Transcript

[speaking in foreign language] Good morning everyone and welcome to this online meeting of the cabinet today. It's good to see people here and it would have been, I have to say nicer to see people in person if it would have been possible but there we are. So we'll start the agenda now with item one, apologies. Now I have an apology from Councillor David Healy who contacted me personally yesterday to explain why he couldn't be in the meeting today. He did want to speak very much on the tourism report, in fact I've got something for him to read. I have accepted Councillor Healy's very good reasons why he couldn't be here today so that should be the end of that matter now. Any other apologies please Gareth or Nicola. The chief executive leader. Other than that leader all cabinet members are present. That's okay thank you. Any declarations of interest before we go on? No. Minutes then. To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on the 12th of March, the 24th of April and the 30th of May. So if we start on page seven with the 12th of March, can someone move them please? Move. Thank you Councillor Eastwood. Page seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. All those in favour of the minutes of the 12th of March please show. Thank you very much. And now the meeting of the 24th of April. Can someone move those minutes please? Councillor Christine Jones. Page 23, 24, 25 and 26. All those in favour please show. Thank you very much. And the meeting of the 30th of May. Can someone move please? Councillor Linda Thomas. Page 27 and 28. All those in favour please show. Thank you very much. So now we move on to item four. I'm just looking. Oh. And housing strategy action plan performance updates. Councillor Bibby. Thank you very much leader. Again apologies to members and officers. I am having some technical difficulties in trying to get my camera going but it appears I haven't had much luck so far. For housing strategy action performance plan updates the purpose of this report is to provide an update on the housing strategy delivery plan 2019-24 with particular focus on financial year 23-24. The housing strategy has a delivery plan which sets out three strategic priorities and related activity to delivering these priorities. Priority one, increase supply to provide the right type of homes in the right location. Priority two, provide support to ensure people live and remain in the right type of property. Priority three, improve the quality and sustainability of homes. The flinches housing strategy and action plan sets out the vision for how the council will deliver affordable housing, provide relevant support to partner organisations and ensure it creates sustainable homes. The housing strategy identifies three key priorities with three key areas of activity within each priority. Priority one being again to increase the supply to provide the right type of homes in the right location. Priority two, provide support to ensure people live and remain in the right type of property and priority three to improve the sustainability of homes and if I can invite the chief officer Vicki Clark if she can provide further detail on the report. Vicki, good morning. Good morning, good morning members and thank you Councillor Bibby. So yeah this is an annual report that comes to cabinet and as Councillor Bibby said it's to provide an update on the delivery of the flinches housing strategy. So appendix one gives a detailed update against each of those priorities and the activities that we set out to deliver. The report also highlights some changes that we are asking members to note which is that there are some alignments of standards and intervention rates for acquisitions under the social housing grant with those of transitional accommodation capital program. So it's previously a cap on how much of the social housing grant you could use for acquisitions and this has now been aligned like so with TACP. But also actually the report outlines the time frame for the renewal of the current housing strategy so it's the final year of the strategy this year and the report gives the timeline for the for the renewal of that and that includes a member workshop which all members have been invited to next week where we'll outline the findings from the local housing market assessment which was has just been undertaken. I don't know whether Paul Callan's got anything additional to add. Paul. Yes Chair, as Vicky has said the detailed action plan is appended to the document in accordance with the recommendations from internal audit that's been brought forward to this cycle. Previously it was reported in the autumn cycle around December. It was brought forward to September last year and June as now. We are seeing something in the order of 80 completed new affordable homes last year and 150 on site for delivery in the next this year and the following year. As has also been highlighted we've set out the timetable for renewal of the housing strategy and a framework for consultation starting now but taking us through to Christmas. Key drivers and factors affecting this strategy are the huge increases in homelessness, the rise in particular in private sector rents and the affordability of housing to local people particularly home ownership where people are struggling to pull together sufficient to create the deposits albeit that many people are paying more in rent than they ever would in the cost of servicing the mortgage. Happy to answer any questions. Okay thank you very much, Councillor Bethel. Thank you Chair. On page 30 under 108 it mentions, oh sorry 107, that the housing support grant does not fund the statutory homeless service delivery. I'm just wondering where that particular cost falls within their own particular accounts. Does that rest with the HRA or with the general revenue account? Thank you. I'm just coming on on that, leader. Yeah it's funded by the backhoe funding from the Council fund, it's the homeless service. There was pressure on the Council's budget, on the general Council's budget. Any other comments or questions from members please? No, I take it this has been, has this been to scrutiny? It has, leader, yes. Yes, what were the comments from scrutiny? They supported the recommendations. They supported the recommendations. Okay, Councillor Bibby. Thank you, leader. In case there is no further questions or comments from members then I'd formally like to move the two recommendations. Recommendation one, to note the progress on delivery of the housing strategy action plan 2019 to 24. And recommendation two, to note the changes outlined in the report following the alignment of standards and intervention rate for acquisitions under the social housing grant with those under the transitional accommodation capital programme and the updated time frame for the renewal of the current housing strategy. Councillor Bibby has moved that. Do we have a seconder please? Councillor Biffle, all those in favour please show. Thank you very much everyone. Item five, together we can, community resilience and self-reliance. And this is Councillor Bibby again. I believe it's me chair. It is, Councillor Johnson. Oh, Councillor Johnson, okay. Yes, thank you. Yep, I've got to do one report at least after every count. Okay, item five, together we can, community resilience and self-reliance. This report provides an overview of the audit world report, together we can. Community resilience and self-resilience which was published in January 2023. The report highlights how building community resilience and self-reliance may help reduce reliance on local authority services in the future if local authorities shift from being a direct provider to enabler. Together we can is the third report published by Audit Wales in a series focused on poverty and what local government is doing to tackle it. The report highlights the recommendations and expectations of Audit Wales in terms of local authorities next steps. I find interesting that Audit Wales have made the case for local authorities to clearly define and have a shared understanding of what community resilience and self-reliance actually are. In their recommendations section, Audit Wales highlight that they expect each local authority to consider the findings of the review and the recommendations contained within the Together We Can report. There is also an expectation that councils, governors and audit committee received a copy of the Audit Wales report and monitored the response and the recommendations made within it. Therefore the recommendations made by Audit Wales have been considered and are acknowledged in principle and that is that the arrangements and processes are in place that may help and strengthen the community's resilience and self-reliance. However whilst there may be long-term benefits to all in supporting supporting greater resilience and reliance, as suggested in the report, they will not be easy to achieve and will require extra resources from this council if they're to be driven and implemented. Audit Wales reports does promote local authorities building resilience and reliance and they give examples yet there appears to be no cost