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There are no urgent items of business today. Thank you, Derek. So we move on to item five, declarations of interest. Are there any declarations of interest relating to the items that we have following on the rest of the agenda? I don't believe it's very likely the well-being. If there are, we're in a bit of trouble because if you couldn't participate, we wouldn't be able to continue. So if we can move on to item six, which is the terms of reference, Derek, I think you're going to be presenting this paper. Yes, these terms of reference have actually been to each of the six councils and been approved by the councils. You're asked to endorse them today as the body that is they apply to. They will be kept under review, and as I think as you've already hinted, we have spotted something that we need to have a look at, which is the fact that in the declarations of interest, if somebody has to withdraw, then the meeting automatically becomes incorrect, which would be a problem. So the chief executives will be looking at that and see if there's any other little things that may need tweaking before your next meeting. But basically, I think it should be familiar to everybody who's here. It's what you have presented to you at your respective councils, and hopefully you're all happy to endorse them. I'm sure that will be the case, but just for form's sake, I think we probably need formally to vote on approving the terms of reference. So those in favour, please share. That is unanimous. Thank you. Just on the terms of reference, is it possible to add an amendment to one of the points? Because I'm just a little bit concerned, 2.8. I don't have any problem with six members, but there's no provision for any emergency matters. And I just wondered whether if everyone was in agreement, and there was an emergency matter, whether we could just have some provision for agreement by confirmation on the amount? I think that may be something we can take up outside the meeting with the chief executives as they are looking at these to make absolutely sure that the experience from this first meeting. I mentioned that because I know, for example, that there's a proposal which is due in September to visit England, and it's not on the agenda. We may wish that I'm sure we all want to bid for being a local visitor economy. But that's the sort of thing that we could actually agree to by email. I have the feeling that we won't be able to agree to anything substantial by email because obviously we're banned by statute to make decisions in a public forum. So I think we're going to have to leave it to the chief executives in their meetings outside this meeting to adjust accordingly, to take account of the point you're raising next time. And I think we can do that. If you're happy with that approach, I think it's probably better than passing an amendment here and now. Okay, thank you. Right. Are there any other comments before we move on to the next item? Thank you. So if we've agreed the terms of reference, which we have unanimously, we can move now on to the background of the Berkshire Prosperity Board and its priority themes. Who is going to get in the presentation for us? Rhianne, thank you. I'd like to get a presentation off on the screen first, so I'm sharing, I think, can you do anything? I thought I was sharing this, actually, Derek. Is there anything that I need to do to say that I'm sharing my presentation? I can't see it. It says I'm on hold with you. [inaudible] Actually, if you were going back to the screen, it's interesting. [inaudible] I don't know if another colleague could try and share it, so as long as we're in the meeting, I think we should be able to. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Okay, I think perhaps the best way to proceed to ensure that we make business is to use the slides that are in the agenda, which you can see in your copy of the agenda. If we can get the presentation online, so much the better, but I think rather than waiting for that to happen, we should proceed. So, Rhianne, if you'd like to start us off. [inaudible] Apologies for that slight glitch, but you will all have this in your media pack that's been sent around. So, this is a set of slides entitled Berkshire Prosperity Board, and it's meant really as an introduction to how we've got where we are and to set the scenes. I won't be the only person presenting this. I'll be joined by colleagues throughout the room, the other chief executives and the representatives who will be talking to some of these slides. So, just as an update of, you know, where we've got to, we've set up this prosperity board with a view to drive and improve the economic prosperity in Berkshire. It's the coming together of all six local authorities in Berkshire working collaboratively, and to enable that we've set up this joint committee to be known as the Berkshire Prosperity Board. Core members are all the six local authorities, which is Bracknell Forest Council, Reading Borough Council, Slauboro Council, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, West Berkshire Council, and Woking and Borough Council. In the work that we've done coming to this point, we've identified six thematic work streams that we would like to focus on, health and inequalities, education and skills, affordable housing, sector development, strategic infrastructure and net zero. And presently, we'll come on to a little bit more explanation on each of those areas from colleagues around the table. Key, again, to the whole of the Prosperity Board, is working with our local businesses. And we've been tasked by government to set up a business board within the first six months, and that's