Transcript

We're not live, just look, where's Demi Services for this? Oh, are you Demi Services down there? Hi, yep, you've started it already? Okay, fine. Okay, in which case I won't ask you to start the recording. I just wanted to make sure that anybody watching was actually online before we actually kicked off. So having heard my request that you are brought online, anybody watching, hi, good morning. Welcome to this meeting of the Buckinghamshire Council Cabinet on the 18th of June 2024. I'd just like to welcome you to this rather strange venue. This is probably why there's a little bit of confusion, because we've been effectively evicted from our normal venue in the larger meeting room just over to my left, due to the imminence of some national event that's taking place. And as a result, we're decamped into a much smaller meeting room. But I hope to guide us successfully through this meeting of Cabinet, as usual. So just to welcome everybody who's here, we have a mixture of Cabinet members, some of the Deputy Cabinet members, some of the Senior Officer team, and colleagues from different parties as well, who are always welcome. And they're challenging questions to take up. So having said that, I'm going to move us into the agenda to remind everybody, it's now self-evident, that we are being recorded, and this will be available to the public for anybody who's not watching it live. If you don't wish to be recorded on the webcast, there will be seating available, probably outside, for you to go and sit if you wish to do so. If you remain, then you are effectively consenting to being webcast. I'm going to move right through the agenda. As always, I'd like members of Cabinet just to introduce themselves. I'm always conscious there are people who watch it for the very first time, and therefore they won't know who the faces are, and it just helps provide a little bit of context for new faces watching it, if you wouldn't mind doing that. And I'm just going to give some apologies. I think we have Mark Wynn who's apologized. We have Karl, I can see, standing in for him. Any other apologies? Oh, of course. Yes, of course. Thomas isn't here. So Thomas ably deputized also by Jilly Jordan. Welcome, Jilly. So I'm going to go through the agenda. That's apologies for absence. Move straight on to Item 2. These are the minutes of the last meeting. These are public minutes. They are on pages 5 to 20 of the Consolidated Agenda Pack. For anybody watching, it's always helpful if you do call up on screen the documents that we're referring to. It will give you a much better idea of the context of any discussion. They are available online on the Buckinghamshire Council website, and I will, as far as possible, remember to give you the page numbers of the item we're discussing. So this is the public minutes of the last meeting held on 7 May 2024. We have pages 5 to 20. Again, I'm going to offer the opportunity for colleagues to make any last minute amendments to these. Just for clarity, members have already seen these. They've had the opportunity to make any factual corrections. So it is unlikely that members will still have additional corrections, but they may have. So this is the opportunity. Just to see if colleagues have any comments or corrections for the final minutes. Are you content that I signed them as a true and accurate record? We agree. Thank you very much, colleagues. Item 3 is declarations of interest. All colleagues have already declared their interest in all items as a statement in the corporate ledger, effectively. This is just in case there are any items on this particular agenda that prompt recognition that they have an additional declaration of interest to make. Again, relatively unlikely, but the opportunity is there. Can I just check whether any colleagues have any additional declarations of interest to make? None? Thank you very much. That moves us on to item 4, hot topics. Hot topics, as I say regularly, is not everything that you've done in the last few months. Soirees you may or may not have attended. This is intended to be significant items that you wish to draw to the attention of non-executive members, to the media and to the public of significance. And I will ask each in turn, if they have such an item, it is absolutely not a requirement that people do have. So if I can start, I'll start to my left. Sorry, to my right, rather, in this case. Steve. Thank you. Good morning. Stephen Broadbent, deputy leader and cabinet member for Transport. Just a hot topic, probably, on grass cutting, which is filling lots of inboxes at the moment on queries. We do have gangs out. Our first rural cut, as it's called, on the high speed roads have cut grass across the county. And where this council has responsibility to do the grass cutting, because often locations are devolved to town and parish councils, our urban cut is underway. But we've had almost perfect growing conditions with lots of wet, followed by some sunshine. So we do recognise it's growing very fast. I've just been told by colleagues on the way in, they've seen them doing, as they come down from the north, there are gangs out there cutting grass. We will, the teams are out, we are adding extra gangs to do more grass cutting across the county in the coming weeks. And then there's a second cut later in the summer. So I do recognise there's a lot of grass out there and where we are planning to cut, the programme is underway. If anyone thinks there's a particular junction where we've got a road safety issue with vision displays, then please report that and fix my street. And a number of what we call reactive cuts where a gang will come out and deal with that, will take care of that where there's a safety concern. But I just want to say that the programme is extensive and is underway and you will see them in your area in the coming days and weeks. Steve, thanks very much. I mean, as you know, because you and I have exchanged a number of emails on this, I've received a lot of correspondence on this. I know you have as well. It's an issue that residents have raised with me. I mean, some I think very reasonably have said that particularly in the urban areas, some of the grass, quite frankly, is very high and just makes areas look untidy, quite frankly. I'm very aware of that. I know you are. And that's why it's important that we accelerate that programme and try and get those urban grass cuts down as quickly as possible. In the more rural areas, I mean, we have made a decision that we will reduce the number of cuts. By and large, quite frankly, you know, it's actually quite pleasant to drive along and see some of the wildflowers and whatever in rural areas. But again, what is really important is if anybody has any issue around sightlines, you know, those junctions where, you know, there's a potential danger of cars pulling out. They immediately let us know and we will arrange an emergency reactive cut to ensure those sightlines remain effectively usable. So that's a key point I'd like to reinforce for you. OK. Now to my left. Angela. Morning, everybody. Councillor Angela McPherson. I'm Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing. I don't have any hot topics today, Leader. That's fine. And John. Good morning. John Chilva, Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources. No hot topics for me today. Thanks. And Gillie on behalf of the Environment Portfolio. Thank you very much, Leader. And good morning, everybody. Councillor Gillie Jordan, Deputy Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change. And no hot topics today. Thank you. I will say I was at a hustings in Chalfont St Peter last night. It was a pleasure to drive in. And there's two way traffic now in the high street, which is great news. So yourselves and the highways team, thank you very much for facilitating that and to see all the shops, you know, buzzing and open. And I know we're we're looking ahead. Well, we're holding Thames Water to account in terms of preparations for next winter as well. That's great news. Anita. Good morning, Councillor Anita Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Children's Services, Education and Skills. I do have a hot topic, but I'm going to cover it in my answer to Robin Stutchbury. So can I leave it like that? Absolutely. Keep him waiting. Keep him waiting. Good news. Okay. Peter. Good morning, everyone. Councillor Peter Strachan, Cabinet Member for Planning and Regeneration. I have no hot topics today. Thank you. Arif. Good morning, everyone. Arif Hussain, Cabinet Member for Communities. No hot topics today. Clive. Good morning. I'm Councillor Clive Harris. I'm responsible for Culture and Leisure. My hot topic today is unfortunately we're still experiencing flooding on the Rye and Rye Mead. There is a difference in water table there that's very, very high, which is making it difficult to use some of the playing fields. And we're doing everything we can, along with the Environment Agency, to see what can be done to improve it. But it does mean that using these great urban parks that we have is very difficult. I presume, Clive, this is groundwater due to the rain. It's groundwater just due to extensive rain. But the problem is it's clearing at one end and of course it's not at the other. People don't appreciate that over that great long area it goes down by about 10 feet. I mean I've had this discussion with so many residents. I mean the water level is still very high. It may not be visible on the surface in some areas but it's actually just below the surface. And rain just tops it right up again very quickly. Yeah, it's a most unfortunate situation, especially with so many different clubs wanting to use the space over the summer. Sure. Understood. And Carl. Good morning. Councillor Carl Jackson, Deputy Cabinet Member for Homelessness and Regulatory Services. No hot topics today. Great. Thank you all very much. That moves us on to Item 5. Question time. No questions. Oh, yes there are. Always good to welcome colleagues from different parties and indeed from the majority party to submit questions to the Executive. It's a great way of holding the Executive to account. Something I've certainly encouraged over the years. And we have Robin Stutchbury back and Stuart Wilson as well. So we're going to start with a question from Stuart. Just for everybody watching, we do ask that questions are submitted in advance. This is not conspiratorial. It simply means that we actually have more time to give a fuller answer in many cases to the question rather than simply saying, Oh, you know, we'll have to take it away and give you a written answer. So that's why we do that. Stuart. Thank you, Leader. And thank you for the suggestion that I come back and talk about KPIs and cabinets, which you mentioned at Council. That's most encouraging, as you say, to have somebody asking the question. I was asked to keep the question concise and I'm aware that sometimes that means we miss a few subtleties. So in the explanation here, the preamble, it says, Buckhamshire Council cabinet monitors performance against the corporate plan through key performance indicators, although the external auditor has noted that these are not clearly mapped to the Council's strategic priorities or risks, which would improve performance management if aligned. That external auditor report related to 22/23, and I am aware that in the corporate plan for 24/25, there was an Annex 1 that did allocate the KPIs to the four key priorities of the corporate plan. Indeed. So I just wanted to qualify that. In simplifying the preamble, I lost the difference between 22/23 and 24/25, so I just wanted to clarify that point. But I think the question still stands. The question is, Given that there is no progress against the quarterly KPIs set by this cabinet to deliver its corporate plan with Red Amber consistently above 30% throughout 23/24, is it possible that this largely unchanged corporate plan no longer reflects the current and future economic and social challenges? And what actions will the leader and cabinet take to redefine the 24/25 KPIs as required in the forward plan, and appropriately mapped to the corporate plan as recommended by the external auditor? Or will that be left to the new cabinet and Council after the local elections in May 2025? Thanks very much, Stuart. And, you know, very similar question to the one you asked for Council, and I'm more than comfortable with giving you a similar response to the one I gave you there. Just for anybody watching, because, again, not everybody will understand the intricacies of the way we manage the Council, we have a corporate plan which is agreed at full Council. It becomes a guiding principle for the work that this cabinet does on behalf of all elected members. It is a rolling plan, so it covers a five-year period, and each year it's refreshed, updated, and so on, so that actually it can reflect changes in the overall environment, be that economic, legal, environmental, or whatever, political. So the one that we're discussing here reflects two periods of time. One was the corporate plan and the KPIs for 23/24, and we'll have more of that discussion later on on the agenda led by John Chilva. And then we also have the new plan that was agreed at Council for 24/25, and the KPIs for that will be set at our July meeting. So as I read the question as it's currently phrased, and I accept it may have been truncated, you've got, I think, a mixture of questions here. One, if I just disaggregate these, is, you know, the unchanged corporate plan, does it reflect the current and future economic and social challenges, and what actions will the leader take? I think it does. I mean, the whole point of refreshing the plan is to make sure that it does. So previous ones, for example, would have included references to COVID, Ukraine, and so on. And as new challenges come up, we have to refresh the corporate plan to make sure it remains a current and live document. And that's a responsibility that all members have right across parties to make sure that everybody inputs to make sure that that is the case. And that then, as I said, becomes the guiding principle for the actions that this Cabinet takes on behalf of full Council. I'm confident currently it does. I mean, what will be blindingly obvious is that if we have a general election, one of the potential out turns will be a new government that has radically different policies, and that will mean almost certainly that the new Council has to adapt the corporate plan to reflect the realities of different political and potentially different legislative environments. But that we can't predict because nobody definitely knows what the out turn of the general election will be. In terms of the performance against the KPIs, you comment that you say no progress against the courtly KPIs, red and amber consistently above 30 percent. Again, we'll come onto those in a minute. This was the same debate you and I had at full Council. I make