benefit analysis to suggest that these examples provided are supporting the outcomes that Audit Wales are looking at. On balance, this council cannot achieve the output of the report's recommendations and I confirm this is also the view of the Housing and Communities Oversight and Scrutiny Committee too. Completion of self-assessment and subsequent action plan is not achieved from the current climate given the financial constraints on this council and the lack of available capacity and resource to undertake such organizational piece of work especially if it's unlikely to yield the outcomes suggested. The council must be content with the risk of not undertaking the recommendations within the report and the council's governance and Audit Committee must be satisfied with the response as set out in paragraph 2.06. The recommendations are that cabinet consider the findings and recommendations of the Audit Wales report on community resilience and self-reliance and two that current note the recommended response in relation to Audit Wales' recommendations and support that's being reported to the appropriate committees in June 2024 and having said that I invite the Chief Officer to make any further comments. Vicky Clark please. Thank you Lina, thank you Councillor Johnson. So I suppose really just to reiterate what Councillor Johnson said that community resilience is a cross-cutting agenda and the implementation of the recommendations would require cross-organizational work with no dedicated resources or capacity within teams to oversee and coordinate that work and the achievements of community resilience will also require council resource to drive and implement at a time and like I said we have a you know significant budget pressure and there's no analysis provided at all in the report that suggests that time and investment required will result in efficiency savings. In fact the report recognises that there would need to be ongoing investment by the council for it to be successful. So we're not being dismissive of the report and there's lots of good practice examples you know within Flintra and in fact Flintra are cited in the report as a good practice example and we will continue to use the recommendations to shape any future work that we're doing. As Councillor Johnson said this report has been through Communities and Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee and that the committee would like an additional recommendation added to the report which is that the committee recognises the work of the numerous voluntary organisations and individuals across the county and feed this back to cabinet when considering its reports at this meeting today. So the committee was supportive of the proposal set out by us at the scrutiny meeting and whilst the recommendations within the report were commendable there was no current capacity in the council to deliver on those recommendations. This report will now go on to governance on committee on the 26th of June. Thank you. Okay thank you very much I must admit I've met with audits on Wales audits on a number of occasions and one of the missing links in my opinion in many of their reports is the fact that there needs to be recommendations to Welsh government and Westminster government about financial resources. That's the missing part of all of this because as has been highlighted by Councillor Johnson and Councillor Clark it is not possible to magic financial resources out of thin air and if there ever was a money tree in county hall its disappearance was many years ago unfortunately. Any other comments from members on this please? No so it's been and I fully support the recommendation of committee that we commend the work that many organisations are doing within our county and we commend and thank them for the work that they do on a voluntary basis across our county to help us. I noticed recently that I believe 60 people Councillor Biffle were litter picking in mould on the town centre cleanup and there are litter pickers all over the county. For example it's very useful very good and good community action. So, Councillor Biffle you move no not Councillor Johnson sorry you moving the recommendations? Yes move the recommendations. Thank you. Seconded? Councillor Christine Jones. All those in favour please show them. Thank you very much. Item six. Audit Wales reports use of performance information service user perspective and outcomes and this is Councillor Linda Thomas. Thank you leader. Just a short report regarding the audit wales report as was mentioned in prosc previously. The recommendations of audit wales will be taken on board. I will work closely with the officers to consider any improvements which have been mentioned within the report and I will ensure that any improvements can be implemented subject to any financial implications. Thank you leader. Thank you and it sits under me leader. Sorry? It sits under me leader. All right Gareth. So, thank you leader. So, audit wales done a report on as he says service user perspectives pull so outcomes in respect of service user perspectives. The audit wales report identifies a finding that we had already identified ourselves as part of our corporate self-assessment that we could make better use of feedback from our customers and by that what we mean is that there is there are currently some services that do this very well and they consult with their service users and they mention that at a strategic level in their cabinet reports and one only has to look I think it's item 18 which is a closed session item but that includes within it examples of commissioning stakeholder feedback and customer feedback that then is attached to a cabinet report and that's in social services. We know that housing also you're very good at consulting with contract holders formerly known as tenants. The practice isn't perhaps as widespread as it might be but we also have a lot of service user information at an operational level that perhaps doesn't surface in cabinet reports to the degree that it might and so we've identified that we want to do that as well and likewise leader we know that as an organization we could be better at pre-consultation when we undertake large-scale service change and again those are things that could be reported but those were all as I say within the as it says within the reports those are all things that we had identified ourselves previously and that leaves us in a good position if I might leader or at least in a position where we've actually started working on the things that we need to do and the things that are recommended in the action plan so that we've made we've actually made a bit of headway on the action plan that is here for approval this morning. If I could moving on slightly the second there is a second recommendation within the report about outcomes this really comes down to to some extent how we measure what we promise to do as part of our council priorities. It's always the aim when setting priorities to have measures that are as close to the outcome or report as closely on the outcome as possible but it isn't always possible to do that and sometimes we have to use proxy measures and an example of that might be from within my own area we have a priority around reducing digital poverty. One of the actions that we take to try and do that is the provision of free data through the good things or in partnership with the good things foundation and so we measure how many people we've helped and what examples we've done in terms and we give examples in terms of saying well we've given out so many sim cards or whatever and that is a proxy measure for the reduction of digital poverty because what that doesn't do is survey our population or look to statistical data from elsewhere as to levels of digital poverty within our population but leader we think that's quite a good proxy because actually if one is to go through that sort of survey on outcomes that can be quite time consuming and resource intensive and indeed expensive so we aim wherever possible to try and design measures as we call them in the council plan that reflect or are as good a model for the for the outcome we're trying to achieve as possible in order to avoid the need for costly further research. At corporate resources scrutiny committee last week this was scrutinized and the recommendation from Frosk was that in relation to key policy and service decisions including any changes to services that reports include service user perspectives on the outcomes currently being delivered and that cabinet considers an annual survey of service users to be captured with the issuing of council tax bills. That second recommendation leader is something I think that we need to bear in mind at a meeting perhaps next later this month where we will be considering the national residence survey. It has been some time since we last did a residence survey where we do a general survey of our whole population to try and see how satisfied they are with council functions but that is something that the WLGA is proposing to introduce. As you know leader we've been talking to a cabinet about this. It is something that WLGA will be introducing