so that we can embed strong, independent decision-making and advice from a diverse local business voice to support local decision-making. Again, we'll talk about what a little later in the presentation. The Prosperity Board has agreed on an accountable body, which is Woking and Borough Council, and Woking and Borough Council receive in any manage any funds that go through the Prosperity Board in future. So, there have been a few national changes that have come in parallel with setting up the board and work very well towards that. The government has changed its approach to funding local enterprise partnerships, the labs, and from the 24th of April, April 2024, they have tasked local authorities to deliver the core functions that were perhaps previously delivered by the lab. And that includes the economic strategy in planning, and we've got an item on the agenda on that a little later on. The Business Voice, which I was just describing earlier, so to embed strong, independent, diverse local business voice to help decision-making. And government programme to deliver delivery, and that's to monitor and ensure that previous investment from government is being invested as agreed and to the right performance levels. The LEP remains and continues as an independent body, but has agreed to work in strong partnership with the Prosperity Board going forward. And indeed, we have commissioned the LEP to work on item 1 and 3 that I just covered in that area. So, we're very pleased to have Alice in here today and be working hand in hand with her. Slide number 4 that you will see in your pack. This sets out the proposed structure of the Prosperity Board. So, you can see at the top this joint board or this joint committee that we're working to at the moment needs to have representation from each of the local authorities there to make it poorer, and that's where all the decision-making will take place. And that will be informed, as we've said earlier, by the Business Board, and then supported by the Accountable Dot Body and the Secretariat, which is being provided by Brack on Forest Council. Beneath that, then, in terms of the work streams, we've got the six work streams that we just talked about, and they will work independently and bring projects and reports and decisions through the Chief Executives Forum and eventually to the Joint Board for decision-making. And we expect there to be other partners, such as the lab, which I've mentioned on here as well, involved in that. So, I'm now going to hand over to one of my colleagues to talk about slide number 5. Thank you. I'm Stuart McKellar, the Executive Director Resources and Deputy Chief Executive at Brack on Forest Council. I had the pleasure of going to the UK Reef Conference up in Leeds a few weeks ago, and that is intended to get a really state conference as how it's bad, but it's actually about investment in infrastructure in its widest sense across the UK. So, there were colleagues from Brackshire last year, I think it is something that we will probably look to attending as a collective in the years ahead, because there were two big takeaways I took from that conference. Firstly, there are investors who are looking to help the funding for investment in areas across the UK. The government was there through various government departments, the UK investment bank was represented, homes in England, many city institutions, particularly those who managed pension funds, and so lots and lots of scope for investment to be secured. However, they are looking for investment at scale, the kind of local authority type organisations who were there, it was the greater Manchester authorities, the West Midlands. It is much larger than each of us as individual authorities is able to actually have those kind of conversations. So, the introduction of the prosperity board will help Brackshire be able to interact in those kind of conversations at a scale that is going to be attractive to investors nationally, and also internationally. So, we expect that the Brackshire authorities will collaborate together around a sheer vision of what we hope to achieve for economic prosperity across the Brackshire area. We have lots of opportunities, we also have some challenges, sharing comparing notes on those will help us work together in a stronger way. It will also help us make a stronger case to government around the strategic projects that we have to have in place to promote and maintain sustained growth across the economy in Brackshire. We believe that doing that will allow us to target external bodies that we know are going to be interested in the kind of schemes that we as a collective can bring forward for investment. And working on the six shared themes of health inequalities, education skills, affordable housing, sector development, street teacher infrastructure and net zero, all of those are going to be playing for the attractive. Working together, however, as a whole collectively, we have a much stronger chance of being able to attract the investment that we are looking for. Thank you very much, but then we're now going to look at the six work streams, a little bit more depth, and the first work stream we're going to look at is education and skills, so just hand over to you. Good afternoon, Stephen Evans, Chief Executive of Royal Bar of Windsor Maidenhead and lead for this work stream. I just wanted to briefly outline a few things we are looking at regarding education skills. Firstly, apprenticeships, so doing more across the six Berkshire councils to make best use of the apprenticeship levy we have access to to achieve better results, looking to link apprenticeship funding and our approach to local and regional need, particularly those