Transcript

So we get to agenda item one, so I'm going to pass over to David, the monitoring officer, who will read out the housekeeping. Thank you, David. Thank you, chair. I'd just like to invite and welcome everyone to our annual general meeting, including all our councillors and our aldermen who are present. Kind of remind everyone that in line with legal requirements, this meeting is being held face to face, but members of the public can join online and participate at the meeting. It is only councillors present that are taking decisions at the meeting. Officers are in attendance, are there to provide advice to the council. The agenda and papers have been published on the council's website on Tuesday, the 14th of May. The meeting stay will be live webcast and the council will be making an audio recording of the meeting and this will be published on the council's website in due course. There are no planned fire drills, but in the event of a fire alarm, please follow the fire exit signs and congregate in the car park and if anybody present might need assistance in exiting the building, then please let one of the democratic services team know. If members in the room wish to speak, please raise your hand and the vice chair and myself will note your name and when it comes to your turn, please use the microphone on the desk in front of you. For members joining the meeting virtually, please raise your hand using the hand facility and MS teams and the chair will invite you to speak in due course. People who only speak when invited to by the chair of council to address the council and please say your name and role prior to speaking. Thank you, David. So we'll move on to agenda item number one. That's the election of chair of council and can I have nominations please for that position? Yes, Bill. Thank you, Mr Vice-Chair. It gives me very great pleasure to nominate Councillor Mike Bess for another term as chair of Somerset Council. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Do I have a seconder for that please? Yes, please, John. Thank you, Mr Vice-Chairman. Yes, I'm very happy to say. Okay, thank you, John. Do I have any other nominations on the floor for chair of council please? Nope. Okay, excellent. So can I have a show of hands please for those in favour? Thank you very much. Those against? Excellent. Can I congratulate you? I can ask you to step forward as chair of council. I'm Michael Best. Having been elected to the office of chair of Somerset Council, declare that I take that office upon myself and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it according to the best of my judgement and ability and I now sign the declaration. Thank you very much for allowing me to do another term as chair. Moving on to agenda item 2 is the election of vice chair. I would like to nominate Lee from the chair to do another year as vice chair. Do I have a seconder for that? Thank you, Chairman. I would like to second Lee Baker as vice chair of the council. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? If so, can I have a show of hands? All those in favour? Any against? Congratulations, Lee. Thank you very much indeed, members. I, Lee Baker, having been elected to the office of vice chair of Somerset Council, declare that I take the office upon myself and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it according to the best of my judgement and ability. I now sign that declaration. Moving on to item 3 which is apologies for absence, David. Thank you, chair. Bear with me. Quite an extensive list. I have apologies from Councillor Andy Dingwall, Councillor Susanna Hart, Councillor Helen Kaye, Councillor Val Keach, Councillor Jenny Kenton, Councillor Kathy Pearce, Councillor Tom Power, Councillor Peter Seab, Councillor Brian Smedley, Councillor Steven Pugsley, Councillor Francis Nicholson, Councillor Andy Govee, Councillor Adam Boyden, Councillor Martin Dimmery, Councillor Jenny Snell, Councillor Nick Cotto, Councillor Tom Deacon, Councillor Mike Rigby, Councillor Jason Baker, Councillor Joe Rendell-Green and Councillor Sarah Dyke MP. I have also been informed that Councillors Heather Shearer, Mike Hudson and Marcus Kravis may be late to the meeting. Chairman, apologies from John Cook-Woodman. Okay. Are there any further apologies? No? Okay. Oh, yes, sorry, David. Sorry, we were just debating with you. You actually said Jill Slocum. I think she was, she had a hospital operation yesterday and she told her, I say Jill. Certainly. I saw an email from her yesterday. I'm offering apologies. I don't like, can't remember who it was copied into, but it was threatening to go out dancing. So. Emily? I believe that Evie Potts-Jones may also be late. Right, Councillor Slocum is behind. Oh yeah, I see Jill is online. Welcome, Jill. Right. Thank you, Jim. Right, if we move on to item four, which is to confirm the accuracy of the minutes of the full Council meeting on the 23rd of April, 2024. Do I have your approval for these minutes? David? I know that the vote that we held on the property in Aztec West received an apology later, and this is not to challenge that vote or to challenge the apology that was made. I wouldn't like it recorded in the minutes, though, that the vote that was taken was taken on information which was subsequently corrected. If we just make that note, then that would be appreciated. Okay, that's fine. We will record that in the minutes of this meeting. Is everybody else content that I signed them? Okay, that's fine. Moving on, we go on to declarations of interest. Yes, Chair, I've had no declarations of interest other than those that members have already recorded that are on our website in respect of membership of parish, town and city councils. Thank you very much. Okay, we now move on to public question time. Members of the public are invited to address the Council for a maximum of three minutes. Also, the speakers are reminded that all members of the Council have seen the questions put forward, so they don't have to if they want to read the whole thing out and just pray see. But we have our first speaker is Sigid Romans. Is he in the room? There you go. You have three minutes, sir. Thank you. In February, Somerset Wildlife Trust published a position statement on the continuing problem of peat extraction. This practice is responsible for approximately 5% of all human produced emissions of greenhouse gases globally. Greenhouse gases are largely responsible for the devastating problem of global warming. Following the declaration of a climate and ecological emergency in 2019, it wasn't 2021, time passed as quickly, Somerset Council and its predecessors have carried out some important work in this area. This is, of course, particularly important in a county like ours, which is almost unique in still permitting the extraction of peat. Somerset Council's 2016 mineral plan, following on its 2013 document, mineral topics, paper 3, peat results and supply, is now severely dated. It started addressing the problem, but progress has been too slow. Although quality peat free products have been available for years, the sale of peat continues, often indirectly. And amateur gardening accounts for 66% of all sales of peats in this country. It is hoped the Parliament will have debated this issue on the 17th of May, the so called horticultural peat prohibition of sale bill, including a proposal