on behalf of all councils in Wales and we see that as an important plank in addressing both of the recommendations that come from Frosk and indeed the recommendations within the audit Wales report. We do want to get to a position where we have a much better view of our residents views about the services that we provide when reporting to yourselves or indeed any other committee on strategic items. So the proposed action plan leader in response to the audit Wales recommendations is attached for approval and I'm happy to take any questions. Okay thank you very much for that and there was of course there have been other consultations. There's been the very large consultation in Saltony and Broughton area which unfortunately due to various pre-election periods hasn't been able to be brought to the public yet. It has been taken to members and that is due to be subject to a special cabinet meeting after the pre-election period so it doesn't cause any difficulties there. So any other comments from members on this item please? No and we accept the comments of Frosk with regard to the survey going out with the council tax demands. Okay we add that as a recommendation. Councilor Thomas you're moving this? Yes thank you. Seconded please. Councilor Christine Jones. I'm seeing your hand first this morning Chris. You've seconded a lot this morning. Right all those in favour please show. And councilor Bivvy is indicating as well. Item seven. Yeah I've got pleasure in presenting this report. Flincher County Council is required to adhere to Welsh language standards as set out in compliance notice that was served on the council in 2015. The Welsh language standards compliance notice of Flincher County Council places a statutory duty on the council to publish an annual report that sets out how it has met the Welsh language standards. The purpose of this report is to present the Welsh language standards annual monitoring port 2324 providing an overview of the council's progress in complying with the Welsh language standards and identifying areas for further progress and improvement. The Welsh language wells measures act enables the Welsh ministers to specify standards for the Welsh language and the aims of the standards are to improve the services Welsh speakers can expect to receive from organisations in Welsh, to increase the use people make of Welsh language services, make it clear to organisations what they need to do in terms of the Welsh language and ensure that there is an appropriate degree of consistency of the duties placed on bodies of the same sectors. This report has gone through scrutiny committee and there was positive feedback in relation to it but now invites Damien to provide further detail on the report please. Thank you and is it Damien who's speaking on this? Yes thank you, thank you leader. Good morning everybody. Yeah so members will be really familiar with the requirement to issue the annual report and obviously the compliance notice which is standardised across the nation. Just to highlight some things that we're doing in Flincher, some increased initiatives. We're participating with Bang University's projects which aims to increase the use of incidental Welsh between employees. There's been an increased number of employees learning Welsh at 174 when compared to 110 last year. There are now recordings of words and phrases to support employees to use Welsh on the telephone and the recordings also contain written words, phrases and phonetics. This means that there are visual prompts so they can be seen as well as heard. There's obviously some work going down to recruitment of Welsh speakers, this is a national issue. So in partnership with Menti, Eith, Wrexham, Wrexham County Board of Council, Collie Camby and other organisation in North East Wales, a promotional video has been produced to show potential job applicants how organisations provide support to employees who wish to use Welsh at work. The aim is to reassure protective job applicants who are unsure whether their Welsh language is good enough of the support available to help develop their skills and two, Flincher employees have participated in that video. The North Wales Public Service Board have commissioned Eith to investigate the issues and solutions in recruitment of Welsh speakers. As all public bodies in North Wales are facing similar difficulties and you know members will really understand that as a board of county that's a particular issue for us in Flincher and this recruitment and Welsh language project started in 23/24 and the final report and recommendations will be published this year in 24/25. Areas for improvement, developing our employees' Welsh language skills, particularly those in public facing posts to support service to be delivered bilingually. This will be addressed by developing implement Welsh language skills strategy, supporting employees to use Welsh naturally in the workplace and increase the audibility of the language and opportunities to use Welsh. More initiatives will take place to encourage employees to use Welsh whatever their level of skill. Complaints. One complaint directly from a customer in 23/24. An apology was issued to the customer and the Welsh form was sent to the complainant. To prevent this happening again the form is now bilingual. There was five complaints made to the Welsh language commissioner directly. The five complaints, only three were taken forward and corrective action had been taken by Flincher County Council. Next steps. For the next 12 months as a council we aim to develop Welsh language skills strategy to increase the number of employees using Welsh to be able to deliver bilingual services. Reduce the number of employees who report that they do not have any Welsh language skills and to continue completing self-assessment against Welsh language standards to ensure services continue to comply. This was discussed at Crossk recently and there was a desire clearly from a number of members within Crossk to have Welsh language training offered to elected members together with inclusions with other Welsh language initiatives that we roll out as an authority. So that's a quick summary from me. Thank you leader. Thank you and what arrangements have been put in place can I ask Damien please for the members who wish to have the opportunity to learn the Welsh language to actually be granted that and to be given the opportunity? That's a discussion I'm going to have to have with the owner who deals with this. If it's a recent event I think also Meredith wants to come in. Councilor Eastwood. Thank you leader. They are developing a new hub on the website so following this recently connected we're going to be sending the link out. It's still being developed at the moment but there's an awful lot already on place on the website and it's going to sign post members as well as employees to the range of support measures that we have within the authority. So it's all the training, all the videos, the quick wins in relation to the translations and how to save things. So it's all going to be in one place on the website so it's very easy to navigate and then we'll be sending the links out to everybody so they've got easy access to it. We've also discussed but we can't quite work out how to put QR codes or the links in the members areas so that it's easy to find the link going to that part of the website. Yes I appreciate that, that the website can provide an answer for it and occasionally I do look up the translation of words on various sites but I would say for members who have little or no knowledge of the Welsh language immersion is the best route to actually learn the language and if there are members who are keen I wonder if we can find out perhaps from other local authorities or the WLGA what opportunities exist for members to have. It's all very well and good learning it online but you learn the language by speaking it in my opinion. Sharon please and then Councillor Biffle. Thank you leader. Just to pick up on what Councillor Eastwood said, Fiona actually took an action after the cross meeting last week. She's contacted Heather Johnson in my L&D team to see if we can find some specific training for members. She's also circulated a link to go to all members where we've got lots of stuff on our infinite so that's our internal which employees can access. It's got pronunciations, it's got some easy greetings and things that people can start to use in meetings so we'll start to circulate those and I'll get back to you in terms of a course specifically for members and I guess we can look at whether going forward it becomes automatic as part of member inductions whenever we get new members and then we capture them as soon as they enter the organisation. Thank you. Councillor Biffle. Yes thank you chair. I welcome the report before us today and I think we ought to make mention of the fact too that more use is made of the Welsh language in our meetings and I think this meeting is a classic example where you introduced the meeting and welcomed us through the meeting with Welsh and again other speakers have used Welsh again in their introductions as well as indeed has married