sectors or areas which are difficult to recruit to or are growing sectors. Some work around workforce and skills planning, so working with businesses and the public sector to determine workforce need, both now and over the longer term to develop more effective workforce development plans. And that's something that the Berkshire Prosperity Board is well placed to help develop and play a convening role, but through that work and opportunity to work with skills providers, colleges, universities across the regions part of that work. Looking to join up more effectively with DWP and other parts of government to ensure access to work programs and also in work upskilling opportunities are well targeted and meet intended needs, and also look at communications to those who would benefit from the available work programs and skills support. And I guess finally, overall through this work stream, what we're trying to do is put ourselves in a better position to benefit from any further future devolution of skills funding and responsibilities, particularly the devolution of the adult skills budget. Thank you. So the next section we're looking at is the social accessible and affordable housing, which is led by working in borough, working in conjunction with, I don't remember, I think it's a practical forest. So I think, you know, it's evident that affordable housing is a key issue for Berkshire, our high house prices and high rents mean that affordability is a challenge for a lot of people. Increasing demand for affordable housing means that there are pressures on temporary accommodation, specialist accommodation, but general affordable housing in general, I would say. We're seeing that in a number of sectors of housing, such as key workers is increasing and of course that's absolutely essential to our economy, that some of the people that keep our retail shops, keep our councils running care workers, doctors, nurses, all need to get housing and they're finding it a challenge in the current climate. So we want to collaborate to develop the best policies and increase housing supply in the area. So working in partnership with developers housing associations and to find and secure funding and we were talking earlier about the requirement to get people to invest in the area, working with places like Holmes England and private investors is key to helping us achieve this. So the next session is health and inequalities, I think that's you will. It is. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Will Tuckney, I'm the Chief Executive of SLOW, and we're leading on the health and inequalities theme. I think all of us in our areas have different degrees of inequality, both between our areas, between communities within those areas and indeed across Berkshire. Some of those inequalities are evident and others as was revealed during the pandemic of perhaps less. Clearly those inequalities hold us back as an economy and as places. In SLOW, we're quite focused on the healthy life expectancy gap and in working and working and rejoining in a new involvement in the Marmot program. So the things we can build on in terms of taking this theme forward. Secondly, in relation to investment, investment is obviously vital in relation to the health economy. Very important for the well-being of our population, but also important in terms of jobs and employment. But I think there's also a case for perhaps a better distribution of health investment. A case for morally intervention, a case for primary prevention through public health. And the purpose of such investment clearly is to try and lessen the pressure on acute and improve everybody's well-being as a result. Lastly, the advent of integrated care boards has given us an opportunity, I think, to look again in the wider health sector, health and local government at what is invested in and why. In particular, an opportunity to perhaps look at historic imbalances in relation to investment in children, special educational needs and disabilities. So working with partners to take forward that work as well. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Chai Stuart. I'm the executive director of resources at Reading, standing in for my chief exec, Jackie Yates, who sends her apologies, but she's actually on holiday. Lucky person at this moment in time. Strategic infrastructure, of course, critically important for economic development. And this work stream will focus on four key areas, energy, water, digital connectivity and transport, of which I'll cover a little bit in a second or two. Two main parts of this, first of all, gathering what's already out there to get an understanding, what projects and plans already in place, which is, of course, important to understand where you are before we move forward. And then creating, secondly, a strategic infrastructure plan and investment framework, as heard at the beginning, lots of money around potentially for that investment framework, hopefully, to drive forward prosperity across the area. So just a few bits on those four areas. Energy, the first bit, probably most important there, is the electrical network. So the electricity that we're also dependent upon and will be more and more dependent on as climate change and the move to electrical needs comes in. Everyone will have heard no doubt about this strain upon the network at this moment, and it's got to a stage where I believe we'll agree that it's starting to affect the ability to develop infrastructure. So need to have a look at that, understand what's there, some massive new developments coming up, and therefore how to manage that working in partnership, of course, which would be critically important. Secondly, on water, well, more on the sustainability