to ban the sale of peat by the end of 2024. Actually, I gather that this debate is now being put back to the 7th of June, so it's still pending. What steps is Somerset Council itself now taking to bring this dangerous practice to an end? Thank you. Dixie Dutch to reply. Thank you for your question, Sigurd. And I really like the T-shirt. We do indeed need to talk about peat. And I urge anyone who's going to the garden centre at the moment to make sure they buy peat free compost if that's what they're doing. So we are working with our key partners, which include DEFRA, Natural England, the Environment Agency and FWAG, the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, across Somerset to reduce peat extraction. But without changes to legislation and consumer practice, it is difficult to completely eradicate. We believe peat extraction and its degradation needs to be tackled in a more holistic way, working in a supportive way with landowners and rural communities to keep the ground wetter for longer, to reduce the demand for peat and peat products and by offering alternative income generation through green initiatives. There are several sites across Somerset that are trialling alternative land management methods to keep peat wetter for longer whilst balancing this with the need to farm commercially. Somerset peat is recognised nationally as hugely important in reducing CO2 emissions and supporting biodiversity. The Council will continue to work towards the eradication of peat extraction with partners. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next feature is David Regwell. Yeah, as he's not online and obviously he's not in the room, can I ask that the question be read and then we will send the written reply. Yeah, I'll read it out. Question 2A. What progress is being made on purchase and redevelopment of Yolo bus and coach station and shopping centre developments? In a report to Lastfield Council, the executive member for planning and regeneration, Councillor Rosweig stated the shopping centre and bus and coach station would be demolition with grant money from the Department for levelling up. As part of this scheme, once the Council has purchased the shopping centre from the Northern Ireland Property Group company, what plans does the Council now have as owners of the shopping centre and bus and coach station to keep the waiting room and toilet facilities open at the bus and coach station, including first group PLC offices and driver's mesh rooms and supervisor office bus shelter repairs. Keeping the kiosk open for passengers and looking at the future of the cafe, it is very important that this regional bus and coach station that services bus and coach networks across Yeovil and into Somerset and Dorset is kept open. For bus network provided by our first group PLC, south buses division and first group PLC, Wales and west buses division, south west coaches group. Somerset Council own bus company. Berry Coaches, part of Megabus, Scottish City Link Coaches Network and Flixbus Coaches, network to Inkanton bus and coach station, Ambury and London, Hammersmith and Tonton from Coaches to Exeter, Plymouth, Cornwall and North Devon. Rail link bus service to Yeovil Penn Mill station, first group PLC, Great Western Railway Company service to Dorchester West and Weymouth for Bournemouth and Poole, Castle Carrey, Bruton, Westbury, Froom, Trowbridge, Bradford Runnaben, Basbah, Canesham and Bristol Temple Meads, Castle Carrey for London Paddington, Tonton, Exeter, St David's Plymouth, North Road and Penzance or North Devon and Torbay, Yeovil Junction railway station, first group PLC, South Western Railway Company for railway services to London, Waterloo, via Salisbury and services to Crewe-Kern, Exeter Central and Exeter St David's. So what is the present proposal for Yeovil bus and coach station and shopping centre under Somerset Council ownership? Question 2B. With the purchase of Yeovil bus and coach station and Yeovil shopping centre and the Council proposal to demolish the shopping, sorry that's my three minutes, I'll carry on. And the Council proposal to demolish shopping centres Carhartt bus and coach station. What provision is in place by Somerset Council to create a temporary bus and coach station similar to the temporary bus and coach station built at Basbah during the shopping centre redevelopment that included waiting rooms, shelters, temporary public toilets including disabled facilities, staff accommodation for drivers and supervisors and kiosk cafe facilities and information points. Question 2C. With regards to the Somerset bus service improvement plan, what discussion have the Somerset Council had with the rest of the county of Somerset on the bus service network including North Somerset Council and the West of England Miuro, Combined Transport Authority and Baines Council bus services improvement plan with Devon County Council bus service improvement plan, Wilkshire Council and Swindon bus services improvement plans. But especially with new administration in Dorset and the importance of Yeovil and district bus and coach network into Dorset with cross boundary bus services, CR5 Yeovil bus and coach station to Sherbourne railway station, Sherbourne town centre and Dorchester operated by South West coaches for Dorset Council. Service 58, 580, Yeovil bus and coach station, Yeovil Penmill station, Sherbourne town, Sherbourne railway station, Templecombe, Wyndhamton bus and coach station operated by First Group PLC, South Busses division for Somerset and Dorset Council, CR6 Yeovil bus and coach station to Yeovil Penmill, Sherbourne town centre, Sherbourne railway station, Sturminster Newton and Blanford forum operated by First Group PLC, South Busses division for Dorset Council, Service CR4, Yeovil bus and coach station for Crookham, Beamenster, Bridport bus and coach station operated by First Group PLC, South Busses division for Dorset Council. This along with the importance of bus depot facilities in Yeovil for maintenance of bus and coaches for Dorset and South Somerset Council area by working together to improve area bus and coach network through the council's bus service improvement plan and Western Gateway Transport Board and Peninsula Transport Board. Thank you David, just to complete this I think in case David and Reginald will watch us back if you want to read out the reply but then obviously we'll send it to him in written. So Richard. I didn't quite catch that David could you repeat it? Thank you David very well for your question. I'm going to answer question A and B together and that is the council is committed to keeping Yeovil bus station operational as a vital part of rejuvenating the town centre. We will ensure the bus station remains a key transport hub in the county and are currently involved in commercial discussions with the owner with a view to buying the site. These talks are ongoing and have been for some time part of Yeovil's regeneration. Once we have secured ownership of the site we will eventually look to remove some of the existing building, aging buildings with a view to making long-term improvements. We are currently considering the details of the facilities that will be retained for the time being as part of a phased approach to redevelopment and we'll be discussing this with the bus operators. There will be no need to create a temporary bus station