and I think that's very welcome. The more familiarity and the more use of the language skills that people have is to be welcomed at all stages. I think I'm glad to see again under the next steps from the 110 that aim to introduce the number of employees who report that they have no knowledge of Welsh language skills and again that's something that has always struck me really because you know very often the questions of the way they pose are in black and white do you speak Welsh yes or no? Well as many of us would not perhaps want to claim that because we're by no means fluent we have some familiarity and some knowledge of the language so I think we need to perhaps phrase the questions differently and dig a bit deeper to ascertain the exact nature of the knowledge of the Welsh that individuals have and again I think we have to acknowledge that you know many of our employees not all by any means but many of our employees have been through sort of 12 years of education in Wales and will have had 12 years of Welsh education you know so they do have some knowledge and some familiarity with the language and I think that needs to be drawn out but I certainly welcome the report and thank the the people who are endeavouring to increase the use of the language and make it more available to all our employees and indeed to our service users thank you. Thank you and Gareth the pinnacle of the Welsh learners in the county if I may call him that wishes to speak now so croeso Gareth. I'm a grade leader. Leader as part of your own support and cabinet support for the Welsh language you have asked officers to develop proposals for simultaneous translation at our meetings it's something that a number of other councils do but we've never had significant I don't think we've previously had significant demand within the organisation to enable people to speak members principally to or officers to speak in Welsh and for people to listen in English which is what the legislation requires so Steve and others Steve Goodrum and others have been working to develop proposals and have come back with a cost model for the delivery of simultaneous translation in meetings which we'll be reporting to cabinet shortly. Yes thank you very much for that it is you know something as far as I'm aware at the moment the only meeting that we do have full translation in is the Welsh in education strategic plan forum which I chaired through the medium of the Welsh language and now Councillor Eastwood chairs through the medium of the Welsh language and I think that's an important example of our commitments to the Welsh language of course our commitment to learners is considerably more than that we have the new Welsh medium school primary school being built in Flint at the moment we have a tremendous success in Shoten in Oscar Blahn which is now sending a regular stream of Welsh speakers to Oscar Meisgaron which will in time contribute towards our targets for Welsh language so I think it's very important and we continue to look for a site in Buckley and Monidesa for a Welsh medium primary school which hopefully will fill the gap in that particular area. So Councillor Eastwood are you moving the recommendations? Yes please I'll move to the recommendation to present the draft Welsh language standards annual monetary report for 23/24 for approval and subsequent publication on the council's website. Thank you. Seconded please. Councillor Biffle. All those in favour please show and Councillor Vivier is in favour as well. Item eight Audit Wales equality impact assessments more than a tick box exercise. Councillor Thomas please. Thank you leader. Audit Wales report equality impact assessments more than a tick box exercise. In September 2022 Audit Wales published a report on its findings of the use of equality impact assessments EIA's in Wales. The aim of the audit was to provide insight into the approach to EIA's undertaken across the public sector in Wales. The report in equality impact assessments more than a tick box exercise sets out four recommendations and seven key improvement areas for Welsh government and public bodies. One recommendation applies to the council. Public bodies should review their overall approach to EIA's considering the findings of this report and the detailed guidance available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the NHS practice hub. This report provides an update on actions being taken to meet that recommendation. Flincher are part of a pilot project implementing the carbon and co-benefits decision support tool developed by the University of Manchester working in collaboration with Greater Manchester combined authority. Prior to the local pilot amendments were made to reflect the practice in Wales and encompass the recommendations from the two Audit Wales reports. As part of the evaluation of the tool the University of Manchester are interviewing users and decision makers during April and May of 24. I presume this has already happened. The outcomes of the evaluation will be reported to cabinet so that consideration can be given as to if the council should adopt the tool and approach for conducting impact assessments. Audit Wales also made a similar recommendation in their report Time for Change - Poverty in Wales which was published in November 2022. The council has thus considered the Audit Wales recommendation and agrees with it. The council is reviewing its approach to completing EIA's through the pilot project with Manchester University which is due to be completed this year. The guidance from the EHRC and the practice hub is available to all employees to access. Thank you, leader. Thank you very much and Councillor Ohno. Is it Gareth's issue? It's me again, leader. Damien again, right? Yeah. Well, Councillor Thomas has covered that really succinctly. The only thing I would point out is that we're the only authority in Wales as part of this particular pilot and as well as reporting back to cabinet, we'll be reporting back to the WLGA as part of our role within the pilot within Wales. There's a lot of interest from the WLGA on this. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Gareth? Although not the lead chief officer for this, there are very strong overlaps between this report and the previous report about customer perspective and service user perspective leader. Consultation forms an important part of fulfilling our responsibilities around the public sector equality duty and so pre-consultation with service users when we propose changes as well as consultation in the moment with service users in terms of their feedback on services are important ways of ensuring that we are addressing and taking into account needs of service users. So if we can strengthen consultation as you agreed, we would do as part of the action plan for item six. That will also help with this item leader. Thank you. Any other comments from members, please? No, then Councillor Thomas, you're moving the recommendation. Yes, thank you. Seconded by Councillor Johnson. All those in favour, please show. Thank you very much. Item nine, social services care inspector at Wales performance evaluation inspection, November 2023, action plan updates. Councillor Christine Jones. In October, care inspector at Wales or CIW announced that they would be visiting flincher to undertake a full routine performance evaluation inspection of both adults and children's services. The purpose of this inspection was to review the local authorities performance in exercising its social services duties and functions in line with legislation on behalf of Welsh ministers. This was to be the first full inspection the portfolio has received for over eight years and an opportunity to showcase the creative and innovative practice undertaken here in flincher. In total, there were seven inspectors involved in the inspection operating on a hybrid basis with some inspectors visiting flincher in person and some working remotely. The in-person inspectors were based at T Dowie Sands but also travelled around to meet staff, partners, service users and their families. The full report was published on Thursday the 22nd of February 2024 and was largely positive in their findings across social services. It commended the stable and experienced senior management team in place across the services and noted that practitioners clearly know the people they support very well. It's also noted the recent restructure across both services and acknowledge this as having the potential to provide more resilience opportunities for greater support and managerial oversight as well as career progression. It was also acknowledged that the council knows the needs of its population and has implemented successful plans in response to identified need and the lack of certain support services. This has been achieved by working in partnership with Betsy Cadwall at the University Health Board and other relevant partners to develop innovative services with significant capital investments including Marleyfield Care Home and T Neath Children's Care Home. An action plan has now been produced based on the recommendations made by inspectors. Now hand over to Neil. Neil. Thank