of businesses, et cetera, with potential for climate change and new developments, especially in the flooding, which we had a bit at the beginning of the year, of course, in some places, more than others. So understanding what's that is, and what's happening for the future, and what collectively can we do together because, frankly, water doesn't care which level of authority we work in. So thirdly, digital connectivity, very important again for the future, with changes in development and technology, it never stops, does it? AI, et cetera, coming in, data warehouses, and the ability to work from home, as well as the office, all of those sorts of things empowering businesses we move forward. So what is the collective view on that? And lastly, although we can sit at home and work, we still need to get around occasionally, and therefore transport and the infrastructure that's surrounding that. And of course, the vast differences between rural and urban areas, do we have the public transport? Do we have the park and ride? Do we have the ability to work together on that so that people can move across boundaries? So that's just an outline. Very briefly, I'm going to teach you in this structure. Thank you. All the Councillors represented here today have ambitious carbon reduction targets, and a huge amount of activity has already been delivered across Berkshire towards the net zero agenda. The work of the prosperity board will be to ensure it doesn't duplicate the existing activities, but to play a role in unlocking the strategic potential across all the six council areas. So with this in mind, the first year we'll have a focus on developing a single new view of needs and opportunities in decarbonising the Berkshire energy system across all energy vectors and spaces, both commercial and domestic, identifying opportunities for low or zero carbon energy production, developing and scaling energy efficiency programs, including building retrofits, working to develop a market and supply chain, and links to housing quality for domestic interventions. I understand your needs and where the gaps are. That will enable us to focus on the priority areas where we can most effectively work towards hitting net zero by 2030. Thank you. I'm going to work about the sector development. I'm Nigel Lin. I'm Chief Secretary of the West Berkshire Council. On this theme, we're supported by SLA, on the sector development. You'll see within the bullet points there, it's about working with the sector for investment, workspace and talent for growth, but also about securing foreign investment as well. So I think this theme is less tangible than some of the other ones, but equally it's the theme that spreads across all of the themes as well in that it helps to glue them together. If you think of what you've already heard about in relation to skills required and housing, etc, that fits in with sector sector development as well. So we've been thinking about what we might do in terms of the work stream within this. I think our starting point has got to be about the data and now analysing the data so that we get a better understanding of the key sectors within Berkshire and the challenges within those sectors. And that will help us to identify the priorities for each area of those sectors we go forward and to obviously develop action plans to take that forward. But it's also about the opportunities to gain funding, external funding, which may come from post UK SPF and innovation grants, etc. And it's also about how we engage the business sector to identify those actions and areas for support. This isn't something that we can do ourselves. So we'll be looking to increase business engagement in what we do as a board and identify those inward investment challenges and see what we can do to help them to bring that income or that external funding into those businesses. This will help us then to ability to respond to those business challenges in a better way moving forward. Thank you. The last slide on the business board, which was mentioned at the beginning. If this is all about driving economic prosperity, then really can't do it without partners and critical of those partners, of course, is businesses across the area. So this is a board advisory in nature to help understand what businesses feel are the immediate issues, risks and for the future, what the barriers for success and also to be allowed to voice their opinion. So it's consultative, etc. It would look at the performance of the sector, would look to potentially influence policy and developing that economic strategy and identifying as I say risks issues and barriers. And basically the question is how to grow sustainable growth in business across the area. It needs to be able to focus to begin with and therefore the thought is that to begin with, it's a small group of potentially business key business leaders that are coming together to discuss and talk. And the first business meeting is not to be developed in September 24. I presume I suggest the first major question is who to get the right people on board that are keen to help the area and move forward is of course critical. There are some suggestions in the slide deck as to the representations we could look for, but we do need the key players, the leaders in business. Okay, thank you very much, Rhianne and all office of colleagues for their presentations and perhaps more importantly for all of the work that has been going on behind the scenes to develop these different work streams over many months. I'm very grateful for all of that work. I think most of the presentations in a different way is brought out really what the key advantages to all of the Berkshire unitary authorities are of