as we will be keeping this, keeping an operational facility throughout the forthcoming changes. And I'm pleased that the work with the Somerset Bus Partnership and First Bus South West with indeed the help of Councillor Adam Dance have reached an agreement to keep the waiting room open beyond the 31st of May. To the second question, as part of the consultation process for the BSIP 2024 review we have consulted with the Bus Advisory Board which includes representatives from neighbouring local authorities. Officers have attached the enhanced partnership forums of these neighbouring authorities where their BSIP reviews will be discussed. At this stage the review contains very high level ambitions and is not a bidding document. There, as there is no new funding available, we anticipate a further BSIP submission next year which may require more detailed proposals and we will ensure we are discussing with neighbouring authorities where appropriate. Thank you. Thank you Richard. Right, it might be a good idea to remind people to check their phones, just make sure they're switched up. Subject related to this item, there was a petition to come forward. Yes, sorry. With relationship to the last, there is a petition that was coming forward which I'm allowing. Adam has got it, if I could ask him to present it to me now please. Yeah, thank you very much Richard for your answer to that question and thank you very much Mike for allowing this petition to come forward. Last Friday in Yeovil, as some of you are aware, there was a campaign put forward to try and save the bus station and the bus station facilities. I was handed a petition and I will read the petition as it's stated and I will come and give it to yourself if that's OK Councillor Bess. Dear Adam Dance, please accept this petition as a formal recognition of the public concern for the closure of Yeovil bus station toilet facilities. This petition has two parts, the enclosed petition and the online petition via change.org with approximately 1000 signatures and growing combined. Kind regards, Linda Snelling, Yeovil Bus User Lead and Somerset Bus Partnership. OK, our next speaker is Rosa Kelp. Thank you chair. The bus travelling public of Taunton are being inconvenienced on a daily basis by the closure of the Taunton bus station at Castaway. We are unable to understand how this site can be used for a vintage bus experience for a weekend event where passengers can safely board these vintage buses at the site but the station is not available on a daily for the daily travelling public. I therefore would like to ask the council if they can advise the passengers of Taunton of what the target date of which is estimated that the Taunton mobility hub would be open. We have confirmation that it will have a waiting room, refreshment areas and obviously WCs. Has the DFT set a deadline but which the Taunton mobility hub must be open, we are concerned that that money could be lost, diverted or elsewhere. If there is any risk that further delay could result in the DFT funding, the mobility hub would be withdrawn. We are concerned that it shouldn't be. We have asked other committees for updates and to date but unfortunately we have yet to receive a satisfactory answer on the above items. I would appreciate if the council could enlighten us. Thank you. Thank you very much. Richard if you would like to reply. Thank you Rosa. First of all I just want to make it clear, the bus station was originally closed due to a commercial decision by the operator ceasing to use the site. It was then bought by the former district council and Somerset council is now seeking to improve the site as a mobility hub and open it up again for BSIP funds. It was not closed due to safety issues but we would like to change the layout within the new scheme to minimize reversing manoeuvres and improve pedestrian movement so the revised design will have safety benefits. It is considered safe for the heritage bus to pick up from the site as a one-off or an occasional trip as per the event that the NHS have organised. The Taunton mobility hub is in the development phase so the details are still emerging as we work through the process. The work is due to be completed during 2025 and is subject to planning commission. The date of opening will be shared once it is known and I'll say the aspiration is to include a range of facilities but the exact details are subject to design, planning permission and understanding the future affordability and I'll go and say the DFT are not setting a deadline regarding the opening of the mobility hub. We update them regularly and finally there are risks with any infrastructure project which is managed throughout the life of the project. There is no risk to the funding at this point. Thank you Rosa. Thank you very much. Moving on to our final speaker Nigel Behan who again cannot be with us so he's asked the monitoring officer if he could read the question. Thank you chair. In a recent summary of a debate on the future of social housing posted on the LGA website, debate on future social housing House of Commons, it was noted a generational step change in council house building is required to boost housing supply, help families struggling to meet housing costs and tackle housing waiting lists. And over recent decades construction of new homes has failed to keep pace with population growth, demographics and social demographic change, particularly due to the decline of public house building. At the same time the stock of social homes has significantly reduced as councils have struggled to replace homes lost through right to buy. The housing shortage has seen rents and property prices rise significantly faster than incomes, acutely impacting the lowest income and vulnerable families and individuals. Compared to the private rental sector and homes at affordable rent, social homes provide a genuinely affordable alternative and greater security of tenancy. For many people social housing remains the only feasible option due to the winding gap between local housing allowance and market rents. Councils are determined that all tenants should have the security of a safe and well maintained home. Councils manage more than 1.6 million homes, carry out millions of repairs each year and invest billions in housing services. The majority of social housing landlords are responsible and provide high quality homes for people to live in and councils are determined to ensure that poor conditions and repairs are swiftly and satisfactorily addressed. Moreover, funding remains one of the key barriers local authorities face in delivering more social homes. The lifting of the HRA borrowing cap in 2018, which allows local authorities to borrow against expected rental income has had a positive impact on planned levels of council house building. Councils stand ready to rapidly scale up investment in new builds and existing housing stock when further funding is made available. However, to meet our ambitions for social housing there are a range of policy and fiscal interventions that councils need from government. And access to affordable borrowing. To fund the supply of social housing we have long been calling for councils to have access to lower borrowing rates through the public works loan board. Government announced in the spring budget that they will bring forward a new discounted public works