absolutely no apology, again, for setting stretching and challenging KPI targets. I mean, they'd be just the same criticism if we'd set easy ones, and actually every month we were achieving them. I'm sure either Robin or yourself would be sitting there saying, well, look, these are not stretch targets. You know, you're knocking these off easily. You know, where's the challenge in this? So the fact that actually we're achieving many and there are some where that we're in amber and some where we're in red, I think reflects the scale of the ambition that we put into the KPIs. So, again, I make no apologies for those. In terms of KPIs, red and ambers, we've talked about updating it. Yeah, I mean, all I'd say again is the new KPIs will be set in July. One of the things that we are aware of and I'm very aware of is the recommendations from the external auditor. It's one of the things that we need to do to better align them. You've referred to the work that's already been done in terms of aligning the KPIs to the corporate plan, but we do need to make sure that golden thread effectively runs through that in a very clearly demonstrable way. And I'm sure I'm going to look at the officer team who will work with the cabinet members to make sure that as far as possible that's done. But we do need to hit the key things. So, you know, that will be a bit of work and iteration between the officers and the members on that. And you'll see what those are, Stuart. OK, but thank you very much for a very good question. If I turn now to Robin and Robin, if you'd like to briefly summarise your question. Yeah, thank you. This is a cabinet member and I continuously discussing these things over a long period of time. So it's no surprise, the cabinet member question. Buckingham Council has been working hard, promoting fostering in Buckinghamshire to support children in the county, having supported and family background, which is really good and something we need to do. Can the cabinet member please give me an update on the relations to how this is progressive and the plans in the future, and particularly share how many children are within the private fostering organisation and how many children are in Buckinghamshire run schemes. Setting out there is a difference between the financial support between the two. Is that the case? Is it not the case? And I see Anita smiling at me. She's itching to actually something she's really keen on giving an answer to, I think. Thank you. Thanks, Robin. I'm going to ask Anita to answer this. I'm just going to say on a personal basis, fostering is something I take a personal strong interest in. It's one of the best ways of giving our young children a good start in life. So it's something we attach an immense amount of importance to. Anita. Thank you, Robin, for your question and thank you for your continued interest in children's services and education. We really appreciate that. You are always very interested. I'm giving you a two-part answer. The first part is actually a hot topic which explains how the work is progressing and the second part is your specific answer. So at the end of May 2024, just recently, there were 309 Buckinghamshire children in foster care and 155 of them were within-house foster carers and 154 were with independent fostering agencies. We had an offer which we officially launched to foster carers on the 10th of May and this includes, which we have announced, a number of new perks for in-house foster carers, including 100 per cent council tax refund with a few stipulations they had to have had fostering care for six months or more, bigger bins, free parking and free leisure activities. And these perks are things that only Buckinghamshire Council can offer and are in addition to the weekly allowances that are paid to foster carers. It's a generous package and more generous than any other area, we do believe. We've had an overwhelmingly positive response from our current carers and we've seen an increase in visits to our website and attendance at our information sessions. And at council, we had a van outside for information and we had 75 people go and get information about foster caring and three taking it up more seriously. And also, we've had three foster households approved so far this year, 11 households in assessment and five initial visits booked in June. So we are actually on track to exceed our target of 15 additional foster placements this year, so that is really good news. We've also launched an improved training offer for our parents, a life story work team, which is a wonderful thing, and a placement support team to ensure our carers receive the highest level of support to care for our most vulnerable children. So that is how we're doing immediately, which is part of your question. The second part of your question, being in relation to other areas, given the varying nature of fostering rates, which is the differing allowances based on age and the child's needs, we are going to have to provide you with a written response that covers this information. However, what we do know from recent benchmarking is that the Buckinghamshire rate compares favourably to other local authorities. So we will be writing to you as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just to add on a personal basis, NITA gave me a really good understanding of the whole fostering piece. I did a piece for Channel 5, actually, on the package that we've offered now for our foster carers, both existing and potential foster carers, and it's a tremendous package. I think it's probably one of the best, if not the first, in the country to offer such a comprehensive incentive, really, for people to not only join us but stay with us as well. So really well done to everybody involved in that. Okay. I'm going to move us on to item 6 on the agenda. You're very welcome to stay, gentlemen, as always. Item 6 on the agenda, forward plan, 28 days notice. This is the forward plan for cabinet. It's a means by which members of the public, non-executive members, can see what it is we're going to be discussing. Obviously opportunity then to make their views known and so on. It will change. It always adapts as things come and go on the agenda. And I always recommend that anybody watching look at the latest version online, because, as I said, items will drop off or move backwards and some will come forwards. This is on pages 21 to 38 of the consolidated agenda pack. And, as always, I invite colleagues to see if they have any comments to make on the forward plan. None? Happy to note it? Great. Thank you. That brings us on to item 7, the budget management outturn. And this is on pages 38 to 80 of the agenda pack. I'm going to ask John Chilver, sitting two to my left, who is the cabinet member for accessible housing but also resources, which covers the financial reporting aspect of the Council, to introduce the report. And I know we have Dave Skinner here, who is our head of finance in layman terms, who will be able to assist in any of the particularly tricky questions that cabinet members sometimes ask. Thank you, leader. So this report sets out the Council's revenue and capital outturn at the end of last financial year, 2023 to '24. We have seen significant budget pressures due to increase in demand and complexity of need in key services, particularly adult social care, children's social care, home to school transport and temporary accommodation, which has led to an overall adverse variance in portfolio revenue budgets at the end of the year of 12.8 million. However, due to one-off income from our Treasury investments and the Council's prudent approach to managing risks, we have been able to offset this adverse variance through corporate budgets and achieve a balanced position overall, which I think in the circumstances is very successful. As well as our prudent financial management, the actions taken during the year to control expenditure through portfolio action plans and spending controls have played a key part in enabling the Council to deliver a balanced outturn position at the year end. Looking at revenue first, the analysis by portfolio is shown in Figure 2 on page 45, and you will see that the main adverse variances are in education and children's services, due mainly to a reduction in foster care places and the national insufficiency of placements for looked-after children. 3.6 million in health and wellbeing from the growth in client numbers and increased cost of care packages. 2.8 million adverse variance in transport services due to increased SEN and PRU referrals following growth of numbers of ECHP, education, health and care plans, and 2 million pressure in homelessness and regulatory service, with the main factor being temporary accommodation due to increased demand and above inflation price increases. On the other hand, there are significant corporate mitigations offsetting the pressures within portfolios, and this can be seen on page 67, which shows a favourable variance of 10 million, which is an improvement from the Q3 position, mainly due to 7.3 million in interest income due to the current high level of interest rates. Obviously, this is just a temporary situation, as interest rates are expected to reduce in future. Moving on to the achievement of savings, this is shown in Figure 3 on page 46, and we had a significant target of 30.4 million for savings and income this financial year, and 25.8 million, or 85%, of this target has been delivered. The most significant shortfall is 5.8 million in energy from waste income, which is a volatile income stream dependent on energy prices, but we've set up a specific reserve to manage this. Moving on to capital, the analysis by portfolios shown in Figure 4 on page 48, and the final out-term position is a spend of 115.4 million against a budget of 122.9 million, given an overall delivery of 94% against our planned capital programme. So we have only 6% of slippage, which is our best performance against this KPI since we became a unitary authority, and there was a significant push on capital spend during the last quarter of the year to achieve this. Finally, there are two reports on page 76 and 78. One is on debt. We continue to monitor our debt levels very closely. Unsecured debt over 90 days has reduced from quarter 3 to 12.9 million, which is still above our target of 10 million. We are taking proactive measures to secure the debt as quickly as possible, and on page 78 our payment performance has been 97.5% of invoices paid on time, which is above the target of 95%. That's it for me. John, thank you very much for a very concise but thorough summary of what's in the report. Just again to summarise for everybody watching, because, you know, numbers can mean a lot when they're said quickly, but the bottom line is that when you look at our services, the portfolios that are run by the cabinet members around this table, they overspent quite significantly in that year, and a lot of action had to be taken, particularly towards the end of the year, to bring those expenditure limits down. There was an overspend in total of about 12.8. Luckily, the corporate elements, that's things like the money we have held in the account, basically when people paid their council tax, haven't spent it yet on natural services, the interest on that, because of the high interest rates over the last year, has generated a surplus above budget of 10 million. So there's an overall deficit of 2.8, and luckily, because we're a very prudent council, one of the things we do each year is set aside contingencies. That 2.8 can be covered by the contingencies which are there specifically against risk. So that does show, I think, some very strong financial management, very prudent financial management, and the ability of this council to take what are often quite tough decisions and to take them in good time to manage our budget so that we don't end up in the situation that the Labour-run Slough did, for example, to the south of us and other councils around the country. So that's been good. The other thing within here, just to draw attention to, is normally I'd like to roll those contingencies forward. I think given some of the environment around us, spending of some of that is wise. These are all one-offs. They cannot be built into the base budget. These are purely one-offs. So given that what we've had in terms of the flooding recently, there's half a million going into the Highways Reserve for gully and ditch clearing because of all the wet weather we've had over the winter. I think that's really, really important. We're putting one and a half million from that contingency into a reserve to improve the public realm, which again, I'm focused very much on the three major towns across the county, but we need to do more to actually help improve those town centres. And I'm obviously very aware that things like weed spraying, we've only got one baked into the current base budget. This gives us the ability to reintroduce for this year an additional second spray, and I'm always aware that that is really important as well to actually knock those weeds back. Otherwise it does make everywhere look quite tatty, but we are very hard pressed financially. There's not the money to build it into the base budget, but because we've been incredibly prudent and sensible in the way we run this budget, we've got the ability to do that specifically as a one-off. So I support John's recommendations on page 43 on the way that we use that contingency. I would hope in future years we can just roll the contingency forward, but I think this year given the exceptional circumstances, particularly with regard to the weather, this is a wise use of that money. Okay. Open it up for comments and questions around the room. Anybody willing to take a cut in their budget going forward? Anyone want to offer additional savings? Ah, an additional savings volunteer. Always welcome, actually. Very large budget, additional savings, how many? I certainly can't commit to that, leader, and won't. In fact, it's not an optimistic observation I'm going to make. I'm just going to flag an observation, which I will probably have to do at budget scrutiny, that the adult social care budget will continue to be under severe pressure from demand and complexity, increased numbers. And in addition to what's flagged in this report about the cost of care packages within residential and nursing care, the increasing numbers coming through from children's in terms of transitions that are complex cases, we also have got a significant demand on our client transport budget as well. So, you know, the year is going to be tough. It's going to be challenging. This end of year report reflects some of that, but the pressures are not going to go away, and I hope very much for a longer term settlement from the next government to solve the issues around adult social care. Clearly, we can't really discuss here, and it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss, you know, what the next