establishing a Berkshire prosperity board. And the most obvious key advantage is that we can achieve more together than we can on our own in terms of our voice in national government in terms of our ability to lever in external funding whether that's public or private. We've much greater chance of success if we speak as six Berkshire unitaries rather than as individual councils. Now, I'm very happy to open this item up for any questions or comments from colleagues. Are there any points anyone wishes to write about any of the presentations or any of the work streams. Mark would be quiet. Dexter. I just note on housing that certainly with regard to resettlement of asylum seekers from Afghanistan. I understand that in the southeast of England, Redding and Slough are number two and number three primary destinations for Afghanistan asylum seekers. And I would be keen in exploring whether there's any additional funding that we could get from government to cover that. I think that's exactly the benefit that we have by establishing the prosperity board that we will be able to ask for funding to help carry the burden of additional people to have much more effectively. And I think if we're doing this as individual councils, I think that's the great one of the great advantages. So thank you for highlighting that Dexter. Liz, you wanted to come in. Thank you, Chair. I think it's probably just important to saying on the record as people might be watching, likely, that we've had to reshape the way in which we look at our broader joint understanding of our economy and what's needed in the different sectors because of the changes to the LEP. And it's a moment in time, isn't it, that we're waiting for where we've set out this range of areas which sound all right and good and officers are working on them, but need to sit into a strategic context. So I think as Dexter was saying, we mustn't miss the opportunity to bid for things together when that makes sense and helps all of our communities, but really what we need is to restate again. What does all this mean, and what next steps do we need to take. And I know that this is my sort of first full meeting, but I'm very excited about, we have an opportunity together to set out our stall and say what is it across barter that will make the difference for the residents that we represent and to secure and build on, obviously the great track record that we have in this area of being a very strong economic growth, GDP, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it might feel a little dull to some of the watchers, but the truth is that we know lots of work is going on behind the scenes to get us going to get us into the place where we fully understand what the opportunities are, how we're going to go and get them, how we're going to get the joint funding, and work out some of the tensions between the different shape and sizes of our places and communities where some of us might want some more things than others of some things. And I'm sure we'll work all that out and look forward to working with everybody. Thank you very much for that, Liz. A very, very helpful contribution. I think it's important to recognize that in some of these, all of these key areas of work, there are enormous advantages in working together. Yes, of course, we do need to recognize very different needs and very different characters of the different barter unitaries, but I think it was Will who made a very good point that there are inequalities and differences within boroughs as well as between boroughs. And we need to be sensitive to all of these variations and all of these local characteristics as we move forward trying to maximize the benefit of working together. But in the one area that I think I'm the elected member lead on, which is affordable housing, it's very clear that across Berkshire, we have a common interest here, that the market tells us all the time that if we build more houses, they will become more affordable. We know from our experience of extensive house building across Berkshire over the last few decades, the price relentlessly goes up. And it will go up because inevitably, our proximity to London means that we grow in people who want to move out of the capital in order to come and live somewhere that's still accessible to the capital as we are. So that is a challenge that really means often local housing need is not met, it remains unmet. And that's why I feel very passionately that we need to maximize our opportunities together to bid for funding from bodies like Holmes England to be able to help us to live a more genuinely affordable housing to help those people who live in each of our authorities have a better chance of being able to live in a good home, which is something I think we all would like to see. So I think that gives you an illustration of the ways in which this can have a very practical impact on people's lives. And I think that's what we're trying to do. As you were hinting this, this may sound all very aspirational, but a lot of it is going to have a real difference, make a real difference to the way people experience their lives every day. Okay, if there are no further comments, can we thank the presenters for their report reports, thank all of the senior officers here for the work that their colleagues are conducting on our behalf on all of the different work streams. It's greatly appreciated, and thank you very much, and we look forward to hearing further reports in due course. Can we move on if nobody wants to do less any further on item seven to item eight, but your economic strategy. So here we have a presentation from Alison from the left, and George from Aliko, who is the director of place and growth here at