loan board policy margin to support local authorities borrowing for housing revenue accounts and the delivery of social housing, which is positive and will help provide much needed additional support for vital council house building projects. What will this council practically do to increase significantly council house building across the former district council areas in Somerset? Question 4B in reforms and resistance how tenants can influence housing policy it was stated. Yet, after many years of relatively little activity there has been a noticeable growth in grassroots resistance on housing issues. Much of the academic work on housing does not portray tenants as active agents who can influence or even change their living conditions. The analysis tends to focus on the nature, history and potential impact of particular policies and processes in housing. But historically grassroots campaigning has had a significant influence on the nature of housing at both local and national levels. Furthermore in the current environment housing campaigns are being sparked by the failing policies of successive governments. An example of this reform resistance dynamic is the campaigning over the past two decades by Defend Council Housing, DCH. DCH was formed when campaigners who had been opposing the emerging large scale voluntary stock transfers of council housing to housing associations recognised the need to fight at both the state, local level and the national government level. Over the intervening period DCH has had a greater impact than is often recognised. Tenants to secure anti-transfer privatisation votes in approximately a quarter of all proposals in England. These votes resulted in very real benefits with council tenants retaining their accountable secure tenancies. At a national level the early DCH successes focused new Labour government to develop an alternative policy of arm's length management organisations. There were campaigns in Somerset to retain the council housing stock successful in Tonton Dean and almost in south Somerset where council tenants were actively involved in retaining their accountable secure tenancies. How does this council intend to involve service users, citizens, residents, electors and council tenants meaningfully in moving towards a housing system that is based on the need for secure decent shelter, not the priorities of finance or the market? Thank you David again. Federica Smith-Roberts to reply. Thank you chair and thank you to Nigel for raising these questions. I hope Councillors can just humour me in my response in the fact that it might be a little long just because of the broad subjects that Nigel have covered and I really want to talk about the challenge and housing crisis that we do face here in Somerset. So the council shares the concerns on the shortage of affordable housing both nationally and in our county. Over the past seven years compared to the previous seven years the number of properties left by housing associations and the council through the home finder countywide choice-based allocation system has decreased by over 752 homes per annum. This is from circa 2898 units per year from 2010 to 2016 to circa 2146 between 2017 and 2023. Yet demand for affordable housing has increased significantly both on home finder and through direct approaches to the housing options services many of which probably us as Councillors see in our inbox on a daily basis. There are a constant circa 10,000 households currently seeking affordable homes in this county yet insufficient private rented accommodation and social housing through housing associations and the council. The dual pressure of fewer affordable homes available to let and increasing demand is both a national regional and a local challenge and I would totally agree that we are in a housing crisis here in this county. The environment for house building in Somerset particularly affordable homes is challenging as bills costs have risen at an even steeper rate than many other costs. Affordable homes coming through the planning process are being squeezed or reduced as visibility assessment or sorry viability assessments as well as competing section 106 contributions for areas such as education and highways must be considered alongside affordable homes. We have seen new climate change and ecological requirements introduced through the planning system which has also stored many developments and or reduced the viability of schemes further squeezing the number of section 106 affordable homes able to be achieved through the planning system. The demand for private rented homes is so great in the county that there are very few landlords advertising homes within the local housing allowance level. The local housing allowance sets a ceiling for subsidy towards private rented sector tenants accommodation costs. The inability of households to secure affordable accommodation in the private rented sector is contributing to the increased number of households on the home finder system and those looking for affordable housing with the council or housing associations. There are many many registered providers and smaller organizations including community land trusts working hard throughout the county to try and build their own schemes or purchase section 106 affordable units from developers. The council work with many of these developers through the planning process and through our housing enabling team. Our aim is to support these organizations delivery delivering not only new affordable units but also the size and type of homes that we require in this county. As a landlord the council does not have many homes in the south east and most westerly parts of the county as stock was transferred to registered providers a number of years ago increasing the importance of good partnerships with housing landlords to manage affordable home provision. Timely support to help those registered providers helps deliver general needs and specialist housing low-cost home ownership opportunities as well as homes to rent rents at affordable rents. This is something that we at the council are committed to do. We also have our council housing stock of just over 9,700 homes. These are situated mainly in the west and the north of the county although the council as landlord is stretching to other parts of the county on a small scale. 