government may do, but frankly, whoever is in power, I mean, they're going to have a real challenge on their hands with regard to social care, both for adults and for children. You know, there are no easy answers. Whatever anyone says, you know, on hustings or whatever, there are no easy answers to these sorts of issues. Noted, I mean, again, I will say candidly, we have to keep a really tough eye on all budgets. You know, we can't just let budgets spiral out of control. Look for other comments from colleagues. Anybody going to explain their overspends? Anyone going to fall upon a sword? Anything like that? No? Okay. In which case, colleagues, are you happy to agree the recommendations on page 39 in John's report? Agreed. Thank you for that. That moves us on to item 8. It's titled Library Flex, Library Service Transformation. And Clive, this is in your name. Thank you, Leader. The report basically describes how we intend to change the library service in order to create savings of in excess of half a million pounds. To date, our libraries are one of the safe places for people to go to, one of the warm places. We need to maintain those aspects of our policy, but at the same time, introduce changes in order to save money. So the idea is that we will give people a membership card which will grant them access to our buildings out of hours. So by granting them access to buildings out of hours, we can increase the access by 50% whilst reducing the staffing times by 20 to 30% as necessary. Obviously, this will be fine-tuned as we put the model into practice. It's something that's not new. It's used in other areas. And we've studied very carefully what's been done elsewhere to ensure that we have as many facts as we possibly can before we go forward. But the most important thing is that we still maintain the access to the Council through the access points and at the same time create these nice safe areas for people to go to because that's something that I'm very, very conscious of. But we're hoping this will prove to be a success and provide the savings that are required. So, any questions? Thanks very much, Clive. I mean, I just want to say my late wife was a librarian. I mean, I have a lot of really close interest in what our libraries provide. I've been a massive supporter of them maybe 20 years since I first joined what was the original Buckinghamshire County Council. There's a bit of me that is a bit uncomfortable with this, if I'm honest with you. You know, I liked the old library service. I liked, you know, the librarian always behind the counter. I think they performed not just a library service with their knowledge of books and literature, but also a social service. They would know their regular clients. They would worry when they didn't turn up. You know, there's an enormous amount of me that, you know, I have to be honest, feels a bit uncomfortable with this. I would also say, though, you know, it links back to the previous item that John raised. You know, we've got a very tough financial settlement. You know, it's incredibly tough. You know, we are having collectively to take some really difficult decisions to balance the budget. There are things we won't be doing this year and next year that I'd like to carry on doing, but we just can't. So, you know, reluctantly, I recognize change is going to happen. And also, if I'm honest as well, we have to recognize new technology. There's a lot of new technology coming in. You know, it isn't the days of the rubber stamp, you know, with an ink pad on a book as you took it out. We had a little, you know, cardboard sleeve inside. Most of you in the room have no idea what I'm talking about. I understand that, right? But, you know, those of a certain age, you know, remember these things. So I think the use of new technology is the way ahead. What I hope, and I'm just going to ask the question to you, Clive, because reading the report, the thing that keeps worrying me is safety. You know, I'm particularly worried about safety of lone females. We have a really key priority as a council about the security for women and girls. And I'd just like your reassurance that this has been well thought through on how we manage the safety and security, particularly of lone individuals and particularly of women and girls. Thank you, Lita. Yes, I agree with a great deal of your comments. I think the days of the first edition libraries and the lovely long extension of books going back covered in dust are looking quite fantastic. A reserve for the Bodleian and other areas where you might find those sort of books. As far as security is concerned, then of course we'd be introducing CCTV. The access will be by card. We'll try and ensure that people can't tailgate each other into the library and that sort of thing, so we keep a close eye on what's going on. But as I say, we will fine tune as we go forward to ensure that everything is covered, and that people are getting the service that they require. And more importantly, to ensure we don't displace any of those more fragile members of our residents who come to the library and it is their point of contact with other people. It's their view on the outside world and having visited a number of our libraries, it becomes very apparent you see the same faces from time to time, always keen on a chat, love to have a cup of tea. And we want to try and preserve that as best we possibly can, and make sure that the libraries are open with staff for them more than anything else really, because they are very vulnerable, and we want the best for them, and for them not to lose out at all. But security and, as I say, the warm place policy to the most important to us. Just again, because it's a particular hobby horse of my libraries, I think the issue of ensuring that CCTV covers people coming in, so that we have a record of who's gone in, who hasn't, is really important. And I also think that we need to ensure that whatever gates we have, don't allow people just to tailgate or jump over them. I've seen people do that at railway stations a lot, and it's a risk. We need to make sure that we have security for people using the library. I know this is highly unlikely. I'm looking at worst case scenarios here, and I'm sure everything will be fine based on experience elsewhere in the country, but it's just a concern I have, and I just wanted to raise it here very openly with Clive. I'm sure that will add more lighting to the outside of the buildings. Fortunately, a lot of them are fairly centrally placed in our towns, so that should help as well. Okay, thanks for that reassurance. Arif, and then Angela. Thank you, leader, and thank you for raising that particular point, which I was hoping to raise. And I also welcome the later study facilities, the new generation, you see that they're working more towards the late nights and working into the early morning hours. One of my concerns on the safety is that although we have CCTV coverage, my question is, is it 24 hours monitored? Let's say, God forbid, you have a CCTV camera, but something goes wrong in the library, how long will it take someone to see what has happened in terms of the response time as well as somebody? So that is my concern. You can have a CCTV camera, who's going in, who's going out, but something does happen, who's monitoring that then? Thank you. I would anticipate that we will have a panic button as well, the sort of system that you have operating in parks. So obviously in Hyde Park and places like that in London, they have these panic buttons already that people press, and they know that something serious is going on, the police will attend as quickly as they can. Arif. I'm still concerned because it depends where the panic buttons are, for example, and if something does go wrong, I would like to also know who is then responsible, whether we as a council are responsible for such behaviour or something does go wrong. I think in principle, like I said, I think it's a really good idea for the younger generation because they like working late into the night. But I think we just need to think a little bit more on the safety of everybody, to be honest. But you're right to emphasise, I think Richard Barker may want to come in on this item, but I think you're right. I mean, I've been slightly negative about this, and I understand that because of my background in history, but the upside of this is hopefully we can offer much longer opening hours rather than having it constrained by staff availability. What we'll be able to do now is actually have libraries that are open for extended periods. I mean, potentially, looking towards the future, you might almost have a 24-hour library, who knows, that's not what's here, but technology begins to allow that sort of thing, which would have been unimaginable even one generation ago. Richard, are you able to help Arif a little bit on his concerns? Thank you, leader, I'll try. Sorry, Richard, do you want to just introduce yourself? I'm Richard Barker, I'm the council's corporate director for communities, and my operational portfolio includes a library service. So I think the points I'd highlight, I think it's right that members are highlighting a sort of notion of caution in terms of stepping into a self-managed environment. I think the three points I'd highlight are, one, we've spoken an awful lot to a number of authorities, and there are over 40 of them that have introduced this technology already. None of them have highlighted issues of safety or concern in terms of their experience on the ground having implemented these arrangements. Secondly, we're not going to move to a 24/7 model immediately. What the paper recommends is assessing demand in each of the libraries and designing opening hours around that established demand as well. So I think this will be an incremental sort of step towards self-managed. And then the third point I'd highlight is what we're proposing here is not just self-managed, but it's self-managed with community group use as well. So we'll have responsible community groups in the libraries conducting their activities with a good communication arrangements with our library staff as well. So as well as those measures that the cabinet members highlighted in section 2.41 of the report which outlined those safety measures, I think a critical part of that is that residents who use those libraries when they're not staffed by librarians will also be accompanied with responsible community groups as well. I think that's a key part of the recommendation for this paper. Thanks very much. I've got Angela and then John. Angela. Thank you. I mean, I'm in favor of this in principle, but I wanted to just come back to some of the questions and slight concerns, particularly that are raised in the equality impact assessment. So Martin was talking about individuals potentially being slightly at risk. It says here that people who are aging and people with disabilities, there's a negative impact on them as a result of this policy. I'd like to understand more about how we're going to mitigate that negative impact and what work we've done on that as well. I'd like reassurance, and I think you've already said it, Clive, that some of the really good initiatives in our libraries, like dementia-friendly libraries, will continue. There's an excellent one in Buckingham. And Richard, you've just raised an issue in talking about community groups. I'd like to understand how we are going to work with them and how they're going to be trained as well. And finally, to understand that with some of these groups where there may be negative impacts from the EQIA, that we are going to regularly touch base with those groups and get their feedback to ensure that the system is working effectively. There's quite a lot there. Clive, unpack that. That's straightforward. As I say, it's all going to be fine-tuned as we go along, and we'll be looking for responses from the library users to ensure that we can get things to a level that everyone's happy with and works for these people. The vulnerable people in our community are the most important, and those are the ones who want to ensure that they have their meeting place and somewhere to go along, and we don't want lonely people sitting at home on their own. It's a devastating way to behave. The studies have shown, and obviously Richard's more familiar with these than I am, what's been achieved elsewhere and what's been needed, and that we are starting our model based on those findings. So we've got a good starting level from which to operate, and as I say, from there we will take it forward. We've got the other aspect of the library whereby we've got the health and the library where people are doing their blood pressures, etc. So the library service has changed dramatically since the times which our leader has described, and I remember just. And so we've got to move with the times, and we want to ensure that if only in some instances we are subsidising our users so they have access to things that perhaps they wouldn't have access to in their own homes, and such as the internet, etc. So these are the areas that we've got to maintain whilst at the same time trying to operate the library for all its other purposes. So it's a never-ending story, if I can use that, where we've got to really make sure that we can provide savings whilst providing a service, and ensuring that that service is tailor-made to the changes in technology and the requirements of our residents basically. Okay, thanks. John. Yes, thank you, leader. Well, I fully support the proposals, but I think it's really important that we have an effective communications plan to explain these changes to the general public, and also to raise awareness of libraries as council access points, which can provide a face-to-face service across the county to help residents with their queries about council services, particularly those who are unable to contact the council online or digitally. These council access points were launched at the start of the unitary authority in 2010, during COVID, sorry, 2020, and they need a relaunch, in my view. Clive, can I just add a question? Sorry, because it's linked exactly to John's, and I was going to ask it at the end, but since I'll piggyback if that's okay. I mean, for example, at Amersham, where we've closed the Chiltern offices and moved the council access point into the library, and at the moment it closes ahead of the actual leisure centre closing. Will that mean we could keep that library open longer, even though it's inside the leisure centre, and what do we do about the access point, because we've said to people locally, you know, there'll be an access point at the library, but if there's nobody there, what's the situation? At that point there's a hotline, is the idea, so that you can pick up a phone and speak directly to the council and hear a voice on the end of the line. And on the other aspect with regard to the communications, something that I've tried to impress upon