working in Borough Council. So over to you too. Thank you, Councillor Conway. I'll be very brief and then hand over to Alison, but I think probably the starting thing to say is to build on from what we only explained in terms of the context while we're here producing a local economic strategy, which is, as Ryan explained, one of the three main purposes and asked of government going forward after the transfer functions from the left to the local authorities, but also shoots points, well, in terms of the importance of the economic prosperity of the borough, sorry, of the county area, and having a very clear plan and proposal in place to allow for sustainable economic growth going forward. So the government's ask is that we have a plan in place within six months of funding that was in early April, and our target is to deliver that plan by October. It's important to say that we will be building on the work of the LEP for a successful period of time managed by the LEP in terms of economic progress and strategies, building on that information, building on that intelligence to produce this new long term plan for the prosperity of the area. In terms of the arrangements, the councils and the prosperity board has commissioned the LEP to complete the strategy within a six month period. In terms of the arrangements, each council within the Berkshire area has a representative on the oversight board, and that meets regularly with Alison and her team, making sure that the proposals that the leaders have seen previously are actioned in terms of that future strategy. There is a very much a focus on growth for that functional economic area, but equally it recognises the diversity of the different areas in terms of their economy and their positioning, very different from what is in the east to the west of the county area. But it's important that we recognise that, and also recognise the development of strategies and plans that already exist in those in those different unitary council areas. Chair, I'll pass that to Alison at this point. Thank you. Can I thank you, George? I will kind of touch on all the slides. I'm not going to go through the slides, slavishly, but I would want to start off by saying thank you very much. I know Berkshire leaders group and the chief executives have put their trust in Berkshire LEP to develop this strategy for you. We are building on some really good work that we did at Battnell Forest last year, so actually people in the Battnell Forest will be very familiar with what I'm talking about in terms of the process. We've tested it there and worked really well, so I am conscious that we will be able to meet the deadline, but I do want to thank people here. So just to kind of touch on why do we need an economic strategy, well the obvious thing is the local authorities have been asked to work in a functional economic area by deluxe to develop this. So government have asked us of this, but actually there are six much more compelling reasons why we need to have a wider economic strategy that builds on your own local strategies. But also as George said on the strategies that Berkshire leaders group have historically signed off. Obviously people will remember there was a strategic economic plan in 2016. That was endorsed by a locally signed off Berkshire local industrial strategy can people remember when we all have to have a local industrial strategy that was signed off in November 2019. We then had the recovery in the new plan that was published in 2021, and we had a refresh of the evidence base for that that was published last November, a new start for Berkshire. So we're building on what's gone before, but also building on your own local plans. So I do want to reassure you of that. I know some people have said why are you still doing a strategic economic plan or a Berkshire economic strategy at this point in time. We know obviously Nick told us earlier on there is a general election at coming. What's quite interesting is that there will be a meeting that has been called by Whitehall that is going to meet on the 25th of July. Just to kind of bring us back into shape really in terms of developing the strategies. The strategies have been commissioned by government though, and they do want us to continue to develop the strategy. So there's not a pause. We just need to kind of crack on with that. Obviously we will need to be mindful of all of the manifestos from the major parties because we do need to try to see what do the different parties aspire to do. Should they be forming the government by the time this strategy is published. But what is quite clear is that every manifesto that we've seen thus far has had an emphasis on growth. We know if we look at the economic indicators of the UK, we need to grow, we must grow. And interestingly, even some of the concepts that have perhaps been challenging for areas like Berkshire previously, such as leveling up, we're not hearing much of that talk nowadays. If you look at the manifestos, there is a recognition that all of the UK needs to up its game and to grow their local economies. So the timing is good. In fact, in some ways it's better to have an early election, a July election, because we know that the spending review for 2025, the government departments will start to work on that from the autumn, but they will know which government policies will influence that next spending review. So it's very helpful for us. It's also helpful for us. I know people have spoken about this quite a lot, but my sixth point on this third slide is it actually gives us the evidence for future bids. So we'll be ready to go, come the autumn, to talk to any incoming government about what the ambition is for Berkshire. So just to kind