify? I wasn't asking what kind of tax... I'm saying, what is the issue for farmers that we are flagging up?

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:21:22

We're flagging up the cliff edge element of the IHT, which at the moment says, if you do this, if it passes on, you will pay.

Now, if there is a system whereby they can take the reliefs and roll them on in such

a way that it gives them a bigger buffer, that that should be considered.

But again, I come back to the fact that we're not here to give specifics about how it should

be done.

What we're saying is that there is a system which has been highlighted by other people

where rollover reliefs could be a benefit.

it.

Okay.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:22:04

I, I, I, if, if it is the case that farmers own land and farmers are selling land for

housing development and as a result there's a rollover relief issue, then I'm trying to

address what the issue is that we are saying there.

I'm happy to leave it at this level, but I suspect that the Treasury won't do very much with it unless we can make a clearer position as to what the issue actually is.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:22:34

I mean, what it is, is if they sell it for a huge amount for development, they can actually carry that forward and buy much larger parcels of land, etc, etc, and take that benefit of the capital gains tax rollover relief.

And if you were, I'm not always sort of an anti -farmer here,

you were wanting to aim something at a taxable event,

as they call them, that would be one which might be reviewed,

is all I'm going to say.

So what modification, if any, would you make to this

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:23:09

particular statement, simply that rollover relief is reviewed?

Meaning they should reconsider it.

Is that what reviewed means?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:23:19

Thank you.

Well, why don't change it to reconsider?

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:23:27

Well those are my recommendations.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:23:47

Councillor Fann, did you want to say something?

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:23:52

Councillor Michael Vann - 2:23:55

No, all I wanted to say was I think the way that Councillor Jenkins has been putting up has put a bit of flesh and nuances in on the excellent draft that we've been looking at.

A welcome tidying up exercise.

Councillor Harris.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:24:15

Councillor Joe Harris - 2:24:18

Can I ask a question then, what are we reporting back to full council?

Are we putting forward a form of words or are we putting forward the findings of the

report?

I think we need to be quite clear about what we're asking.

I think Councillor Cunningham has got that, is that we're putting forward a form of words

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:24:36

Which it is up to the full council to review

Accept not accept or change and put it in a different way

We can't we are not in the position as I understand it and I would have thought I think you you probably would be

were you

Still leader you would be looking at it to

You know it is going to be going coming forward from full council

It's not coming from Oviatt and Scrutney or cabinet it is actually a full council, but Councillor Cunningham

I'm sure that is what you're aiming for.

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:25:14

My understanding from the meeting in March was that the concerns that were raised by Councillor Judd were accepted,

that there was a concern and that the form of the letter that was contained in the motion was considered to not be appropriate.

And that a task in finish group would be set up to provide more information in order to inform the leader in putting together a response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:25:54

I'd make the following modification. The issue was raised by Councillor Judd.

The Council agreed that there was a cause for concern for farmers.

It did not necessarily agree with all of the content of the motion that Councillor Judd

produced.

If it had agreed, it might have approved it.

What it rather it said is, yes, we agree that there is cause for concern and this should

be investigated.

And I'm really happy to note that Councillor Judd brought

that and very happy to note that there is concern.

What it seems to me we might need to add to this particular

report for the Council is to say effectively that our proposal

is that we have provided in this overview and scrutiny with the

help of the task and finish group has provided the best

analysis we are able to do in the short term and we recommend that Council approve that

the leader in conjunction with the officers draft a letter to go to the Government, presumably

to the Treasury, that takes note of these points and puts it in an appropriate form

for a Council letter to the Treasury. But I suspect that the leader, the former leader,

will have a lot of experience of doing that.

Councillor Harris.

I'm just destined to be known now as the former leader.

I know.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:27:26

Councillor Joe Harris - 2:27:27

I'm sure Paul can sympathise.

No, I think, listen, a lot of work has now gone into this.

Ultimately this is going to come from the leader of the council,

the current leader of the council.

So I think as a way forward, some agreed words

based on the work that has been undertaken probably needs to be agreed

with the leader. I think you know trying to design it by committee here this

evening is going to be a bit of a tedious... yeah we might be here at ten o 'clock still.