our communications team, is that every story should be three stories. We're proposing to do that, it's happening, it's open, so that people have more than one chance of hearing what's going on, because too often we just say, we've opened this, and everyone goes, that's great. But we weren't aware of it. If you look at the Higginson Park opening, we had a huge throng of people there, and that's because we put it out there, exactly what was happening, and people were able to come along and enjoy it on the day. So the comms side, I will be keeping a very close eye on, because it applies to all these different things, which is why I mentioned about the flooding on the rise of our hot topic, because it's something that affects so many people, and concerns them, so we want to make sure that they understand that we're looking after it. Even if the paper may not want to print it up, there's no comment on the paper, it's just a question of how good the news stories are that week. So those sort of things to work on, but as far as the access points are concerned, the staff will be there, and when out of hours, it's a hotline. Clive, thanks. If I take Chee, maybe it's the last comment on this, because I think we've had a good discussion on all the points on this. Thank you very much, leader. I do support this proposal in principle, however I do have real issues with security as far as lone females are concerned, especially those who are going to be there late into the evenings. But my question is, you spoke about CCTV, people coming in, what about going out? Is everybody going to be counted out? Could people stay there overnight, under a desk for instance, and would we know about it? I did wonder about that myself. We have issues about rough sleeping around the county, is this potentially inviting? Does this turn into a rough sleeping hostel? One would hope that without the tailgating effect that people who aren't meant to be there won't be there, and one would also hope that people have a membership card for the library and they don't fall into that category, one would assume to a certain extent. But we will be keeping a very close eye on things. I'm sure there are instances when teenagers might fall out with their parents and an opportunity to stay out the night is something they might want to try in order to impress upon their parents, an issue or otherwise. But all these things will be closely monitored to make sure that we can make people as safe as we possibly can and make sure that the system is not abused. Maybe I could just ask Richard, Gillie's question a little bit. One of the things you've done on your team, Richard, is actually look at experience out of the councils around the country. Is there any evidence from those councils that we've got a problem with molestation of young, low females, and also potentially people trying to rough sleep in libraries? Thanks, Lida. So that hasn't been the experience of other councils. As I mentioned, there are over 40 of them that have introduced this technology for some time. The overwhelming feedback is really positive in terms of their experiences. As I said, it goes back to the CCTV point, I think we're right to be cautious about this sort of thing and we're right to ask those questions and assure ourselves that we've got the right mitigations in place. Just in terms of the specifics, Councillor Jordan, each individual that is able to access the library out of staff hours would go through an induction process and would have a card to access it and exit as well. So we'd have a record of who's in and out of the library and it also goes back to the community group point as well. So we'd have responsible community groups in the library using the facilities and as part of their induction from a health and safety perspective there'd be a conversation around doing a sweep of the library before it closes for the evening as well. So we think we've got the right level of mitigations around it to cover off those kind of issues but as I said I think it's right to take a cautious approach to this. Okay, I'm going to draw everything to a conclusion now. I'm just conscious we've got a lot of items to get through. I think we've had a good discussion on this. I just think it's important that members of the cabinet have a chance to ask questions on this and raise some of both the benefits and the drawbacks of this. I think the benefits obviously, well the drawbacks obviously are potential risk to individuals. We've had reassurance from Richard and from Clive that the experience around the rest of the country is that isn't what actually happens on the ground and that's really useful feedback and obviously some reassurance to us on that. I do think we have to monitor this very closely to make sure that risk does not materialise. We do everything we can to mitigate against that. The upside obviously is that we can extend opening hours. This hopefully will make the libraries more accessible to more people for longer. I could see for younger people who aren't steeped in rubber stamps and cardboard sleeves that actually this will become the norm and I'm looking at it from a very old funny duddy point of view so I can see this is the way of the future. But I'll be honest, I do it with a little bit of reluctance but I recognise the benefits here as well. So can I just ask colleagues, are you content to agree the recommendations on page 81 of the Library Flex report? I think it would be good actually to have some sort of feedback. I'm looking at Clive obviously and Richard. It may be in six months, let's see how this is going to make sure that none of the fears are materialised and all the benefits are being achieved as well. That would be great. Movers on to Agenda Item 9 which is just check the pages. It's on pages 145 to 172 of the pack. This is in Steve Royalbent's name to my right and it's a report on the Buckinghamshire Highways 12 month contract effectively that we moved from Ringway Jacobs who were our former contractor to Balfour BT and a framework call off agreement. Steve, if I hand this over to you maybe you could just do a very quick summary of what those changes were because they were complex. And also maybe some of the highlights in terms of both what's gone well but also let's be frank about these things, some of the areas that we need to work on. Yes, thank you leader. I realise when we get to highways matters we could almost spend the whole meeting on it. Let me just say the data in the report covers that first year so that's from April 2023 until the end of March 24 so they're not the current numbers. The arrangements did change. It was a significant procurement exercise that the council undertook to go from a single supplier model to a, as you referred it, a call off model where instead of there being a set sum of money effectively allocated for highways work, it's done on a raise a job, do the job basis with our approved supplier. And we did build into the contract several different frameworks where we can have multiple suppliers so we can run what we call mini competitions for packages of work. That means we're always trying to test market price to bring that competitive tension to get some best value for money. I know clearly this portfolio is a major focus not only to us as members of the council, all members, but also to residents, and therefore this whole new approach was aimed at demonstrating better value for money, getting more road repairs done. But of course, this highways contract goes far beyond and the packet the report and the slides tried to suggest goes beyond just roads to cover drainage rights of ways grasses we talked about earlier, our bridges and culverts and various structures so there's a lot in there, and we had, if you can cast your mind back to April. Even on the very first day of the contract. We were still great still doing a salt run, because the weather was so bad temperatures were going grow temperatures to below freezing. So during the period of bringing together three new bodies so Buckinghamshire Council, Balfour Beattie Living Places and our main design partner Atkins Realis meant to peeing across moving across 200 members of staff who found new homes from that Ringway Jacobs scenario with those new companies and have to completely change the way we work. At a time when we had a very harsh winter, and that was shown across the country with lots of storms, followed it has to be said by this latest winter. So we got two winters in that first year in effect, the latest winter which was the wettest on record for about 200 years. And therefore, everything I say in the next couple of minutes is predicated on the fact that we've done a lot, but the demand was coming in from the impact of the network so there was a need to do more. We delivered an awful lot, and this council even then put its hand in this pocket and used the reserves that you alluded to earlier with our financial prudence to put an additional 5 million pounds in, in that first year and we know another 5 million has gone into this year to make sure we can deal with the impact of those, those winters over time. So in that year, we, we fixed, we had, we fixed the greatest number of potholes this council's highway authority has ever done. And I mean that even looking back to the county days over 34,000 polls fixed. We actually still delivered the largest capital program so that's bigger road resurfacing schemes and drainage schemes that the council has ever delivered 215 and that includes foot ways. But we did have some challenges as well. So for example, our, we've managed to replace now 99% of all LED bulbs in our streetlights, but we do still have a significant backlog in dealing with the replacement light columns, and we've, we've been able to adjust to that challenge in the first year of the contract, but actually some of those staff who tapered across right at the start into different areas have now moved again, so that we have a real dedicated team who rest within the Balfour Beattie Living Places part so that this year, we are accelerating the repairs to streetlighting. It's also worth saying, a big part of, of that first year so it's been able to embrace different ways of doing things and using AI using so automated technologies to be able to scan roads for road resurfacing for example, using innovation with some new machines and in certain areas will have seen the pothole pro on the network and we've expanded that this year into already into the use of different materials, such as mastic. And actually, in the pack that accompanies the report that it is so data rich that it's chalk and cheese compared compared to the previous arrangements. So in that difficult first winter of this new arrangement, we were seeking to take data from what happened in the previous year, and it was not readily accessible and available. The fact I can give you this report which by the way, is a pared down version of the nearly 60 page slides that we could have brought shows you that our use of data means we are targeting our resource effort in a much better way, and I'm able to give insights, such as this report. We're needed in the same way report things that other cabinet meetings for Council meetings and in our communications out to members and town and parishes, such as the improvements in communication about work that's happening on the network. I do want to say it's a structural change, but of course there's a cultural change as in any organisations, and we're really driving the right first time approach to both reactive and capital repairs, and on the capital repairs in particular, that's kicking in as it shows in the pack 95% of the time, with 98% of our capital spend, which is in the tens of millions, not requiring remedial work. So we inspect all the big schemes, and it means that we're getting good quality delivered, which I know is a real concern to members of the public, and that cultural piece manifests in a different way. And this is a really important point, and I'm told is very, very unusual in the industry. We brought this together as a first year of a new contract, and we can never be complacent, but this is a zero harm contract. That means all the work we have done with all our operatives throughout that supply chain and throughout the operations that we've been doing, we have lost no days to injuries. And that is a phenomenal success, again without being complacent, for everyone working on the contract and the efforts that everyone's put into running a big contract on delivery, but doing so in a safe way, and we'll continue to try and make sure that happens. So I would like to say thank you for their efforts to all the staff from all three parts of the organisation. That being said, it's an opportunity to say we have also seen an increase in abuse to our road gangs. This is happening nationally. So while I am talking publicly, I would like to say everyone is there trying to do good work for your road network, and it can be frustrating if you're held up, but there really is no excuse for intimidating and threatening behaviour. But a zero harm contract is an important measure of what we do collectively with our partners. So the challenges have been significant, both in terms of the weather, the access to the network, the delivery of the schemes, and to our people. So there is a lot more to do, and whilst there's no decision to make on today's report, it's almost to note, I hope as you've read through it, and I'm happy to take questions, you'll see I've tried to make sure we also bring out some of the areas where those challenges exist. And I think there's a whole slide on that in the pack in terms of saying the remedial action we've taken when we've come across challenges, and we'll continue to do that as the contract evolves. It's a long-term contract with a real focus on quality of delivery, and at this stage, we've achieved an awful lot in that first year, but like I say, much more to do because this year's plan is an even bigger capital programme with even more demands on us because we've had more named storms in this 12 to 15 month period than since storms were getting named. That puts pressure on the network. We have attended to all the gullies, but of course that weather means, as you know and you alluded to earlier, we've had to put more money into gully and ditch clearing because we just have to be able to partly react, but partly dedicate our resources into getting ahead of that anticipated demand. That's why extensive gully clearance in advance, delivering drainage schemes and investing heavily in our roads in terms of the capital schemes puts us in a good position to get ahead and hopefully over time reduce the need for those reactive works. As said, I could talk a lot, but maybe I'll stop there. Thanks very much, Steve. To echo what you started by saying, this is the area of what we do that impacts most on residents and which they are most energised about and vocal about. It doesn't