you, leader. The cabinet member has been very eloquent in describing the report so I will add only a few details but I would like to say really thank and commend the team that worked through this inspection and the author of this report Naomi Harper was individually worked very hard but obviously there's a whole team behind arranging our response to this particular very challenging inspection as the cabinet member says it's the largest one we've had in over eight years so it was very reassuring to have in large part a positive report on services that have been developed in Flintshire. One element that I will just highlight is that the inspectors were very positive about the political and corporate support for social services obviously provided by this cabinet and by wider member support in Flintshire and that has been really demonstrated in practical terms in the development of those really positive facilities that the cabinet member mentioned so the extended Marleyfield House and the development of children's residential care in Teaneath and in other elements have been hugely important and those were commended by the inspector quite clearly. We are in no way complacent clearly there's issues that we need to address like every social services department in the land having the most responsive way to approach workforce recruitment and retention is really important and that was highlighted in the report and clearly the action plan outlines those areas where we're taking it forward so just to confirm that this has been scrutinized by social and health scrutiny and who was supportive of the recommendations. Thank you leader. Thank you and I think I've expressed this before to you Neil as chief officer and to Christine. Yes congratulations to all of the team who worked very very hard during the period of unprecedented pressures on public services and lack of resources for this and if I dare mention this Neil it must be particularly pleasing for yourself to leave next month the department in on such a positive report that many local authorities will be particularly pleased with but I'm aware it's not just down to you although I do think leadership matters and Christine it is down to all of our staff who work on a daily basis to provide the best possible support. I do recognize the decisions made by cabinet and I remember when Princess Anne visited Hubcovleigh she was particularly pleased in fact looked at me straight in the eye and said that the local authority was to be commended on the building it had provided because I think in some cases these users do not have the best of buildings and our users do have the best of building and the best of facilities and partnerships with people such as HFT have been particularly positive as well so if you can I'm sure pass the thanks of the cabinet and obviously of the committee on to all of the staff and commend them for their the work they do on a daily basis for everybody in Fletcher. Councillor Biffle. Yeah I apologize it was very remiss of me but I think I should have declared an interest in this particular item I've got a close relative working in social services so I've declared an interest in this particular item thank you chair. Okay thank you very much thank you very much it's important and thank you Councillor Biffle it's important that these interests are declared and I thank you for your declaration. Any other comments from members on this place and of course Neil it hasn't finished does it because you know we see the development of T Croissati in the care home on the former hospital site in Flint which hopefully will be open before too long and we look forward to developments in Hollywood and hopefully somewhere in the Connors Quay Eastside area. So any other members wish to speak on this no Councillor Jones doubtless you will have great pleasure in this. Thank you so much leader for those kind comments the workforce and everybody the leadership of the whole team and we'll be really grateful to hear that we've got your support the support of the cabinet sports of other members and the support of everybody across the corporate team it's very important to them difficult times for everybody but we all stick together corporately and we all work the best of our communities and our people so I really appreciate your really kind remarks thank you and I'd like to move the recommendation that cabinet note the outcome of the reports and support the resulting action plan. Seconded please Councillor Dave Hughes all those in favour please show and Neil can I ask that the banks of the cabinet be passed on to all staff please all social students. Absolutely leader I will do that. Thank you very much. Item 10 age-friendly communities Councillor Christine Jones. Me again thank you leader I have pleasure in presenting the age-friendly community report today the report provides an update on flinches application to join the world health organisation's global network of age-friendly cities and communities and the progress that is being made in the development of activities and initiatives that enable people in flintshire to age well the report seeks acknowledgement of this progress and request the continued support of the cabinet in the development of age-friendly communities in flintshire flinch county council became the second local authority in wales to be accepted as members of the world health organisation age-friendly network in may 2023 having demonstrated a broad range of age-friendly services and initiatives and the commitment to engage older older adults in the community flintshire is now part of a growing global movement striving to better meet the needs of an aging population an online age-friendly flintshire hub has been developed as part of our who age-friendly network membership commitments the online hub provides an overview of age-friendly communities and highlights examples of age-friendly development taking place in communities across the county a source of inspiration for other communities looking to make their area a good place to grow older a principles a principal summary of flinches age friendly priorities and actions is available for citizens membership of the home age-friendly network increases the profile of flintshire and highlights the excellent work that is taking place in the development of age-friendly communities flintshire has an age-friendly plan and a public profile page on age-friendly world an online network portal as members we build strong links and have opportunities to share good practice ideas knowledge and experience flintshire has actively shared details of the digital flintshire hub program to increase digital skills and promote support to access online services further examples of good practice will be shared over time whilst government funding has been made available to all local authorities to achieve and maintain the world health organization network membership funding enables social services team to engage individuals and groups in the community to identify key priorities and to develop age-friendly projects and initiatives with valued support from colleagues across council portfolio teams a summary of notable activities is included in the report flinches positive progress has been shared through the welsh government's local authority network in the welsh government's age-friendly wales quarterly newsletter and at the older people's commissioner for wales age-friendly conference which was held in november 2023 where citizens from flintshire presented a real-life experience of their engagements in age-friendly activities this received positive feedback from the commissioner and chair of cumbria older people's alliance and i've got to say i am the age-friendly champion for flintshire and i'm really proud of all that we do as an authority for our older people in our county and we're actually meeting with the older persons commissioner helena hercox this afternoon at the over 50s action group and at barley field so that's a coup to get her to come and then to meet with our residents in flintshire and to view our wonderful care home so i will now hand over to neil for his comments thank you cabinet member and thank you leader and flintshire has has been an early adopter and pioneer around age-friendly approaches i would beg to to suggest and and the team led by the cabinet member who's personally done an enormous amount around this agenda and supported very effectively by michael jones helen jones and others have really put flintshire in in i you know helped to to actually build flintshire's reputation around age-friendly communities and to actually put put us um you know at at the forefront of developments as as is represented by the fact that you know we we were second i think in wales in terms of the who uh network and then the other point i wanted to make is that often the um the the uh sometimes people think that with aging becomes a less of an interest in digital technology and and obviously everybody is different but this report clearly demonstrates that actually that enormous amount of digital work and digital connectivity happening um with with with our aging residents in flintshire bearing in mind