54 new build net zero affordable homes are about to be completed in Minehead this summer and the council have been able to purchase homes in Yeovil and Martock over the past year. The housing revenue account of the council is the ring fenced account which is used to fund the landlord service and new council homes. The housing revenue accounts income is primarily from tenants rents however the council can use a share of the right to buy sales receipts and other grants to reduce the cost of new build and acquisitions to the council landlord service. Over the past three years we have seen this proportion of right to buy receipts we are able to use for acquisitions and new build homes increasing from about 30 to 50 percent which is helpful. However the landlord service is not unfettered in its ability to grow its stock as the HRA must have sufficient funds in its business plan that business plan that we passed in the budget in February to cover the cost of its services and any borrowing for new homes. The council as landlord has many responsibilities with keeping tenants safe in their homes at the top of the list. Other key aspects of our service including keeping homes in a good state of repair achieving the decent home standard and statutory milestone requirements to achieve net zero at an affordable cost to the tenant. The landlords and us as a landlord is subject to increasingly legislation including the new consumer standards and regulatory framework which rightly means that us as a landlord must seek to deliver a quality service to our tenants in a way tenants and that we value. There is therefore a priority when setting the business plan to ensure the landlord first considers its needs to provide that quality services in safe decent homes and increasingly energy efficient homes. These pressures equally apply to registered providers and we have seen a national trend in social landlords reducing their development program in order to concentrate on core services and achieving energy efficiency standards. Due to a one-off subsidy in 23-24 it was a good year for new council homes with over a hundred new homes and an exceptionally low number of homes that were lost only 17 that were lost due to right to buy. On average the housing revenue account predicts to lose 50 homes a year through the right to buy and some homes are lost through regeneration work. The housing revenue account business plan has 448 new build homes in its approved program over the next five years but we can see that this represents a small net gain when we consider the right to buy and regeneration losses. We recognize that those numbers are not sufficient to meet demand and we need to find as many opportunities to work with other providers to maximize affordable housing in the county and encourage greater funding for building new affordable homes. The ability to develop and acquire more council homes is dependent on sufficient headroom in the HRA business plan or one-off subsidies which the council can bid on from time to time. In relation to how tenants can influence so the answer to 4b the landlord services them is very advanced and involving tenants our service users in the monitoring of services and influencing the policies and priorities of our service. Council homes whether they are managed both in the north by homes in Sedmore or in the west by the in-house council service are working with tenants engaged in operational matters such as landlord safety compliance standards of property energy efficiency communications and all of which have bodies of tenants at a strategic level considering their policy and performance. Members of our tenant tenant strategic group have just completed their three-year term I was there on Monday at that final meeting and we have over 30 tenants that have applied to be selected to move forward onto that board moving forward. The government has introduced greater regulation for all registered providers including council landlords based around a number of consumer standards. Those consumer standards set out a clear expectation for social landlords to involve customers with decision making as well as set out expectations of service in relation to safety decency engagement managing and learning from complaints. These consumer standards help us as a landlord including the council maintaining a focus on the customer experience and collect customer satisfaction. The council looks forward to engaging with tenants and other stakeholders on options for housing service to reflect Somerset council as a landlord for nearly 10 000 homes. Thank you Fred. Sorry I'd just like to declare an interest if I at this point I'd like to declare that my wife is chair of the Taunton Heritage Trust which runs arms campuses they've been waiting four and a half years for climate commission 13 new arms houses in Taunton so I'd just like to put that on record that I've declared an interest. Thank you. Okay uh thank you to all of our uh public speakers today if we can go on. A very brief point of order if I could just on public questions any member of the public might have noticed that if they turn up and do their question they get limited to three minutes but if they don't turn up we read it out in full it would be a shame if people thought they could be better off by not coming to speak to us so I just wonder if that's something we could take a look at. Yeah okay going forward we'd already agreed to read one out so I felt it wasn't fair not to read the other one so that's why we did it. Okay thank you. Moving on to item seven which is the chair's announcement uh the visits made by myself and the vice chair are detailed on page 49 if we require any further leave would be really happy to expand on it at any time. Could I welcome uh Councillor Rob Reid to his first council meeting since being elected. Welcome um unfortunately we are going to have to call another special full council meeting in June due to gravity details that need to be addressed. That meeting will be on Tuesday the 18th of June at 2 p.m and will be held at Somerset county cricket ground. It'll be a single point agenda but unfortunately that has to be taken so we have no other course but to hold that meeting. The point was made at the last council with starting at two o'clock um from uh our next meeting here we're going to bring forward the start time to one o'clock we're going to bring the advance it back one hour and see how that works so um the only uh exemption to that rule will be the budget meeting when the budget meeting comes around again that will start at 10 o'clock and we will have the the full day um can I just say that um a email has gone out to all of town and parish councils regarding my um community awards which is held each year at um Taunton rugby club in October um it's gone out to all the councils and now it today it's gone out to all of you when you visit those councils could you just give it a little bit of a push especially if I can mention the men dip area um in past years unfortunately the men dip area we haven't had too many uh people come forward so men dip councillors could you do your thing and try and encourage those councils to put people forward uh you might have noticed there's a goodie bag on the back of your chair that's because it's foster care fortnight until the 26th of may as councillors we're all corporate parents and this means we have a responsibility to support children in care just as we would our own please take the bags home have a read of the information and help us to recruit more foster carers in your communities um unfortunately now um I have to read another tribute to a member of past council that's passed away um it's Councillor John Lang uh Councillor Lang passed away peacefully at Musgrove Park hospital on the 25th of April this year age 70 years John Lang was elected to Sedgemoor district council in 1983 as a Conservative Councillor representing the Newton green ward which later became the North Petherton ward during his time on the council Councillor Lang was vice chairman and chairman of the planning committee following changes in the local government he was elected as leader of the council from 2001 to 2004 when he was succeeded by Councillor Duncan McGinty we send our condolences to his mother Joan and the rest of his family if you'd like to rise now for a short period of silence thank you very much Councillor yes David