matter what we do in terms of regional work. Even planning affects limited cohorts and geographies. This affects everybody, every day. Whether you walk, cycle, whatever, you use some aspect of our highways or footways or bridal paths or rights of way or whatever. Everybody has a view on it. The number of letters I get, quite frankly, that say, I know you're hard pressed financially, I understand all the pressures you're under, but, dot, dot, dot. It doesn't matter how financially pressed you are, I still want you to fix the one thing that I'm interested in. So I understand some of the tensions that you've got within it. We are in a tough financial position. I've said it many times, it's absolutely true. I'd love to spend a lot more on the whole transport portfolio, ideally. We just don't have that money, is the reality of it. We've been nimble in terms of responding to two years now of really severe adverse weather, particularly the rain, by releasing money from our reserves. That money is running out. We can't keep doing that. I don't want to bake that into base budgets. I think we need to have that money in our back pockets to respond as and when those conditions become clear. I think the transition has gone as well as can be expected for something as complex as this. And it's a massively complex operation to move over. I think it's to the credit of the people writing this report that not only have the good things been listed, but actually I think some of the learning has also been detailed in here. We need to take that on board and see what we can do to mitigate some of those areas of concern and lessons learned. Overall, fixing 34,000 potholes is a pretty big achievement, frankly. And I know from talking to other leaders around the country, everybody, everybody, without exception, has similar issues. Whatever people say when they write to me in letters, I know that it's a common problem right across the country, but everybody thinks their own area is the worst. I know we're not. So I think people have done some really good work on this. A lot still to do, not complacent at all, but a good start to the new contract. Yeah, absolutely. Just thank you, leader. And I would like to say thank you to members of the council on on that additional funds, because that really has helped in here, put pressure on the delivery. But the industry alarm report that comes out for the industry said that 45 percent of authorities have frozen or reduced their transport budgets into road network. And of those who have put them up, the average was about eight point five percent, our five million pound extra in our first year. Roughly, if you take we have to spend 100 million or more over four years at that point is closer to about 20 percent increase. So because we've we've taken that decision, historical decision of prudence and then put that money into the network. Does mean, you know, we are one of the highest spending increase authorities who are investing in our roads to reflect the needs of residents across the country. And we are beginning to see that sustained investment means you can drive around the county now and begin to see where where that has been spent. Again, there's more to come. There will never be, I suspect, enough money to cover all the defects and they will come. But it again, it's about being commensurate with our response to the size of that challenge. And so nationally, we compare reasonably well as well. Yeah, I mean, I don't want you and I to sort of dominate this because I want to bring other colleagues in as well. But I mean, certainly at the beginning of the year, my mailbox was absolutely full again with complaints about potholes and the roads were poor. I mean, the reality is the weather had done terrible damage to our roads this year as they did last year. There was a slow start to repairing them again because of the weather. Frankly, people thought we could go out and, you know, driving rain and repair roads that we can't do it in that sort of weather. But actually, now I'm driving around a lot in the county and I'm seeing lots of resurface roads, lots of repairs to potholes. It's nothing like it was four months ago. Much, much, much improved and more work already taking place. So having said that, let me just open it up for other colleagues. Peter. Yeah, thank you. And it's a really comprehensive report and recognizing the overall importance of this for residents throughout the country. And Steve, you've alluded to it in your last comments, but I wonder how we compare directly with our near authority neighbors in terms of, for instance, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, who have very similar circumstances that we have in terms of traffic volume. And I just wonder, do you have any direct comparison so that our residents can appreciate what a priority this is for us and how much resources, including the five million reserves we put towards this area? Thanks, Peter. I don't have the, if you like, the rural financial number comparison, but there's partly a reason for that. I just mentioned road traffic volumes and actually the core road funding we get from government is based purely on the length of road network. So Hertfordshire's network is bigger than ours, for example. And that does, frankly, puts us at a disadvantage because if you were to consider the volume of traffic we have in parts of this county, throughout it, but particularly in parts of this county, there's no actual recognition for that in the core funding. It's probably best if I almost answer the, you can almost answer the question through the KPIs, which we've got next on the agenda because there is a red rag in there that talks about public perception of the condition of the road network. And ours has declined in the context of these last two years in the same way that it's declined across the country by seven percentage points. So it kind of shows this is definitely a national issue and we are reflecting that in comparison to neighbouring authorities. But the road network is quite complex because it does suffer by volume of traffic, type of traffic, but the funding doesn't align to that. So it is something both the leader and I have lobbied government about to say please recognise that because our network compared to other counties is not necessarily as long and so that would come through with more funding. But we're not there yet and we did get additional money from central government this year on top of the money we put in, I think, in the year we're talking about almost two million pounds that also then goes into our network and help boost that capital program. Yeah, I mean, I recognise that we actually have the same amount of roadway as Cornwall has, but Cornwall does not have HS2 east-west rail in all of the infrastructure we have and given the way that traffic use Cornwall, it does seem very unfair just to have that very broad way of defining how much we get by length of roadway because there's surely a significant difference in how roads are actually used rather than just how much there is of it. I mean, Steve's absolutely right. Both he and I have lobbied the government on this intensely. There is nothing in the way they allocate the money that relates to the intensity of usage. It's not just the sheer volume, it's the HGVs that just crawl through this county, chew up the roads, it's the heavy vehicles that do the real damage. That just isn't factored into any sort of formula they use for allocating road funding and I've lobbied on that, I know Steve has. The government in fairness did go out to a consultation on it and, surprise, surprise, all the other councils that benefited from just having it on length of road wrote back saying they weren't too keen on changing. So, you know, it's an uphill fight to get that recognised and then add on top of that, as you've rightly done, east-west rail, HS2, all the construction activity that's taking place right across this county at the moment is chewing up the roads. You know, it is a real struggle and credit to Steve, to Richard and, you know, all the teams for doing what they do do, quite frankly, given the situation we're in. Angela, you wanted to come in? Yes, thank you and just to say credit to Steve and the team, having come back from a reasonably long break, my roads are looking significantly improved. There's been a lot of work done maximising the good weather and there's more to come, so that's really encouraging at the moment. It would be remiss of me not to raise issues that have been raised by several of my parish councils, which is around the subcontractors that are used on the network and the perceived varying difference in quality of delivery by those subcontractors. How do we manage them? How do we sort of regulate them, if you like? And the question is also, they seem to be coming from a very long distance to service our county and residents are asking me why that is. They don't feel it's an efficient way to spend the money in the contract. Thanks for that. Maybe I'll pick that last point up first, if I may, because, you know, during the year, again, commensurate response to the size of the demand on the network. We have been up at, I think, peaked at about 27 different crews on any given day on the contract. The way the contract works is we can use the heft of the partners we have to reach into their supply chain and their contacts because we don't have sufficient number of gangs in and around Buckinghamshire through the subcontractors to be able to bring them on at short notice. So that is why you will sometimes find crews that have travelled from further afield to do some work on some of the programmes. So when we demand, and indeed the arrangements of the contracts allow us to try and flex up and down, it will mean sometimes that they are coming from a broader catchment area. In fact, I think in the report I talked earlier about frameworks, there's even one concern over Framework 3 which was deliberately carved out to be some of the smaller packages of works in the hope that that might help us boost smaller SME type businesses to gain some of the contractual work coming through the transport portfolio. The first we found that's not necessarily been the case, partly because there's a paucity of willing and able suppliers to do it. In terms of very, the last thing, there is no additional cost to this council if a crew comes in from further afield. It's a schedule of rates contract that means if a crew has come in to do a job, we already know what the job will be paid for and therefore that cost is borne by the contractors. In frameworks themselves, actually subcontractors in two ways. There may be a subcontractor brought on by Balfour Beatty to do some of the works. We inspect all the major capital schemes and on Reactives there is a sample done by our inspectors and some sampling done, sort of self-sampling by Balfour Beatty. That is all assessed and we will do a comparison of quality scores so that if there were issues with a particular subcontractor that would be raised. And of course this contract made a step change in the teeth, as I referred to it in the procurement time, of our council to be able to have poor quality work redone or rectified. In the schedule of rates contract, if there is a quality concern, then they get the opportunity to go back and fix that defect. And if that defect is not then fixed, it becomes escalated, it means they have to deal with it at their cost or ultimately we could appoint a different subcontractor to do some work and bill back the original contractor. So I mentioned in my comments earlier about quality being a real driver and get the right first time approach. In this first year of the contract, where quality may have been variable under different subcontractors, we keep an eye on that and will evolve that over time. And if someone in a framework does not meet the required standard, then work would not be allocated to them in future years when those mini-competitions are run. I haven't seen any more hands. Let me just look very quickly, Karl. Thank you. Two quick questions. First, my favorite moment in the year when it comes to highways is when I can tell residents in Chapman St. Giles and Seer Green in particular that we've reached that lovely moment where there are more road repairs being done each week than there are new defects being reported. Given the last few months, I suspect that point will come slightly later in the year this year than usual. But it will be useful to know if we're already there or when we might expect to be. And second, on streetlights, I think we talk a lot about potholes, obviously. I think on streetlights, there's actually a really valuable, worthwhile energy efficiency project being done there that we perhaps don't shout about enough or at all. And I notice we're at 99 percent coverage. The remaining 1 percent, is that simply because you can't do everything at once and we haven't got around to it yet? Or is the 1 percent a particularly thorny set of streetlights that are damaged or hard to convert or hard to access or something like that? So we need to hold you to account for that 1 percent, Steve. It's going to affect everything. The 1 percent on the whole is to do typically with heritage lanterns. That means older, more ornate ones where you don't increase or decrease. In the last two weeks of work alone, we fixed 372 more potholes that were reported in. So that means a decrease in the outstanding work to be done. And that's quite a lot in a two week period and shows that we still have maintained additional crews on our network to get through. It can vary by week and it's heavily driven by the weather. So in the winter period, you're quite right. Even I know it's more red than green because there's a tidal wave of defects coming in. And as the leader said, the roads fell into a poor state of work. We're in that period now and I wish it would still stop raining a bit more. But where obviously we're making gains the whole time in catching up on defects reported by fixing more than we no need doing. That said, all defects are assessed and some are clearly prioritised when they're more urgent and dangerous than others. But we'll continue to do that throughout the year to get that outstanding work back down. And actually it's reflected in the report that we did inherit quite a backlog of some smaller, long standing work from the previous arrangements. And last year ticked off about 3000 small defects. And that can include things like nameplates, you know, a street name, Acacia Avenue. Just getting that fixed when it hasn't been done for a long time. So there is a body of work within this of that less seen localised work that gets done as well. But we are now at this point in the year fixing more than new defects are being reported. So the condition is improving the whole time. So, Carmen, you've got your tipping point already. Yeah. Okay. And heritage lights. Heritage lights. Okay. Right. Colleagues, I