that everyone over 50 is in that category um and and uh and i just wanted to to make that point that uh that the digital approach um is is being and that all things digital are very much taken forward by by this initiative um so just wanted um also it has been to scrutiny um last last week where there was enormous amount of interest and support and support for the direction of of of this this report thank you leader thank you and i presume this is an area where the voluntary sector community groups help out immensely um in uh in this and i think the point was very well made about um uh digital uh i know uh i can think of my life's mother for example uh and the computer and online shopping was a whole new lease of life for her which she couldn't get out i think amazon or whatever were constantly at the door uh so it does bring uh benefits and of course it keeps people in communication doesn't it with facetime and various other uh devices um so uh any comments from members on this report please no committee was supportive council paul johnson thank you chair he doesn't seem to be delay on my computer just just to welcome this i i think it's very important so we've we've talked about how flint she was uh has joined him when we were looking at the impact assessments and i thought that was very very positive we're going to we're not sitting here being very insulated from the rest of the world uh i was just as part of this i just wondered what else in the world are there other uh age-friendly communities and who who are we aligning ourselves with and i was very impressed just at a very quick a quick glance down there with places like amsterdam and the hague they're following similar policies kolk and dublin having an announce just just for a few uh i think when we're looking this is this is not just something that we're doing on our own because we are taking part in something which is an international activity and i think that uh those are so you know once you turn left in chester you know the world kind of ends or whatever uh the way the way we're standing out internationally being recognized as part of international network is an important way to go and i'd welcome initiatives like this and similar to me uh to go forward but congratulations from the world network thank you thank you where counselor johnson uh counselor jones are you uh moving the recommendations i am with pleasure um recommendations one and two that the cabinet note the progress made to develop age-friendly communities in flincher including successful application for membership of the world health organization global network and the cabinet commit to the continued support and collaboration of all portfolio service teams to help develop flincher as a great place to live for the aging population thank you seconded please council johnson all those in favor please show thank you very much uh item 11 deferred charges audit report and this is counselor jones again he'll be fed up with me now right and this report has previously been to the governments and audit committee on the 10th of april and social and health overview and scrutiny committee on the 6th of june 2024 as part of social services internal audit plan internal audit we're invited to undertake an audit of our monitoring processes supporting deferred payments and the management of residential care liabilities the deferred payment is only available to in for individuals who are receiving care and support in a residential or nursing care home setting it is an agreement between the individual in receipt of care on the council which allows for a deferment or a delay in paying for care costs until a later date the cost deferred are repaid at a future date during the internal audit of the existing deferred payment process eight actions were identified which is needing action five of which are high priority and three are medium priority actions since the completion of the audit process the financial assessment and charging team have established a task and finish group to address the agreed actions this work is taking place alongside the implementation of a new finance software system which will support the additional monitoring and control measures identified in the audit report and now hand over to me thank you neil uh thank you again um we we clearly had some clear messages from promoted colleagues in relation to some improvements that were necessary in this piece of work and and we have taken those on wholeheartedly as you would expect and the the actions taken to date and the actions to come clearly deal and sing deal wholly with with with the the areas improvement that were mentioned in the audit i although emphasized to um to cabinets that actually in terms of financial implications there was never any weaknesses in our ability to collect collect with the relevant finance this is around systems um in in the greater relevance but uh um but i know jane davis like to thank and recognize jane davis and the team for the work they've done and actually taken forward our services in this way and thanks to audit colleagues for their observations and work with us on this thank you for that any comments from members uh comments from committee on this report has it gone to is this governance and audit or did it go to cross and social services of course i think the cabinet member covered it i think it went to to both didn't it yes yes it went to governance it went to it certainly went to social and health and previously it went to to cross yes yeah went to governance and audits on the 10th of april and it went to um our scrutiny on the 6th of june okay thank you very much uh so any members wish to speak on this no christine you're moving this yes for me the two recommendations to provide members with information on the actions undertaken since the completion of the internal audit report and to provide members with assurance that the remaining actions are being undertaken within the time scales laid out in the audit reports and that progress is being monitored effectively thank you thank you seconded please council married eastwood all those in favor please show thank you very much okay uh item 12 uh cracks in the foundations building safety in wales audit wales uh reports uh council bethel thank you leader as a result of the disastrous screndel tower fire in 2017 an independent review was established by dame judith hackett into building regulations the findings of which were published in 2018 it revealed serious long-term issues with the building safety regime and recommended a new framework to replace the complex system which had grown up over a number of years to address the findings and recommendations of the review the building safety act of 2022 is introduced and this represents the biggest changes in building safety regulations in england and wales since 1984 the act aims to improve the safety of high-rise and other similar buildings by establishing new regulations for design construction maintenance and occupation of such buildings and sets requirements for all practicing building control inspectors to demonstrate that they are competent at one or three levels domestic general and specialist and that they have become registered by the 1st of october 2024. in august 2023 audit wales published a report on building control in wales entitled cracks in the foundation to assess how welsh government local authorities and their partners are strengthening the building improvement of building control and building safety services following the act it looked at all building control authorities of wales and how each is prepared to take the new responsibilities and requirements of the act it focused on the resilience of existing services and the robustness of the building safety assurance systems the report findings provide a critical oversight and raises concerns that not enough priority is being given to building control services it suggests that there is an absence of robust planning and clear decision making and inadequate resources which raises fears that the new responsibilities and requirements will not be delivered as intended in wales eight recommendations are made by audit wales four of them directed to welsh government and four directed at local authorities this report gives an overview of the audit wales report and our responses to those recommendations those directed at welsh government will need to be addressed by welsh government but the regards to the ones about local authorities the four recommendations are recommendation five to develop local action plans that articulate a clear vision for building control to be able to plan effectively to implement the requirements of the act recommendation six to urgently review their financial management of building control and ensure that they are fully compliant with regulations recommendation seven to work with partners to make better use of limited resources by exploring the potential for collaboration and regional regionalization to strengthen resilience to the cost benefit analysis or partnering with neighboring authorities establishing joint ventures or adopting regional models where beneficial recommendation eight