of move on, I talk about the opportunity. I'm not going to go over. Some of the very positive things that we've said here, I'm going to talk about some of the more negative indicators though. Yes, we are still, we are still second only to London in terms of our local competitiveness, but some of the indicators we're falling back on. So we're going into reverse in terms of GDP indicators, so we've always been second to London in terms of GDP. We're now third, Buckinghamshire have gone up, four points, we've gone back one point. So actually, some of those indicators, some of the baskets and measures that are looked at, we're in reverse at the moment. We need to stem that reverse. We need to find out why it's happening. And also it's kind of picking up on the points that were made earlier on. So we speak here about, we know there are parts of our economies that are doing really well. We also know there are parts that aren't doing well. I didn't want to put that on public slides, but just as we're looking at what's working and what's successful, we're also having to look at what's not working, what isn't working for us and why do we have those discrepancies. So rest assured, we're looking at what's not working as well as the good stuff. So in terms of the approach, the Berkshire economic strategy must be high level. There's an economic strategy, I'm going to keep coming back to that point. There's got to be a 10 year strategy, so it's 2025 to 2035. Obviously, we need a strong evidence base, so you will find that within the Berkshire economic strategy, there are three main elements. You're going to have the high level strategy, which is 25 to 35, cover the 10 year period, but you'll then have a very detailed technical annex, which will actually give you a lot of the evidence that will be down to local authority area, be Berkshire wide, but also down to local authority area. But we also have been asked to have a five year action plan, and that five year action plan is where you start to talk a little bit more about the crunchy things that we want to see, the tangible things that we want to see happening. It's probably back to Stuart's point about going to UK reef with almost our shopping list, going to the investors. I think many people may know that in 2023, the let was asked by the six local authorities to lead a small delegation to UK reef. We developed the Berkshire prospectus, we know we could do better in terms of the investment prospectus, the local authorities didn't want to go as a Berkshire this year, but we know that many areas are gearing up to do that, and so I know the place directors have decided that they want to go as a Berkshire collective in 2024, but they actually need the shopping list, they need to know what are our major investment sites to pitch to those investors who are out there, and that's what this strategy and the action plan will start to give parts of the jigsaw in terms of what the investment ambition is for Berkshire. So I've touched on the fact that it needs to reflect on your local priorities, and one of the things that we've been doing with your representatives is they've provided us with all of what we call it a kind of literature review, but it's all of the policies that are important to you and your local authorities, some of which are published, but some of which aren't. So we review those in terms of the work that we do as we develop the strategy, but we're also looking at current government, but also potential incoming government policies and priorities relating to economic growth and prosperity. So moving on to the four themes, you'll see we've got the four themes in terms of the Berkshire economic strategy. I will stress it's an economic strategy, but it does have an awful lot of residence with the six work streams that you just kind of had a briefing on. However, because it's an economic strategy, some of the things that you might want to have more of a deep dive on, if you look at health inequalities, we won't have all of the data in the technical annex for that, because the government is quite specific in terms of what they require in terms of an economic strategy, but it will give you the level of detail that you can start to then drill down in terms of the six work streams. So it's a Berkshire economic strategy with four themes, but it will help to a greater or lesser extent to inform the work of the work streams. So no surprises in terms of the four themes. We need to look at our economic performance. We need to look at our economic performance against comparators in both the UK and you have to look at areas doing better than yourself. So we're looking at backing them, because they're going up and we're going down at the moment. So, hey, we're going to look at them, but we also need to reflect on West London, Surrey, Oxfordshire. So we do kind of look a little bit more broadly, but in terms of our deep dive, it will be with backing them shut. We then need to look at global comparators or EU comparators, and we're actually looking at an area very similar to Berkshire in Holland, which is one of the highest performing areas, and it's the area of Utrecht, which borders Amsterdam. So very similar to us, it's got urban, it's got rural, it's got that drawer being very close to the capital. So, and that's a very high performing kind of economic area. So we look at our economic performance, both our own, our own local authorities against UK, against a local UK comparator and against an EU comparator. We look at the businesses, we look at the demographics. One of the things I think people know that we still are delivering for government is the Berkshire Growth Hub. So we have information on, I think it's something like 