mean, I think we've had a good discussion on this. It's a very good report. As I said earlier, I mean, I'm not in any way complacent. I recognise the weather is a driver of the condition of our roads. We're investing a vast amount of money. I'm very aware as a council the importance that residents attached to the condition of our roads, footpaths, rights away and so on. Therefore, it is one of the overriding priorities across this council. And this is a good record of progress, I think, on that. Can I check whether colleagues are happy to note the report as required on page 145? Agreed. Thank you for that. Move us on now to John Chilvers' second Virtuoso performance of this cabinet meeting. John, the quarter four performance report for 2023/24. And that's on pages -- it certainly starts on page 173 and runs to page 262. Thank you very much, leader. So this report details the quarter four performance out turns and commentary for the council's key performance indicators. That's the quarter from January to March 24. National and regional benchmarking information is provided where possible. And there's a total of 104 indicators in the report. For some indicators, data is reported one or two quarters in arrears. And a small number of indicators are updated annually only. Improvement actions are listed in the report against each indicator where applicable. These detail work planned or in progress that will drive improvement in performance out turns. And the quarter four report shows that 68% of indicators are green and 23% are red, which reflects good performance across several key areas. And there's an improvement on quarter three when the green indicators were 57%, so that's gone up to 68%. And the red indicators were 24%, so that's gone down to 23%. And I think we go on to look at them by portfolio. Right. Let me do that. And those of you who are long term members of this cabinet will know that we do our regular holding to account on the performance indicators. So let me take each. Can I encourage members, just because of time, not to dwell too much on successes? You might want to mention one outstanding success, but we don't need to know chapter and verse on everything that's green. And I'd like to really focus on the reds and also a little bit on the ambers. I'd like to know whether those ambers are becoming green or whether the ambers are becoming red. So having said that, clearly I'll spend little or no time on the leader's portfolio, which seems to be almost universally green, which is obviously down to superb leadership of that portfolio. No, in all seriousness, it's focused on the economic development portfolio and it's really benchmarking against the economy in Buckinghamshire against other parts, particularly measured in terms of local enterprise zones, which are increasingly disappearing as they're amalgamated with Council. So I'm sure, looking ahead, we'll be moving away from looking at LEPS and looking at a different unit, I think, of measurement, and adjusting in line with the discussion I had earlier. So if I move us straight on to John Chilva then, accessible housing and resources portfolio. John, you have a number of reds. Can we just work through those relatively quickly, but if you'd just like to update. And you also have some ambers. Yes, thank you, leader. Well, the first one is a Council access point customer satisfaction, which is a bit of a surprise because it's been above the target repeatedly. I think this was just a one-off incident in a single reception area. We have these smiley face terminals like you get in airports. And I think somebody, possibly a child, repeatedly pressed the unsmiling face, which has contributed to this outcome. But we've had written feedback, which is positive, on the Council access points and no official complaints. So I'm confident that this was just a one-off incident. Yeah, I'm told that's exactly what happened. But it's interesting, it shows when you go through these airports and you get somebody at security, who gives you a hard time, and you sort of go through and go... Actually, somewhere there's a system going, Oh my God, look at this! The next one is the average call wait time in our customer service centre, which has gone up in the last quarter to five minutes, which is our target. A very challenging target of three minutes. This, again, is cyclical, and there are specific factors in the first quarter of the year relating to Council tax reminders and final billing and annual billing for Council tax and business rates, which pushed the response up. Also, highways calls relating to the winter conditions, which we mentioned earlier. There are improvement actions, which are listed in the report, such as the use of Microsoft CodePilot, telephone messaging, callback facilities, and planning ahead for future events. So I'm confident we'll get that back towards the target. John, can I just comment on this, because it's something I'm very concerned about, which is the residents' perception of just getting through to the Council. Waiting five minutes on the line when you're on the line actually feels like a lifetime. And I'm a bit concerned that it's gone from three minutes up to five minutes. That feels a long time to me. And the fact that it's almost as if we didn't know that when you send out a Council tax reminder, people contact you. I guess I'm going to look a little bit at Sarah on this, because I know it's your area, Sarah. Why is it -- I'm going to ask the blunt question -- why is it when we know Council tax reminders are going out, why is it when we know there's been bad, when other things are happening, that we don't put on additional resource so that we stop that up-kick in terms of waiting times? Sorry, I have to ask that question, I think. Thank you, leader. So we do know, absolutely, that we'll be sending out reminder letters. We do know, of course, that we'll be doing annual billing. And what we do is we resource accordingly. So we do have leave embargoes in place to ensure that we maximize the number of staff available to take calls. We also move our supervisors and our managers onto the call lines. But the fact of the matter is that sending out en masse our Council tax bills to all of our residents, all of our properties in the county, just generates a very, very large volume of contacts. And we're not resourced to be able to deal with that peak level of demand within the customer service center. So we manage this as best we can. We ensure that we don't have other activities happening at the same time. We work with the services and the directorates to ensure that we schedule tasks and activities so that they don't hit that peak period. The point on the roads that did cause us significant problems, because clearly we couldn't plan for that one. And that was unfortunate because it was a confluence. And we know it's busy in winter. And as I say, we plan for that, but not at the level that the calls came in at. I hear what you say, Sarah. I would just challenge back a little bit, and you don't have responses, but it just seems sensible if you have bad weather, for example. I mean, the likelihood is you're going to get more people complaining. I understand that entirely. They should use Fix My Street, but they don't always. I get that. And then we've got bills going out at the same time, we've got other things going out. Do we not have the ability to phase some of this? So actually, rather than sending out all the bills together, when we know that we've got bad weather and people reporting potholes, can we not actually try and have some sort of scheme whereby we do it in batches, such that you manage that enormous kick up? So the council tax billing needs to be processed very quickly after you've had full council and you've agreed the budget. So that is a single event, and all councils do it in that way. And we have to legally do it. I mean, there is no ability, and I guess I'm looking at Lisa Maria, who's our legal head. It just strikes me -- I mean, I just find five minutes unacceptable, if I'm honest with you. I hate waiting five minutes on a line for anything. Let's not debate it too long here. Is there anything we can do going forward to look at how we can actually manage better that peak trough on call wait times? So I'm just going to look to Dave, whether he can just say on the -- I don't want to sidetrack the conversation, because John's got a lot of other points to go through. But I just feel this is -- it is one of the metrics that people use to look at whether they think the council is well run and delivering for them. How long do they have to wait on the phone? Just in terms of the billing cycle, then obviously we need to bill sufficiently far in advance. We have a lot of people that are on direct debits. We have to give them notice in advance, and that's governed by the regulations in terms of direct debits. If more people move to online billing, then we can in effect spread that, because the bills go live a bit earlier, and they've got longer to look at them if they've got any questions than they can be dealt with online. So we're working proactively with all the teams, and I would encourage everybody as well to support that move to online billing. That would help to mitigate some of that surge activity. But in effect, we have a very large tax base, you know, 230-odd thousand residents, and therefore then that is the time in terms of bills that are issued. Okay. I'm not going to sidetrack this any longer. I just think it's worth -- I guess I'm looking at you, Sarah and John. It's just thinking about are there smarter ways that we could operate in a way that actually smooths that inevitable flow of telephone inquiries from the public. Which then reflects on what's the perceived quality of service that we offer. Leave it with you. Having hogged that discussion for the last five minutes, my apologies, John. Back to you, and you've got the next one on the value of unsecured debt. I would just say on that previous one that there are three -- the first three green indicators show that, generally speaking, we're doing well in terms of resolving calls. We've got answered calls, first call resolution, and customer satisfaction well above the targets on that. The next red was debt level, unsecured debt, which has improved over the last quarter. I'm regularly discussing this with Dave, our head of finance. Obviously, there are factors contributing to this, which are in the commentary, particularly the high rates of inflation, which means obviously our debts have increased in terms of amounts. We are actually actively chasing the debt, and the introduction of automated debt reminders is helping. So it's heading in the right direction. And then the next one is housing benefit claims. This is still being impacted by the close down of the system last year when we merged into a single system across the county. And it's an annual rolling target, so it's still being impacted. We have -- we've seen additional resources to clear the backlog, and there is a gradual improvement. There's one amber indicator, which is sickness absence. And we did actually tighten the target this year down to 8.5 days off per employee. Moving in the right direction, but I guess -- again, I don't want to debate this at great length, but do you think it's moving in the right direction, or do you think we're moving in the wrong direction? Is it going towards the red, or is it going towards the green? I think it's coming down. And obviously, this quarter, there are obviously seasonal factors during the winter months, January to March, that would normally increase this. So I think the performance for this quarter is actually very good. Okay, John, thank you very much. Moving on to Gillie now, standing in for Thomas, and on the climate change portfolio, you have one red. Yes, thank you, Peter. Yes, this is to do with the percentage of waste collected for recycling and reuse. And at this quarter, we are 47 percent against a target of 55. But I also can point out that the benchmark for the English, the country of England, is 43.4 percent. So our target is much higher than that. And the forecast for year-end is going to go to 51 percent. So it's going in the right direction, but we still have issues with contamination at the curbside with recycling, unfortunately. And we are continuing with communications campaign to get this under control. And mainly in the south of the county, the north seems to have a higher rate of recycling. And unfortunately, a lot of it is putting the food in the normal waste bin, which unfortunately, we have to educate people not to do that. Thanks. I saw, I think it was yesterday, one of the clickbaits on the internet was about councils' petty notes on bins. Basically, these weren't petty notes. This is actually where people are putting the wrong thing in the wrong bins that contaminates the entire lot, which means it all just gets chucked away. Yes, and it also costs us more money to get rid of it. This is not petty. This is really important that residents understand the consequences. And they get very angry when bins aren't collected, but actually, they need to understand that when it says recycling, there's only a limited amount of things that can go in there. It's not just another black bin they can chuck everything in, and food. But our plan of action is working, because hopefully for year-end we will reach a target of 51 percent. So not the target we want, but it's going in the right direction. But you'll get to 51 if you think, but not 55 yet. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. OK. Could I just point out a couple of the greens? One green. I'm just conscious there's a lot to get through here. OK. Is our level of bins collected? It's excellent. Good. Excellent. Well done. Yes, thank you. There's a lot of greens here, and I'm cheating you. I'm not letting you go through them all. But I hope you bear with me, because I need to give colleagues a chance as well. Arif. Thank you, Lida. All greens. I know. I really want to thank everybody. One green. I think, as always, the Helping Hands team. I think you can see the amount of work that the team does. Looking at 41,000, 4,100 residents already being helped. Eighty-seven thousand of food have also been given to their children. A number of organisations being really supported by the team. So I think, as always, the Helping Hands team are doing a huge amount of work. So I really want to thank them, along with all the other community. Let me just echo that. It came up at a meeting I was at last night. I think the work done on Helping Hands is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I get such good reports about it when I travel around the county and talk to voluntary groups. You know, we've supported not just individuals, not just children, but voluntary community groups. Fabulous achievement there. Thank you for that. OK. Moving on to Mr Harris. Oh, you have a red Mr Harris. I know. I'm as horrified as you are. But I think, in fairness, that the department is beating itself up a bit. This is the number of visitors coming to the country parks. And, understandably, if it's pouring down with rain, unless you've got a dog that desperately needs walking, you're not going to choose to go out. And I think that's the main issue here. You think it's almost entirely weather-related? Almost entirely weather-related, yes, quite honestly. All the others are green. It goes to show that the library services are working well, the archives are being well used as well. So, generally, we're very pleased. And, hopefully, if the sun shines, the next time I come here, we'll have a nice big green along this one as well. I will bear that in mind. We shall watch and check. OK. Anita on Education and Children's Services. It would be very hard for us to get complete greens, complete ambers, and I'm afraid we do have quite a few reds. But I want to point out that this quarter four is the last quarter before we put into place our transformation scheme, which is our programme which, hopefully, is going to get us up the Ofsted ladder. And that came into play on April 1st, so this quarter ended just before that. So, next quarter would be better. The first red we've got is the completion of children's social care assessments in the time frame. Again, the locality teams will help with that because, actually, it's a question of staffing and localities often with getting things in on time. The second one about the 19 to 21-year-olds who have left care being in employment or training. That's a difficult one because the cohort of 19 to 21-year-olds each quarter is going to change. Sometimes they will have problems like mental illness, disability, asylum status, that sort of thing, which is going to affect the numbers. So, that probably will be a number that will go up and down, but it's red because it's not so good this time. The third one, which is the child protection conference, is completed within 15 working days. That a lot depends on family reasons, whether the family can be assembled in time to be seen, whether the documentation can be produced from the family, and in this particular quarter, we couldn't do it in the time frame. So, the target was high, 82, and we did it in 74. The percentage of children in need seen within four weeks, again, we're lower on that, which doesn't look good, but the most important thing about that is that visits to children most at harm are always prioritized. No child ever suffers because we are seven days late in producing a piece of documentation. But that doesn't say that there isn't an area for continued improvement. I'm really looking forward to the next quarter's reports, actually, after our locality teams produced their findings because we've divided into 21 locality teams. The percentage number five, the last one of education, health and care plans issued within 20 weeks, this actually is a product of increasing numbers. It's a national phenomenon that there are more requests for educational health and care plans than ever have been. I believe we're up to 7,000 now, and in very recent years we've been in the 4,000 to 5,000, so it's high. But also, it's very hard to fill your educational psychology team. We have vacancies in that, unfortunately, so those two together do make the difference. But again, moving up the Ofsted ladder, changes with locality teams should make a very big difference to us, especially in recruitment of educational psychology team members. So we are very hopeful with that one, but it's a national phenomenon. And then I think I've done all the rows, haven't I? Can I just make an overall comment, and I know you work phenomenally hard at this, as does John. It is of concern to see the number of reds in what is one of the corporate priority areas, which is obviously children's services. And I know you're working very, very hard to turn these around. Some are very explicable, some are quite a way adrift in terms of their metrics. And I completely accept -- I mean, educational health and care plans are a national problem. And I've been at many meetings about the explosion in demand from parents for EHTPs, which a new government, I think, is going to have to address in some way, frankly. But I just want to put on record here, I'm not going to go through each of these separately because we don't have the time, but I do think corporately we have to keep a very close eye on these metrics and on the overall children's services portfolio to make sure that we are addressing some of the structural problems inherent within some of these metrics. So having said that, I mean, we'll take those discussions outside of here. Can I ask you just maybe to comment then briefly on the AMBA? Yes, the initial family support plans completed within 31 working days, it's just down. Performance did improve in the quarter, but we had a heavier demand again, so that made a difference. But this indicator almost definitely will improve as a result of the move to locality teams because locality teams are going to definitely improve pace and improve supervision. And so, as I keep saying, I'm looking forward to the next quarter, quite frankly. So that AMBA will certainly improve. And that's moving in the right direction. Yes, I think all will move in the right direction. I'm sure John will corroborate that. John, I don't know if you want to come in. I mean, I've challenged Anita on some of these reds because, I mean, you're well aware these are very important. Children's services is one of the top corporate priorities, if not the top corporate priority we have, looking after our most vulnerable children. I don't know if you want to make any additional comments in respect to these. Thank you, Anita. So just in terms of the point that Councillor Crammer has made around locality teams, because of the redesign, we have removed structural divisions for hand-offs of children. So if a child is referred to the MASH, they would have previously gone into an assessment team, then to a help and protection team, maybe back to the assessment team and into the FSS early help team. Those professionals are now all in one team. So in theory, a child is referred to the MASH, the Multi-Ages Safeguarding Hub, and are presented to locality teams, and that integrated team of FSS workers and social workers hold the case. So there's less hand-offs in essence. So timeliness of assessments, oversight because the teams are smaller, practice methodology investment, all of those should help with throughput, with oversight, with timeliness, and the quality of work with children that we are seeing. And early signs, since April the 1st when we went live with locality teams, are giving us hope for the future in terms of that positive arrangement in terms of timeliness of activity. Thanks, John. I mean, it goes without saying this remains probably one of my very top areas of interest. And when we get to the next quarter's results, I'll hopefully see some significant improvements, or at least the right trend in improvement as well. Okay, thank you for that. Movers on to health and wellbeing. Angela. Thank you. And not to dwell on it, but one of our very sticky indicators that was in red for a long time has turned green, which is the percentage of births that receive a face-to-face new birth visit within 14 days. Very important for mother and child and their future prospects. I'm delighted that that's turned green, so we are definitely making progress in answer to the question we had at the beginning of this meeting. We are moving things from red to green. Like Anita, though, the red indicators in this portfolio are challenged by numbers, by increasing demand. So the first one, the number of service users due an annual review that received their review remains in red. However, I would like to just flag that the target is significantly above the South East benchmark, and I am going to be reviewing that with the team to make sure we're setting a sensible target. We are also looking at these reviews in terms of restructuring how we deal with them, prioritise them in terms of perhaps using more of a telephone system to do the reviews and prioritising the complex cases with a specialist review team. So we're hoping that that will help move more of those reviews through in an appropriate manner. The next red is very important. The number of people aged between 18 and 64, so what we would call the younger people, who are admitted to permanent resi or nursing care homes. It's important for this to be lower, and at the moment we're bouncing along. It's not too bad, we're looking at very small numbers in terms of people that are above the target. It's only four people, but nevertheless the team are going to look into each individual case to ensure that they are in the right and appropriate location, and we've got a much larger piece of work around accommodation options for people with special needs so that there's more choice in the marketplace. That's a longer term piece of work, but when it's instigated I hope it will improve the scenario here. The third red, very important one this for me, and I think we do need to continue with work on this, and I know CQC, when they come to inspectors will be looking at this, the transitions piece, so the number of people that receive their social care assessment before they're 18, moved from children's services into adults, all come directly into us. So we have had some delays in these. We are working, I'm assured, much more closely with children's social services to make sure we receive those referrals early. I'm sure John will endorse that. And we're implementing new ways to transfer people with long-term care support needs into the relevant team, so we're really trying to address things much earlier than we have been doing, and I really am hoping that we will see our target of 80%. There isn't a benchmark on this, but we're hoping we will meet our target of 80% within the next quarter to two quarters. AMBA's important one for me here is safeguarding inquiries, so we're on AMBA here. It's a massive target. Ideally, it would be 100%. It's 97%, and we're at 96%, which is equivalent to the Southeast benchmark, but it is critically important that safeguarding inquiries achieve personal outcomes, and the new Making Safeguarding Personal Improvement Plan is absolutely around that, which means putting the person at the very centre of their safeguarding plan and everything we wrap around that. So there's still work to do there. I am confident that we will keep nudging up towards that target, and we're going in the right direction. Other AMBAs, these can be sticky. Alcohol treatment completions and drug completions as well can be quite sticky. The team are working very hard with our providers here to move things forward, but there are some quite complex and difficult cases in the drugs and alcohol arena. That's probably all I'd like to say on that. No, thanks, and that's been a very comprehensive run-through. Again, I'm going to say the same as I did with Anita. The safeguarding of vulnerable people, be they children, be they working age, or be they mature adults, as we have to call them, are actually corporate priorities. They're very important, I know, very much to you, to me, to all of the Cabinet, and we need to really keep our focus on this to make sure we're driving improvement all the time in some of these metrics. I know 96% sounds good, but what we don't want is part of that 4% to be someone who then falls through the cracks, and actually there's a poor outcome for them. Likewise, I'm not going to go through each of these drugs again in turn, but some are more serious than others, but we want to make sure that actually we're focused on getting these into the right place, because there are vulnerable individuals behind each and every one of these metrics. And Craig isn't here today to give you that reassurance, but I can assure Cabinet that the teams are absolutely focused on these areas as a priority. Yeah, I'm looking at the annual reviews. 72% sounds good, but actually that still means that there's 28% that aren't, if my maths is good. Okay, super. I am going to keep us moving because of time, and therefore I'm on to Mark's portfolio, which, Karl, you're going to hopefully respond, and you have an amber. Yeah, very quickly, on a number of businesses registered as primary authority partners, 156 against the target, 163. The primary authority partnerships are a way of large businesses getting one-stop-shop tailored advice on environmental health, fire safety, trading standards. The challenge here is on the environmental health capacity. There are a number of good, suitably qualified environmental health advisors you can get hold of. It's not a problem confined to Buckinghamshire. The picture is slightly brighter on providing trading standards advice. I suspect in the short term it stays at worst in the high amber, and hopefully we'll get it back into the green. Great, Karl. Thank you very much. I'm not going to dwell excessively on those, if that's okay. That doesn't sound too bad. Peter on planning and regeneration. Thanks, leader. We have three which fall below the line. The first one is the percentage of building control applications checked within 21 days, and it's marginally below the target. That's entirely due to the staff position at the minute, which is improving, and we anticipate that getting better. The second one is to do with sill, and that's quite low compared to what the target is. We do have a recovery plan and anticipate this position changing significantly by the next quarter because of the plan. And the third one is to do with section 106 contributions, and, again, we have a recovery plan in process, so we do anticipate that position getting better also. Steve, do you want to add anything to that? So, again, there will be people watching who this will sound like a foreign language, I understand that entirely, but just to translate some of this. I mean, the first one doesn't worry me too much. If it's purely related to a staffing deficit, hopefully when you get staffing in, that will come back up again. I know how annoying it can be when you have building work done and they don't have the building rigs inspector come around and hopefully confirm that it's all okay. But that's not a critical issue for the council. Under collection of sill, which is the way I'm interpreting this, is financially significant. I mean, it impacts on our delivery of capital programs. John Chilva will be getting angsty if the money isn't coming in, and that also applies to community infrastructure levy. That's money we levy effectively, roughly per house, on a new development. And section 106 is a legal agreement with a developer that has a financial contribution predominantly towards infrastructure associated with that particular development. So all of these have an impact on the capital program and the ability to deliver infrastructure