to review risk management to ensure that risks are systematically identified recorded assessed mitigated and subject to regular evaluation and scrutiny in response to these recommendations clincher has one in terms of recommendation five um discussion with local authority building control the body representing building controlled authorities in england wales on a format for an approach to local action plans recommendation six that we are already reviewing our fees and charges for building control in association with our internal audit recommendation seven the building control already works very closely with partners and stakeholders to ensure the best use of resources staff recruitment and retention is of course an issue not just for building control and our building control team is well staffed compared with other neighboring authorities recommendation eight risk management will form part of the internal audit review of building control and will inform and shape the risk management processes for this service while have regard to the council's risk management strategy and framework and will seek to apply best practice to all i did to the identification assessment and control of key risks within the service appendix one gives additional information in respect to the four recommendations highlighted i think it's important to note that our priority has been to recruit the three big to the three vacant posts in building control and that our officers have now undertaken their registration requirements in line with the new building control competency registration framework and we're pleased to report that they've all passed their examinations and are now registered to practice i don't know whether the chief officer and if i should make any comment thank you chair andy yes thanks chair just to add that this item went to scrutiny committee last week i did as did the following item as well um we were questioned about our response to the recommendations in particular we were questioned about the work around fee setting it's important to note that building control is a slightly unusual public service because it operates in a competitive market you don't have to go to flinch's building control service to get your building regs discharged you can go to the private market and yet whilst we're reviewing fees we also can't set our fees so that we're actually profiting from the service that we we undertake it can only really wash its face in simple terms we questioned about that we were questioned about progress with respect to the four actions for local authorities and a level of confidence in meeting those time scales outlined in appendix one clearly the one with respect to collaboration and this is a theme that's come through from the minister trying to identify collaborative opportunities we've said that we will undertake discussions by the end of the calendar year clearly it will take some considerable time to put any steps in place to formally start collaborating with other authorities we need to know what um commitment they've got to do in that as well and we need some capacity to put that in place as well um i think that was pretty much it in terms of uh questions coming back from scrutiny committee um but uh if there are any further questions today i'm happy to take them thank you chair thank you and um as uh one of the members in flint for the tower blocks that flint county council have obviously the events in 2017 which have just been um believe it's the anniversary uh because he's been on the news again um those uh shocking events thanks to the diligence of officers uh in flinch county council of course the cladding course on our buildings was safe uh and as well as that we also installed a full sprinkler system in the tower blocks and in many of our public buildings that we're building including some housing developments throughout the county so i think we have a fairly strong record on this particular issue and it's funny isn't it how watching programs where they go back bring it back to you it really did impact at the time and still does impact uh i'm sure on many people what what went on there so uh any other members who wish to speak on this no we've got a recommendation there council biffle you're going to move it i'm of the recommendation that camera notes the outcome of the audit wales report and supports the actions have been taken to address the four recommendations made for local authorities i move chair thank you seconded please councillor dave hughes all those in favour please show and councillor sean bivvies indicated as well uh item 13 then destination management now as i said at the beginning when i recorded his apologies councillor healy is unable to be here today i will read out a statement on his behalf uh as to start and then i'll bring in uh chief officer and exactly uh councillor healy says he is very enthusiastic about the draft destination management plan it is a very comprehensive document he especially welcomes the fact that it highlights flincher's important heritage sites at a glance when you first look at it he reports that the plan has several targets which it seeks to achieve one of which is to increase the number of flincher tourism ambassadors from the 2022 baseline of 25 to 500 by 2027 and councillor healy reports that he has recently completed this sort course and received the certificate promptly it is extremely well written and informative and he recommends it to fellow cabinet members elected members and residents of flincher so uh mr firo thanks leader yeah just to add to that some detail around the report there are four priorities set out in the destination management plan one covering skills and people one marketing and communication products and places is the third one and then partnership engagement is the fourth within the report you'll see that there are a number of work streams which are already underway and it's actually those work streams that probably got the highest level of scrutiny last week when this report was put before environment economy overview scrutiny committee there was reference there to the fact that many of those work streams are currently reliant on shared prosperity funding and clearly that money runs out at the end of this calendar year and therefore how confident we were were we that some of these um priorities would be taken forward my response to that and i gave the example of the greenfield valley which has got shared prosperity funding that they are currently using at the moment is to they're using that money to get themselves into a petition to to um apply for further external funding going forward so they've got a legacy there as as other areas of flincher have of accessing heritage lottery funding or whatever that may uh progress into so it's not wasted money and i'm confident that the spf is being used appropriately we've also had some questions around tourism tax and also the impacts of council tax on second homes as well and the impact that that might have on the destination management plan we've had some questions around where are we in terms of the toilet strategy and the fact that we're promoting the area as a destination we need to have adequate toilets in place which is fair comment and then there was a couple of questions around some areas not being specifically identified within the destination management plan particularly groenert and talacra and you know we can't mention every single area within the destination management plan though we accept that each of their special qualities and then finally there was mention of the national park proposals and the advantages that may bring to the area and supporting the destination management plan but those that was the summary of what was was commented on at the scrutiny committee so again if there are any further questions today and i'm happy to pick them up yet thank you thank you any further questions or comments from members of the cabinet please you know and it was interesting to watch the program the pilgrimage program that was on it i think it started with the backdrop of flint castle and then went on through st winifred's well where we saw the relic that is preserved there and such programs do assist in some of the major sites that we've actually got and of course if i can mention the work that's been done at the bailey hill in mold which has transformed that site into a i believe a vibrant center for the people and for visitors to clincher any other comments from members no so this i will propose this uh in on counselor healey's behalf seconded please counselor eastwood all those in favor please show and council bivy has indicated item 14 uh communal heating charges uh now there was some discussion uh in informal cabinets uh about whether or not this should be on the agenda for today given the pre-election period however i believe the time scale for um uh implementation of the policy uh which i'm sure the chief officer will mention and which uh our chief governance officer may come in meant that it had to be included uh on this uh cabinet agenda so sorry counselor baby if i've taken any of your uh steam away there no problems at all leader