So I think as a way forward I think in the first instance the two of you

need to sit down with Councillor Evony and yeah agree a form of words and suggest

getting together and just having a piece of paper in front of you might be the

best solution for that. But you know I think in terms of ONS I think we

discharged our duty as a committee and I think now you know the steer from us

needs to be the leader of the council. We need to basically draft a form of words

before we get to the full council meeting so ultimately we have something

to vote on. I just wanted to come in here because of the fact we've got the

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:28:42

papers for full council have got to be ready for printing or for, you know, signed off

tomorrow. So this is where we are. So I'm going to ask Andrew Brown, we have had a discussion

ahead of this meeting, both David Cunnane and Councillor Jenkinson, about this and how

we're going to just tidy up, put in these extra bits and have it ready in time. But

we are under pressure of time in order to get it. So that takes into account, I don't

if David wants to come in and you Councillor Harris please come back. I think the key

Councillor Joe Harris - 2:29:18

thing you know ideally yes we'd have it ready for the publication of the meeting

papers however there are plenty of examples where reports haven't been ready and we've

had items to follow. I think the key thing is in this instance that the time

we get to our group meetings in the hour before the next council meeting there is

a form of words that you know we can agree I think that is a key thing.

Ideally we'll have it well before then and it can be agreed but I think if we

get to a position where you know in advance of our council we have a form of

words that is agreed then you know ideally by the by the day we can be done

I think that's the key point we did we need something in advance of the council

meeting I would be you know the sooner we can do that obviously the better but

I think that's the main thing happy to take Andrews sort of.

Thank you, Councillor Cunningham and then Councillor Drexler.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Councillor David Cunningham - 2:30:10

As far as I am concerned, the minutes of the meeting refer the issue to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to review the impacts of the changes on farmers in the Cotswold District and report back to Council with recommendations on how to make a strong representation to the Government by July.

The recorded text says that a revised and strong letter be sent to the Chancellor of Dixchequo be considered by Overview and Scrutiny.

The two things don't match, but I think the basic view of it was the same.

It was the same thing.

I don't think we're going to have...

I think what we should be saying now is overview and scrutiny's task and finish group has had

a task, finished it, reported back to ONS.

Here is what was discovered.

Here is what we think council should look at.

And once council has looked at it and agreed that yes, they think there are things to be

done here we can then have a conversation with Councillor Evermy as

leader and he can then write the letter. It hasn't got to go out the day after

the July meeting.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:31:11

Right thank you and now Councillor Jenkins please. I was going to say the same.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:31:15

I just wanted to check with Andrew Brown that you're happy with all of that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:31:20

Thank you. Yeah I'm happy with where we got to there Chair and so I think for

Andrew Brown, Officer - 2:31:25

So for full council agenda publication tomorrow,

it's going to be an updated version of the report you've

got in front of you, basically, and then council can see the

outcome from the own task and finish group.

And then if it agrees that the leader should write a letter or

be requested to write a letter, then at that stage a letter can

be drafted based on what's already here.

Are we comfortable with that as an approach?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, thank you.

Yes, and as I was going to say, shall we take this forward

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:31:52

to a vote?

Are you happy with the suggestion on the way forward?

I don't know how you want to actually particularly word it, but it's...

We were in agreement that the report...

The report goes forward with the changes you've discussed.

Yeah, okay, so we have it. Proposer, please.

Councillor Cunningham, Councillor Harris seconding.

Well, whatever, it's fine.

And then keep having your name in print.

So we can serve as you know.

Yeah, nice.

Lovely.

And thank you very much, everybody, on that.

And for all the work you've done on it.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:32:26

It was quite a challenge, and a short time

in which to do it, too.

So I appreciate everybody's work on that.

Now, the next thing was the updates from GCC,

the scrutiny committees.

I know that Dyliss Neel didn't have one on the HOSC.

Do you have anything, Councillor Jenkinson,

from the joint growth scrutiny.

14 Updates from Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committees

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:32:56

Members you will have seen the short report that I put in as an interim report. I don't

have anything to add to that short report. I'm happy to take any questions on it or speak

to it. But for the moment I don't have anything to add yet.