12,500 small, medium enterprises. We work with all six of the local authorities. This is a free up point of service. So we've got that information in our CRM system about the business demographics, as well as the large corporates. We then need to look at our people. So it's the population, population change, age, ethnicity. Going back to some of the points mentioned in terms of the work streams, skills supply, work for skills. We also are now delivering the skills boot camps for DFE, an essential component in terms of your skills work stream offer. And finally, we look at the business environment, which touches on infrastructure, ease of getting around digital connectivity, transport, work spaces. So you'll see a lot of residents with your themes, but also, or rather with your six work streams, but also these things very much focus on the economy. So how are we getting on so far, progress to date? George mentioned, we've got a steering group that's going really well. We have regular meetings. We're collecting, as I said, three sorts of evidence. So we've got the qualitative data and the technical annex will be pretty much complete by the end of this month. So we've made great progress on that, and all of your representatives will have that technical detail. So it's a lot of pie charts and graphs and data, but there's a narrative around it as well. And they will have that as a first draft by the end of this month. We're now working on the literature review. So that's the information that your officers have told us to look at. So we're working on that. That's the qualitative view. And then we will be doing primary research. So we're going to have two consultation phases. We're going to be consulting with businesses to get their view with the skills partners and also with politicians. And again, this is very similar to the approach that we adopted very successfully when we worked with a Bracknell Forest. So I guess you are our test baby. You really weren't a Bracknell Forest. I'm conscious you were part of the debate when we had the meeting with the politicians there. So I think that worked really well in terms of the engagement. So the initial phase, so this is just to talk about the early findings and to check we're going in the right direction. The first phase consultation will be in mid July, perfectly timed after the general election starts. So it's the week of the 15th of July. We're going to have our first consultations with those groups. We're going to have two groups of businesses, a political meeting and a skills partner meeting. And your nominees to the steering group have told us who to invite. So rest assured, we know from your people who are the people that you would want to be there. And then we're going to have a further consultation of the first draft of the strategy in September. So the first draft of the strategy, which we'll be writing over August. So you're going to have the technical annex by the end of this month consultation on the early findings in July. We're then going to sit down and write the first draft of the strategy in August to be viewed at the business board. We're hoping we're looking at the date. I'm conscious Charlie said a date is yet to be fixed for that. But the first draft will obviously want to take to the business board for their view before ultimately coming to the prosperity board for endorsement and signing off. So we are on track. We're still looking at October. Obviously, the next steps. I've spoken about the fact that we've got the evidence base complete. We're writing the plan. We'll be consulting. I suppose the next thing that I would ask, we really need your support. Obviously, you are the prosperity board. You're the leaders. We've had great support from your officers. Just to keep on encouraging the prompt response to help us to meet the deadline that's been imposed by government. So that's all for me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That was very, very interesting. And thank you for all the work that's been going on. It's great that you were able to, in a sense, test run with Bratton or forest. And I suppose that is a kind of reminder of how much we're embarked on change here. But there's significant elements of continuity with what's gone before as well, which we should recognize too. I think what struck me from your presentation is we clearly don't want to be bettered by Buckinghamshire. But also the very, very interesting comparison with the Utrecht region. I think that's really will be quite a productive and interesting comparison to explore. Thank you very much. Other questions anyone wants to raise about the Berkshire Economics strategy? It doesn't seem that there are. We're all very happy with the work you're doing. And we wish you good fortune in carrying it on and support in all you're doing. And we look forward to seeing the final version for us to sign off. And of course, thank you very much. And the final item on our agenda is actually the Derek simply to update us on the program of meetings. Yes, you will be meeting four times a year normally. And there is obviously the opportunity to have extra meetings if you need them. Next one will be in September. And again, we'll be meeting in December and March. So the 16th of September is your next meeting. And we will bring to that a more detailed form of items intended for the subsequent meetings. Thank you very much, Derek. Thank you very much everyone for your attendance. These meetings, of course, have to be attended in person. That's important if we're making decisions as we have done today and we will do in future meetings. I think we can bring the meeting to a close now. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]