um yeah just to uh present the report the housing community's portfolio currently operates eight communal heating schemes within flincher with 417 properties on communal heating systems the council has recently renegotiated the fuel tariff to be charged for 24 25 as the previous contract ended in march 2024 the rate chargeable for gas is expected to decrease by approximately 51 over the next 12 months communal contract holders are billed based on the council's industrial and commercial contract rate and although electricity and gas market gas market prices remain two times higher than the historical market average the council contracted gas rates are now reducing from their high points at 2022 2023 new communal heating charges are based on the prior year's energy use which ensures an accurate assessment of cost and impact on the heating reserve account to recover the projected heating charge in full we need to align our communal heating charges to ensure full cost recovery the proposed recharge is for 24 25 are set out in this report and if i can bring in the chief officer for further detail on the report uh thank you uh council bivvy and uh becky clark please uh thank you leader thank you council bivvy um so just to uh talk about the uh reason for uh the report needing to come to the meeting today so the charges will take effect from the 31st of july how so um it was timely that we needed to bring this the report to cabinet before the election um so um just a couple of points in addition to um what council biv is outlined um last year due to the significant increases in utility costs we did remove the communal area element of the schemes based on a heat loss estimate um so this reduced the amount charged to to tenants and this will continue into 24 25 um currently tenants are charged a flat rate across the scheme however work is in progress for us to allow charging tenants for their individual usage and this is expected to be in place for 25 26 um therefore um if there are any changes to the recommended charges today there is a risk that we would it would prove difficult to recover any deficit remaining on the heating reserve as we move to that individualized metering um in addition work continues as planned to replace any communal heating system which which is due to reach end of life and obviously they'll be replaced by more efficient heating systems um and finally just say that this report went through uh criticism housing overview and scrutiny committee last week and the committee supported the proposed changes to the current heating charges thank you okay thank you uh rachel cobelli any comments from yourself um no vicki and sean have summarized it well um it will be very difficult we are moving to individual billing this um over a phased approach this year that will enable tenants to actually have accurate billing for their um for their heating and it also means that potentially they will have control systems where they'll be able to adjust the temperatures of their own of their own radiators which is a positive so they can manage their own heating um and just to finalize what vicki said it's just that if we have any other recommendations it will probably be unlikely that we'll be able to recover it going forward because we will only be basing future bills on actually what the what the tenants or the contract holders are using and not prior years sort of charges that are built up over time yeah okay that's great uh any comments from any other members please comments or questions uh right so council baby you're moving this thank you very much later yeah like to formally uh move the recommendation cabinet proves the chart for changes to the current heating chart heat current heating charges at council properties with communal heating schemes as outlined in the reports all changes to take effect from the 31st of july 2024. thank you uh seconded by council biffle all those in favor please show thank you uh very much item 15 uh the purchase of buybacks using welsh government's transitional accommodation capital program uh council bivvy again please thank you very much leader uh the properties at 93 and 95 harden road in hope were previously commercially let as a part of a takeaway restaurant the properties have been vacant for many years and become derelict the legal process of ending this type of commercial lease was very protracted last year the properties were made the properties were removed from the lease and returned to flinch county council they have been secured and made safe as former housing revenue account homes they are ideally suited to meet the criteria set by welsh government under the transitional accommodation capital program this is top slice funding from the social housing program to bring back into use derelict or mothball properties quickly to tackle the burgeoning homeless crisis across the uk the authority is sought to complete the internal transfer of 93 and 95 harden road hope from the council funds of the housing revenue accounts included a transport transfer cost of 150 150 000 pounds from the housing revenue accounts the council fund that's 75 000 per dwelling also to note the refurbishment of project costs of the properties which were improved using delegated powers subject to the grant of the transitional accommodation capital program for welsh government outlined in the report below and if i can bring the chief officer in for further detail on the report becky thank you um yes so um this is the second year that we've received transitional accommodation capital program funding from welsh government and the purpose of that funding is to help us tackle the growing numbers of households in temporary accommodation and as this cabinet has previously um received reports around the significant number of people we've got currently in hotels and bed and breakfast um so um you know the request today is that we improve that internal transfer so that we transfer these back into the hra and allow us to use them as social housing the properties have been refurbished and are right now ready for allocation um a bid was submitted to welsh government um and um we did have an independent evaluation of both of the properties undertaken which has recently been updated and the valuation is 75 000 pound for each property um welsh governments have also accepted the principle that an internal recharge between the council fund and the hra could be met through tacp funds and the buyback has been supported by the capital asset program board utilizing our hra section 106 mondays of which there was currently 1.6 million pound available um so like i said the requested is that we transfer these back into the hra and let them let them as social housing thank you uh any comments uh from members please i'm sure the local folks councilor hughes yeah i think this this is very good purchase because them them properties were making a bright light on the on the village and the residents are so pleased now that it's been taken over as it did they were in a terrible state yes thank you for that uh councilor hughes uh i think councilor he leaked uh registered his similar comments uh in informal cabinet uh so uh councilor baby you're going to move that now please thank you leader um yeah i think just to echo the comment uh these two properties have been derelict for a number of years and have caused you know quite a lot of problems with my village of hope um you know and it's fantastic that uh if we approve this uh there will be two properties much needed you know with the demand and pressure on the housing register and the number of homeless individuals we have in temporary accommodation um i think just also to note um it must be a considerable vote of confidence from welsh government in our development team given the fact that under the transitional accommodation capital program we've had some of the highest allocations of any authority in wales so i think that's a very very strong vote of confidence in uh in the authority particularly in this um in these developments so yeah i'd like to move formally the recommendations approve the internal transfer of the properties from the council front to the housing revenue account for a transfer cost of 150 000. thank you seconded by council viffel all those in favor please show thank you very much uh item 16 uh to note uh the delegated powers uh report and now we move on to uh we've got the forward work program for county council cabinet or view in order to overview and scrutiny uh there and now uh we need to move the local government access to information at 1985 to consider the exclusion of the press and the public yeah could i just mention on the forward program page 403 mention is made there the workforce task the travel survey report it's it's it's on the paper has been my portfolio responsibility it actually comes under climate and economy councilor healey's portfolio of responsibility okay i'm happy thank you council bibby just like to formally move the exclusion of uh the public and press on the uh thank you seconded please council biffle all those in favor please [BLANK_AUDIO]

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