Right, does anybody, I mean I'm imagining for those people who are also county

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:33:19

councillors that there is, there will be a lot more coming through in due course

but at this stage you perhaps haven't got as much. Is that from, yeah, thank you. So

is there anybody got any questions? If not we will go on to the work and

and forward plan.

15 Work Plan and Forward Plan

And one of the things that is included in the protocol 5 .2

on page 21, it's recommended that the chair and vice

chair of the ONS committee meet with the leader and members

of the cabinet on a regular basis

to discuss the work plan and forward plan.

Having discussed this with Democratic Services,

it was felt that four meetings a year felt about right.

And it would seem sensible to start

with a meeting in September which will be scheduled in due course. Does any

member have any other questions about the work plan, the forward plan or anything

else on that topic? Councillor Harris. I haven't done scrutiny for a long time so

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:34:19

Councillor Joe Harris - 2:34:21

what's the process for requesting something on the plan? A couple of areas

I think do with a good you know view from scrutiny and a bit of a bit of an

overview not just scrutiny. So yeah well what's the crack and appreciating

entirely that we've there's quite a lot on there already. I think that's the

first thing that I would comment on is that it's going to be a full program

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:34:39

because of the local plan changes because of the unitary because of

there's a lot of work around that but I would totally agree we always like to

have suggestions from members that is absolutely accepted and I've got one at

moment which I'm waiting hoping it'll get on to the real agenda and Paul James

just left but looking at how hospitality and retail are faring in the Cotswolds

because of the changes, I say tax changes again, but the thing impacting on people

on the starting point in their careers sometimes so I think that's one thing

to look at but other people may have others but please just come back. Okay well I

I think there are two for me on my radar.

We're clearly two years into the leisure contract.

Councillor Joe Harris - 2:35:32

And, you know, we've heard a bit about that this evening,

haven't we?

I think it would be really handy, actually,

certainly for Councillor Hodgkinson as the portfolio

holder to really just have a bit of a health check of that

contract a couple of years in, see where we're at,

opportunity to get, opportunity to hear from Freedom Leisure

themselves, I think that would be a really useful exercise to

understand how it's going.

Those areas that perhaps need improvement opportunity for us as a committee to put any questions we have so I think

The whole thing around the leisure contour important. I think the other point as well. I

Know you've done waste a lot. So I'm not going to suggest waste is always worth looking at

I think the whole thing around parking though, and we've heard this evening haven't we?

Around some of the issues we've had in parking bear in mind

It's one of our biggest revenue raises and you know props up our props up the council's budget

frankly I do think as well it might be quite a useful exercise just to have a

bit of a say route and branch review but an overview of parking where we're at

how things are coming along with the emerging parking strategy and that we've

got underway and again just here from Councillor Hodgkinson he's gonna be busy

around aspirations for parking and where we're at. Yes well thank you for that and

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:36:51

actually I was going to bring up Tom Stone I have concerns about the leisure

contract at Camden School.

It has the whole of the contract just needs reviewing.

It's very old.

It's out of date.

And it's that relationship with the school, which

is different to the two other sites.

And we think that it needs a serious looking at.

I know also that David Stanley wanted to come in.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Just in terms of conversations we've

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:37:16

been having with Freedom Leisure at the quarterly review

meetings that Paul Hodgkinson, Councillor Hodgkinson,

and attends. Certainly we've introduced to them the need to come to overview and scrutiny

committee like other major contractors do, Yubico and Publica. They would welcome that

opportunity to come along and I suppose it's working that into the work program, determining

when the most appropriate point would be within the cycle for that to happen, but certainly

they'd welcome that. And I suppose more widely for the committee to frame what they would

freedom to provide assurance around. Well thank you and I think also Councillor

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:37:58

Harris's other observation on parking is crucial and we did see that there were

the things that do need looking at and the right way I mean are many people

taking up the long -term permits there or not and how we can encourage more people

to do so. Oh, Councillor Slater.