I think if you allow us I think Councillor Bradford would like to say a few words Councillor Bradford thank you Mr chairman I would describe John as a man of the people he was a strong fairly sort of fellow he had a big heart a heart of gold he would always help other people out always he became mayor at the age of 24 North Petherton the youngest mayor ever at North Petherton and he did that job for four years after which time he continued on to his role at Sedgemoor he was elected to the Sedgemoor district council in 1983 as the Councillor representing the Newton green ward which later became the North Petherton ward and I'll remind you all now this is the North Petherton ward where we're sitting in today during his time on the council Councillor Lang was vice chairman and chairman of the planning committee and he did a big role in the Sedgemoor auction centre up there as you see it took a long time to get it get it to fruition but John put a lot of work and a lot of hours into that and a lot of things that happened in Sedgemoor is down to his efforts and other people working with him because you did you had that knack of pulling other people in to work together and he always compromised you never you never took the odd way out you always found your children around it following changes in local government he was elected as leader of the council from 2001 until 2004 then it was he was succeeded by Duncan McGinty when all that ended I also say that John played rugby for Bridgewater Albion played in the second row quite a quite a prolific player he was he wouldn't be messed about at all on the on the rugby field I'm going to show you that and on various various occasions he had quite a few get in his car to go up the bridge or an Albion rugby club for drinks afterwards he was that sort of fellow that sort of character he will be very sorely missed by morning where he lived because he used to do things at harvest supper and various events throughout the year in fact I was in an event one year and he made 300 pound of a pumpkin 300 pound of one pumpkin you can't believe it can you but that was the sort of man he was he he knew the clientele he could squeeze money out of him and he would be very very sorely sorely missed by that area only two months ago his mother celebrated her 100th birthday and John became ill when the Covid started I suppose you could say and ever since then he's tended about one one problem after the other and started to affect certain parts of his body and he went downhill and his farming's been taken on now by by brother-in-law and Margaret a sister and hopefully they make the success of it and I also mentioned to tell you what a big heart he has he was involved in several mental health charities and that was very very close to his heart mental mental health it really was John he was that sort of a chap right so so really I'm not going to go on any longer I could go on and tell a few of the stories we used to go out together you know I succeeded him in representing the same areas he represented for for 20 years and I'm quite proud to do that actually so rest in peace John. Bill Revens. Thank you chair and just sharing the condolences and the thoughts shared by my very good friend and ward colleague Councillor Bradford. Councillor Lang was indeed a predecessor of both of ours both as central district councillors for North Peloton and as mayors of North Peloton and he was a great one for serving the community and did so much for the village of moorland and wider area and in particular his involvement in the church. He still holds the distinction of being the only person to knock on my door and ask for my vote from any political party and that's not an invitation by the way in 1995 he knocked on my door and I gave him some very brief Anglo-Saxon feedback as to why I was not going to vote for him but I did ask him for his support with with being able to relocate the North Peloton cricket club at the time of which he was incredibly supportive through his contacts with the developments at the market and we were able to tie a big project together with that and I will remember that yeah with spite of in spite of all the differences that lie between between us politically he was a champion for our community and and did so much and I'm particularly fondly remembered when I knocked on his door in 2017. Similarly I got a negative response but also a request to help with a particular issue around the roads in moorland and he was very appreciative and and above all he was a he was a real gem at the heart of the community and he will be sorely missed in moorland. Thank you Mr Chair. Thank you. Any other members would like to add if not we will move on to itemating the agenda which is the octagon theatre additional to the capital programme and Federica please. Thank you Chair. I'm pleased to bring this paper forward. Back in October Council will remember that we removed the octagon theatre from our capital programme however since that date we have been working with partners including Noble Town Council, Arts Council England to look to secure the 10 million pound grant from DCMS. Those conversations are still ongoing but part of what we need to do is add it back in the revised programme which we will see before you back into our our capital programme so that we can demonstrate that we are supportive of what we are doing moving forward. Thank you. Andy Souton is going to second. Okay we move out to anybody else. Any questions? Sorry Chair. Yes I looked at the second app. I reserve my right to speak later. Okay thank you. Any questions? Martin I think that's your hand. Thank you Chairman. It is my hand yes. I have problems supporting this for one main reason and it is in page 52 the first paragraph I believe yes and he's all laid out there that the hope of the 10 million pounds from the grant and then the 3.75 million from the Noble Town Council hopefully but then it then it meanders off in the remainder held by Somerset Council from previous fundraising and a ticket levy. Now that's a bit vague for me quite frankly. I know about the ticket levy on the octagon. There was a ticket levy put on for one pound per ticket which was to support Westlands. Now I presume any ticket levy will have gone to Westlands so I can't and as the place isn't open and hasn't been open for some time I doubt there's any ticket levy levy money about but there may be who knows but what I would have liked to see before I can agree this and I the principle is fine but the agree is the actual figures and facts because at the end of that particular paragraph it then goes on to say Somerset would bear some financial risk and if we don't know what funds are available and then the project is goes ahead under our name we could be liable for 1.25 is it my maths aren't terrific but 1.25 million yeah 1.25 million risk is involved here and is that are we going to take that risk on the say so that this this will be done by previous fundraising and ticket levy I don't think that's sufficient information and on that and on that reason and that reason only I don't think I will be supporting this and I don't think it should have come to us in this form without the full information thank you chairman bed would you like to reply yeah so the paper today is actually the principle of adding the program not approve it adding the project