around new developments. So, again, important ones. And I know, Peter, you're very seized of the need for that. Yeah. And I just reemphasize we do have a recovery plan in position and in the next quarter would anticipate all of those figures improving. Great. Moving on to transport. We've actually had a good bash on transport earlier. Steve, maybe again, if we just hit the highlights of the reds on this and maybe a quick comment on the amber. Yeah. Well, OK. The red, the first is category one and two HD effects on the more urgent end of defects. You can see that's gone down in the narrative. It will show you that we're one hundred and fifteen percent more than in the previous quarter. So it's that conversation we had earlier about lots of demand coming in, impacts of the weather. Lots of lots of repairs were needed and these same crews are the ones dealing with storms and emergencies when they have they've hit. So it did go down in quarter four. It also shows we've got a laser like focus on this in our on a weekly basis with the team. So that should come back up in future quarters. The next one is the next red is the percentage of highway. Sorry. Rights of way issues dealt within the target time. You can see this has had a slight improvement, but still is missing target. It's a very small team. We do have a vacancy in the team, had a big increase again in in cases coming in. But as that position's filled and training is complete, we'd expect to plough through some more of those. The third red is the is the annually reported and NHT public satisfaction survey, which is what I alluded to earlier, where our you can see we have declined by seven percentage points and so have the national average. So very much the conversation we had earlier, people recognize the roads were in a poor state nationally and we were no different here. But we outlined that length earlier. Some of the measures we're taking and the investment we're putting in to try and recover that position. So I won't be able to report them out for another year, but it does also link to the AMBA. The AMBA is the rights of way equivalent of that same annual report. And you can see we we just missed out by one percentage point. And again, that other indicator a moment ago, when we got a follow team, we'll be able to deliver that. And it's worth saying the rights of way network, particularly during and then post Covid is utilised a lot more, which is to be encouraged. And therefore, more people are out there seeing the state of that network. So again, I'll update you in a year's time on if that what the trend is on that. And then the EV charging point is the final red, which is a little bit of poor timing in a way, because as you'll see in the improved actions, we've secured nearly two million pounds to roll more out. And this is always difficult in terms of they tend to get connected in batches. So obviously we've made an assessment by quarters of when they may kick in and you'll notice in the reports. We do have a number of charging points where we're waiting for the electricity suppliers, the DNOs, as they're called, to come and connect. So some of them are ready to go. Just needing an external agency to do the connection of which we push, but we have no direct control on timing. So I'm confident with the additional connections we've got coming on stream, and I reported that to select committee as well recently, that that will come back in future quarters. Great. I'm going to stop us there in the interest of time. We've had a long session on highways earlier. I think this reflects a lot of that discussion. I'm very aware, although corporately, my personal priorities are on safeguarding children, adults and so on for the residents. Their top priority is always roads. So I recognise there's a slight divergence there, but there's clearly an understanding of what needs to be done here. And I'm very aware that the public perception of roads is a national issue. As I said earlier, whenever I talk to colleagues, they all tell me the same issues in terms of concern from residents. OK. That was a long but very necessary holding to account collectively ourselves on the performance of this council in discharging the responsibility we have, both in terms of the key performance indicators, but through them, back to the overall corporate plan that council mandate us on. So just take you back to page one, seven, three recommendation review how the council is performing that we've done that. Take action to improve performance. Well, we've gone through all of those. So can I just ask colleagues to note the outcome of that review content? Thank you. That moves us on to item 13. I believe I've got 13 down here. It's wrong. It's 11. Yeah. Why have I got 13 down? Good question. So that's the adoption of the local heritage list phase two. It can be found on pages two, six, three to two, nine, four of the pack. There's also a confidential appendix. I might just ask Peter to explain why there's a confidential appendix. You might just want to say exactly why that is, because some somebody in the public might be watching this thinking, well, what's confidential about a list of heritage properties? Peter, would you like to just introduce that? Would you like to comment on the confidentiality bit? Yes, thank you. So confidential appendix refers to particular sites that are included for adoption on the list. And obviously, until cabinet have reached a decision about agreement with the adoption, then it wouldn't be appropriate to put those into the public domain. So that's why they're included as a confidential appendix. So just again, this is very much for people watching. The idea is we discuss more the concept up front, yeah, then we can go into confidential session, talk about the specifics if required, then we come back into public. Once it's been -- if it is agreed, then that list then moves into the public domain. That's correct. Okay. Much clearer. Thank you very much. So Peter, back to you if you want to introduce us. Yeah, thanks, Lita. If I may just give some introductory comments to this. Just to remind colleagues, this was an initiative by central government back in 2021 where they asked local authorities to produce a list and they gave us a grant of 70,000 pounds to do exactly that. In Buckinghamshire, 256 volunteers have worked on this project, which has been led by the heritage and archeology team in planning and environment. Cabinet are now being asked to adopt phase 2 of the local heritage list, which includes 1,466 sites. And we'll recall that phase 1 was adopted in January 2023, which was 771 sites. Just to give some assurances, adoption of a building onto the local list does not affect permitted development rights, nor mean listed building consent is required for works to the property. Changes to nondesignated heritage sites will be managed through the planning process. Cabinet had some discussion on phase 1 about whether the owners of properties should be written to, and we agreed that they should be. And again, we're going to do this for phase 2. So aside from the cost of writing to owners, adoption of phase 2 will have no financial implications for the council. I chaired a member's brief on this halfway through last week, and it was very well received by members. And so it's really important that we get the comms on this right, and particularly whatever letters we write to potential site owners to give them assurances that this will not affect planning considerations for their property. I think that's probably all I need to say to start things, leader. Okay, that's very helpful, Peter. So if I was a resident who owned a property that became on this list, what would be the significance for me? Just help me put that in layman's terms. Well, I think it's important that, as Buckinghamshire, we recognize our heritage assets. Now, much of the discussion when we did phase 1 was residents being really concerned that were their property to be listed, it would affect planning considerations for their property. And the reality is that it doesn't. So, overall, what we're looking to do, and I'm sure we all agree that we should capture our heritage in every way that we can, so that there is no disadvantage for a resident to have their property listed on this heritage list at all. So let me just put the question again, because I guess the question, if I was a resident, I'd be saying, well, hang on, I own Stony Cottage in Amber Lane. And I'm now on a heritage list, so what? What's the significance from a resident's point of view of knowing I'm on a heritage list? Stony Cottage is on a heritage list. I mean, I think residents may get some satisfaction from knowing that their property belongs to Buckinghamshire's heritage, and as such, it's listed. And indeed, the fact that it is listed gives it some protection in many ways. Does it give it protection? Because I'm just trying, maybe Steve wants to come in on this. I'm trying to help the public watching understand the significance of having a property that's on this list. Does it give them extra protection? Does it actually, and Peter's told us it doesn't, does it give them some obstacle they have to jump over if they want to change the windows or change the door or whatever? Just from a resident's point of view, Steve, just explain to us the significance of being on this list. So I think there's a number of areas, one of which is obviously by going through this process, we're able to record the important aspects of heritage in relation to each of the different properties. And so then when it comes to areas where we might be asked to make a decision on some of these, and as Peter said, this doesn't affect permitted development, right? So if people want to do things that are covered by permitted development rights, they're perfectly entitled to do so without reference to the Council. When we get involved, for example, when a planning permission might be required, we'll then be able to go back to the listing and be able to look at, for example, some of the important materials that might need to be included, say in an extension to a property, in order to respect the heritage, the original heritage of that property. The other important side of this as well is that by recording the heritage and making sure we're aware of where the important areas of heritage exist when other funding streams become available. So this has been developed through a funding stream and support from central government. It doesn't happen very often, but when and where those funding streams become available to support and improve the heritage of Buckinghamshire, we have a ready-made list of heritage that we would be able to go to and look at. You know, where those improvements could be made. So I think they're two-fold from a resident's point of view. There's an opportunity that might present itself in the future, but there's also just the knowledge of what's important in their particular property and how we might support them to retain that importance of the property. Okay. Thanks very much for that. Peter, anything else you want to add on that? No, not really, leader, other than to just to reiterate that when we did a member's brief on this, it was very well received by members. And I think the communications about this are all very critical so that people don't overly worry about the implications of being on the list and perhaps get to recognise the possible advantages for that. Yeah, yeah. And again, I mean, I'm immensely supportive of this. I just wanted to put it in layman's terms for the public watching so they understood this. So thank you very much for that explanation, both of you. Other colleagues, any questions on the principle of the heritage list? If not, the next step is to go into closed session to discuss any specifics of items on this list and then having done that, to move back into public. But let me just ask the question because there may be a very simple step on this. Having had the opportunity to look at the list as members of cabinet, are there any items on it that you want to discuss in private? You're very welcome to do so. There is no obstacle whatsoever to doing that. But I don't want to move us into confidential and then find that actually nobody has any issues. So if there's anybody who has any concerns, any questions whatsoever on individual items, we can move into confidential. That's not a problem. Let me just check whether anybody wishes to do so. It doesn't seem as if anybody - ah, Arif does. Right. Thank you. I thought the principle was to discuss them before they went to public, though. Is that what Steve said? I still want to clarify that. Well, the issue, as I understand it, stop me if I'm wrong, is there's a proposed list. There's the opportunity to discuss that list. If we're content with it, then basically we would agree that list. And once it's agreed, it then moves into the public domain. That's what I summarized, I think, originally. So if, Arif, you have any concern on any items anywhere on this list, I'm very content to move us into closed session. But I don't want to do it and then find nobody has any issues. So let me ask the question again, just to be really clear. Does anybody have any issues, any concerns, any questions, any comments to make on the list? Because if they do, we can easily move into confidential. Not seeing any. Are you content, then, that we agree the list as within the confidential annex? Yep. That then will move into the public domain following the resolution. Yep. And obviously, you know, people will be informed accordingly. Yep. So if that's the case, we do not need item 12. We do not need the discussion in confidential session of item 11. And therefore, I'm going to ask you if you are content to agree. Let me just turn to the exact wording. It's on page 263. It's to agree to adopt the local heritage list phase 2, to delegate authority to determine further decisions on the additions and amendments to the local list to the Service Director for Planning and Environment, Steve, in consultation with the relevant cabinet member, and that's Peter. Are members content to do so? Agreed? Thank you very much. That's done. So thank you for that. I think that is -- it is, indeed, the last item on the agenda, except my always favorite item, 14, the date of the next meeting. That's on Tuesday, the 16th of July, 2024, at 10 a.m. By then, there may have been some significant national issue. One never knows. And I'm sure that will be a factor that influences our future corporate plan. So can I thank all colleagues for their attendance here today. It's been a really interesting session, very important one. Thank officer colleagues for also attending to provide moral support to your cabinet colleagues. Thank non-executive members who have also attended throughout the session. And with that, I'm going to draw this meeting of the Buckinghamshire Council cabinet to a conclusion. Thank you all very much. Meeting closed.