Councillor Tony Slater - 2:38:25

Yes, it's concerning things that are quite important to the Council. We've got the local

government devolution update in October, but I can't see anything else. I think that needs

to be a little bit more often. So surely there's a response in November when we know what the

road map's going to look like. So I would suggest that sometime after November, fairly

soon we include that again and regularly.

I was just going to mention the former leader.

And I'm just going to tell them this is your...

...

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:39:10

Well, that was a very important addition to this evening, sir.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:39:16

Right, David Stanley.

Just in terms of local government reorganization and devolution,

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:39:26

and they are two different aspects of the same thing,

but in terms of local government reorganization,

there will be a series of reports

that individual councils have to consider in November,

ahead of the Gloucestershire submission back

to the government in terms of what local government

reorganization would look like.

There is then a pause, I suppose, in the timetable

until the government formally responds to that,

which is mid -2026, and at the moment we can't be

much more specific than that.

I generally say that government work on a

two -season model.

There's spring and there's autumn.

Spring generally runs from March until July, and then

autumn runs from September all the way through to February.

And the reason August isn't mentioned, because usually

that's when everything shuts down in government.

Devolution is a slightly different matter in terms

of how that would work. So it's whether or not the committee would want to consider those

two things together or separately because there will be different decision points the

council will need to take on that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:40:37

All right. Well, thank you, Councillor Dickson. I think it is a very good idea that we should

actually discuss this out when we're doing our forward plan. And in fact, because Councillor

Councilor Trenton, I will be seeing the new leader and some of the cabinet members in

September that that may be a good time to actually progress that and think the best

way.

Councilor Jenkinson.

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 2:41:04

I was just going to raise in relation to that the same point that we should be considering

scrutiny of the process.

But there's two related matters.

One is that I attended a briefing on scrutiny for the

process of devolution recently, and part of what that suggested

is that it's necessary to have a specific overview

and scrutiny committee.

Now, this may be premature to do that today, but it might be

mindful that the overview and scrutiny committee could

consider whether to recommend to the Cabinet the need for some overview and scrutiny on

this or to ask the Cabinet informally whether it's already considering that or democratic

services where do we do that. And there's a related matter which is the scrutiny of

the process whereby the various bodies interact with each other in the process. So there's

county, there's various districts, there's some question about how we do it and we will

need to have some kind of scrutiny process to support the interrelationship of all of

the different bodies in the process of coming together.

And I'm not aware of how that's being addressed or who is responsible, but I would assume

that this district, in conjunction with the other districts in the county, irrespective

of what decisions get made, there is in a sense something where all of us together are

going to be involved in some kind of change, and that needs to be monitored.

So all I'm saying at the moment is I'd like to put on the table that that is something

that we should formally be thinking about into the future and we might need advice back

from Democratic Services and others about the best way of doing that.

Thank you for that.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:43:00

I don't know whether Councillor Harris or Democratic Services, Andrew Brown, have got

any views on that or even, and indeed, David Stanley, who might be in a position to answer.

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 2:43:13

So in terms of the process that's currently being undertaken in Gloucestershire is the

seven primary councils are working collectively on a number of different work streams to be

able to be in a position come November to have a proposition that goes into the government.

So there is governance around that in terms of how that's working, obviously the leaders

of each of those councils is briefed as part of that.

But I think what I've heard here today,

and more recently I suppose with staff,

is there's that lack of knowledge as to what is happening.

And certainly Jane Portman,

who's come in as the interim chief executive,

gave a very good overview to all staff today

around lunchtime in terms of what's happening,

but also importantly, what isn't happening.

So we don't have the answers,

We don't have a preconceived idea of what's going to happen.

But it might be useful for members of this committee to have a briefing note on the basis

of the briefing that Jane gave to all staff that puts members in the same position.

But certainly there was a commitment at that meeting that what goes on the staff portal

is also replicated on the council's website and is communicated to members.

So I think it will come through.

and that might give members a better understanding in terms of what's happening because the communication so far to the wider members of the council

hasn't been where it needs to be in comparison to where other members of other authorities are

Mr. Harris, yeah, I mean there might well be a role for screeching in this process I think and I think

Councillor Joe Harris - 2:44:57

When you have your meeting with Mike, I think exploring that as Krishna can be useful

Yes, I'm living and breathing this at the minute.