back into the program not actually approving the project in its entirety that will come through in subsequent decision making and but the 1.25 billion does have elements made up of a ticket levy that was there to support the theatres not specific to the octagon but we have got that us as Somerset council will be contributing that 1.25 million that has been laid out before you Sue Osbourne thank you chairman just a couple of points I know that the whole thing is going to pass to Yeovil town council including it's going to be liable for covering any deficit I think it's euphemistically called a subsidy and I certainly don't recall a time when the octagon ever ran a surplus is it really fair to expect residents in Yeovil town council area to be the people that actually cover the subsidy for a asset that draws people from way outside the county some of whom will be infinitely wealthier than the people that live in Yeovil town council area I'll just leave that one with you I also find it ironic that we can find money for this project the town council can find money for this project but there doesn't appear to be any funding for keeping the toilets open at the bus station which is something that people are really asking for and really want and finally I have a query on paragraph 8 sorry paragraph 18 page 58 you are referring in there to public consultation in terms of the devolution does this mean that Yeovil town residents are going to have the opportunity to participate in a parish poll or a referendum which they could actually ask for is that how you are going to do your consultation and what happens if people reject the idea of having to subsidize an asset that actually is a regional and a whole county asset not just an asset that is specific to Yeovil Fed come back to you and then Adam and thank you for those questions there Sue I think they're part of your questions should be directed to Yeovil town council rather than here today in relation to things such as the consultation that they're going to do in relation to what is here before us it is about us adding this back into our capital program to look to secure a 10 million pound bid from the central million pound grant from central government we've been consistent in wanting to secure that so that we can deliver a theatre yes for Somerset but that will be subject to discussions devolved to Yeovil town council but it's a decision for them to take if they're wanting to take that on in relation to if they didn't then we would have to come back with a whole new business case Adam yeah I just wanted to come in on the toilet front because I actually don't think it's relevant on this point I can see why Sue's brought it up but actually I can understand why Yeovil town council wouldn't have took the toilets on because there was an investigation of us as the councils we've said today here that we are actually buying Glover's Walk and there is the potential ability that though they won't be there so it would have been an uncensible for Yeovil town council to take them toilets on at that moment plus the business rates which they would have to pay as well on the toilets it would be a lot better option if we as a council or Yeovil town council which we are looking into at the moment in trying to get some sort of uh portaloo on that site why we're working um on moving forward what we do with Glover's Walk but so I don't think this is relevant to the octagon at all thank you Quill Wren uh thank you mr chairman um yes I'm chair as you know of the scrutiny for communities and this came before us last month um it's slightly disappointing that I can't find any reference to our deliberations in the report which may have helped some people um essentially we we did drill into this a fair bit I think we were reassured um as Federica has said that the project is is all about putting it in back into the program um on the assumption fingers crossed that we get the 10 million 10 million pound grant from DCMS that will allow us to go forward and come back with a revised business plan we also pressed quite hard on the financial risk to this council associated with this I was personally assured by the project manager that he'd never I think he said he'd never run a project that hit a problem which he's a keeper isn't he um but seriously um I don't think this final sentence that there is some financial risk I don't remember it being in the scrutiny report so there is a little bit of nervousness there on my part but as as I say as Federica says we're we're just putting it back into the program we're not making any final decisions at the moment but we also pressed the Yeovil town question quite hard because clearly if we're going to be managing this project and then handing effectively handing it over to a smaller lower tier authority we need to be assured as a council that they're up for it and they're able to carry it forward and again I was given reassurances and I think there will be more opportunities for checks and balances between now and any final decision being taken we had a couple of other questions about some of the building works being considered about the tower and things like that but I think one of my my main concerns is that if the theatre capacity is not increasing then that does give me personally a question over future viability because these days you do need to have bums on seats and these and costs are increasing all the time if you have a limited capacity of course then your earning capacity is is limited unless you shoot your prices up at which point the public may vote with their feet rather than their backsides anyway thank you I thought I'd just add that okay Mandy thank you very much I understand fully why this needs to go into the program I think it just needs to be very clearly articulated that the previous program was only for emergency and necessary programs which this is probably neither that was what was presented at the budget so I think that is very clear I'd also like confirmation how it will appear in the budget because obviously we're looking for the funding nationally some funding from Yeovil and I will expect to see it a 1.25 possibly million in the council's contribution so what safeguards have we that that won't go up I did actually note the scrutiny comments which are in the paper and just to say scrutiny did ask about some costs of the project and how much it was costing to keep it open it would have been really nice following those scrutiny comments for that information to appeared in the paper before us I think if scrutiny are raising a concern in what you would want to ideally see is see those concerns perhaps addressed in the paper that come forward and that was a missing for me in the paper today thank you chair do you want to comment certainly note those comments both and grow and in relation to Mandy's I think we can look to do that for when we subject to today and the decision being taken when we bring the business cases back through council so that we make sure that we note those kind of what it costs compared to what it costs to be open versus closed I don't know whether our finance team want to mention or answer anything into how it will show on our financial papers outside of my knowledge anybody wish to comment from finance let me just say it again so the if it's agreed it will be added to the capital programme