We have a cabinet meeting at GCC every Monday morning.

Well, this is all we talk about for two hours.

How come this morning?

And I do think there is, I think there's a potential for quite an important role for

district councils in particular because we're hearing a lot, aren't we, about, certainly

from Jim McMahon and the government, about really wanting to beef up neighbourhoods,

whatever that means.

And I think if we just end up with area committees that are very, again, council focused rather

than neighbourhood focused, we're going to have a problem equally.

The challenge of hiring a huge rural local authority, which, you know, likely it is,

we're going to end up with two, it's still going to be a lot bigger than the current

district.

How you ensure effective representation and an effective voice, particularly in rural

areas is a challenge. So I think there are some useful work streams that

actually we could take a view on as a local authority that would help the

county's process. So I think engaging with Mike on that about, you know, A if he

wants to engage scrutiny is his creation and actually what the

parameters of that might be would be really handy. We've also got the benefit, I

know she can't be here today, of having the leader of the County Council who's

leading on this work on our committee so might be worth an informal conversation

conversation with her as well. So I do think there could be a useful role for scrutiny in this process.

I just think having clarity from the council's leadership about what they see that being would be useful.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:46:38

Thank you, and it's useful having now two county councillors and give us a bit of the insight from that.

It will be really useful going forward. One of the things which has been a concern of mine of all the roles that we all

jobs, duties, whatever we do as a CDC, it's the planning which is going to be the most

important in this transition because UBICO does our waste. They also do lots of the other

wastes. There's a sort of thing we've talked about, freedom of leisure, and that's probably

more manageable, but how we're going to get the huge expertise of our current planning

offices and our planning system and how that's going to work without falling apart for us.

And with the amount of housing and other things going on right now, planning really is front

and foremost one of the most important areas.

Thank you.

We are just on the dot of seven.

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:47:32

Councillor Bann just wants to have a bit before we wind up.

Councillor Michael Vann - 2:47:44

I see emerging the possibility of having another meeting, an additional meeting during the year.

I just see it as a possibility, bearing in mind the agenda at present.

Can we please never have meetings on successive days as we're about to?

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:48:08

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 2:48:10

I don't think we'd all concur on that, but sometimes it just comes that way and there

was nothing that we could do to prevent it.

So I'm sorry, but thank you all and look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It was good to see you.

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Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 7 July 2025, 4:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeMonday, 7th July 2025 at 4:00pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Feedback

Votes

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:01:28

1 Apologies

Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:02:40

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:44

2 Substitute Members

Julia Gibson, Officer - 0:02:47

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:02:53

3 Declarations of Interest

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:04

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:03:21

Councillor Ian Watson - 0:03:26

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:03:29

Councillor Clare Turner - 0:03:34

Councillor David Cunningham - 0:03:38

Councillor Nick Bridges - 0:03:42

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:03:46

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:03:51

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:03:57

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:04:51

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:06

4 Minutes

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:23

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:05:59

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:06:19

Angela Claridge - 0:06:50

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:13

5 Matters Arising from Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:07:26

Councillor Tony Slater - 0:07:29

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:08:08

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:08:20

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:08:37

6 Chair's Announcements

Public Speaker - 0:11:35

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:12:25

Public Speaker - 0:12:37

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:14:21

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:14:50

Angela Claridge - 0:15:21

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:15:30

Councillor Joe Harris - 0:15:42

7 Public Questions

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:17:14

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:17:21

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:18:56

Councillor David Cunningham - 0:19:01

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:21:14

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:21:33

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:22:15

8 Member Questions

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:22:53

9 Report back on recommendations

10 Overview and Scrutiny Committee Annual Report for 2024/25

Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:24:40

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:25:15

Andrew Brown, Officer - 0:25:18

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:25:41

Councillor Michael Vann - 0:26:20

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:26:28

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:26:44

11 Financial Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:27:55

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:28:24

David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:28:28

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:37:16

Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:37:25

Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:37:31

Councillor David Cunningham - 0:37:36

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 7th July 2025 at 4:00pm