with the funding coming in from the arts council and from yobaltown council we do have some of the funding referred to in a reserve so that would be shown it would be a transfer in but at this stage we're obviously just it needs to be added in in order for that to be shown to obtain an external funding needed yes so thank you just for clarity so we've talked about 1.25 million from ticket sales is that the entirety of that fund that sits somewhere or is it a an element of it and will there need to be a environment then across to get it into the programme thank you if I if I may come in chair the budget that we passed in february in the ear march reserves there was a line with 414 000 as a near march reserve which was the ticket levee and it references the octagon and there are other funding applications to other trusts and foundations in summerset southwest and nationally that are being worked on and I can assure you from my previous experience that if you want anybody to work on raising funds from outside the organisation there's nobody better than people who work in the arts because that's what they do all the time and to raise 1.25 million when there are already funding applications successful and waiting to be ticked if the dcms funding comes in and there is 414 million that was at the end of mark thousand four hundred and fourteen thousand I wish that would be quite a theatre wouldn't know we could buy the whole west end for that um then then that is already well on its way can I just remind colleagues that I think the most that's ever been spent on a theatre in summerset certainly in my lifetime and probably ever is about 1.3 million which were the extensions to straight theatre and the brewhouse theatre which was national lottery money when straight theatre was built and opened in 1963 the total cost of that theatre with a fly tower was 40 000 pounds and we are talking here about 15 million pounds as a total and that is quite remarkable for an arts project cultural project in summerset and if we are not able to deliver a cultural flagship for 15 million pounds working with all those partners then I'll be very surprised thank you chair thank you quill I think you wanted to come back yes mr chairman I have to apologize to the officers I I skimmed over the uh reference in the report to scrutiny's involvement in this I I do apologize and I will try and wake up or stay awake while I'm reading these reports for a bit longer thank you uh Rosemary Woods thank you chairman um I'd just like to remind councillors there's more to Somerset than South Somerset because we feel that a lot of this money is being targeted by to South Somerset and I feel a bit miffed actually in West Somerset that we're being left out we are part of Somerset thank you graham fan eggs thank you chair um Somerset is a wonderful beautiful great place to live even minehead um say Somerset is of course the best part of the county but that's not what we're here not what we're here to discuss we are to discuss whether we just put this scheme on the capital program if we fail to do this the scheme is dead in the water I'm proud as a Yobletown council member to have just discovered that the town council if it fully puts in its share will be twice what any other council's done in Somerset in history to support the arts I'm I'm really proud of Yobletown but I just wanted to remind um the financial side of the council that from memory there were a large number of planning applications in South Somerset in the last eight years or so that included 106 money specifically for the arts um and my understanding was that some of that money was to go towards this project so perhaps um Nikki Hicks could have a look through the books and see if there's a few more pennies to make Liz even happier Theo but Phillips I mean I was like the beauty of Somerset is its variety from when Canson to watch it but I was just wondering if Councillor Woods had an alternative place where she thought that the octagon should be relocated um Adam yeah you should put some to us thank you are you coming to me or you can't uh Councillor Woods because she's replied to that question I will allow her to do so oh she did sorry I didn't hear it if you'd like to set something up in West Somerset we'd be obliged to help thank you Adam okay I'd just like to say that come and try and tell residents of South Somerset that they've got a lot more going on there than what's happening in other parts because we hear all the time that we are losing out but I would like to say that I'm very pleased that when we were South Somerset district council we had so many fantastic facilities it's a shame other district councils didn't get up at the time and make these facilities in other areas we have wonderful facilities but we are very fortunate that Yeovil town council stepped forward are taking on a lot more services in any other parish in this county ranging from mudford wrecks the octagon to westlands to nine springs you name it that's because they're a hard working town council so thank you Yeovil town council for what you're doing bill revins um I don't believe that this is the forum for us to um compete with between different parts of Somerset we are one Somerset council the the motto is Somerset is Somerset Ayla all the people of Somerset and we are here to deliver for all of the people of Somerset we could we could equally trump it from council of federica smith roberts answer earlier that we are having a substantial number of social housing the first council housing to be built in in in something west Somerset some considerable time going into minehead we are delivering in all parts of Somerset and we're not here to compete and between each other we're here to do the best for all of our residents. Caroline Ellis yeah I want to echo that really speaking from a taunton perspective we're on taunton town council now we absolutely salute Yeovil um I think it is the business of town and parish councils to be investing in arts and culture and luckily because town councils are not under the cloche the evil cloche of whitehall and westminster and actually have the ability to actually implement things that their residents want I think that's brilliant and I think across the great county of Somerset we do have an amazing diversity we have a great mosaic of creative and cultural gifts and in every area it's our job to look after those to invest in them and support them so in taunton we have created our own arts and culture strategy we absolutely think it is our business to support our creative sector and there's so many different ways you can do that and in west Somerset has the amazing east key which has got arts council funding minehead has the amazing regal there are many riches across any any part of Somerset that you would care to pick out and I think I hope for the future if there's a change of government in particular that there is actually funding specifically to enable principal authorities to kind of really invest in a sort of coordinating way so we can all support each other so I absolutely strongly support this paper hats off to Yeovil town council it doesn't hurt taunton or any other part of Somerset to have really good investment in the arts and culture absolutely 100 behind it David uh thank you chairman I I think we've moved a long way away from just putting this project back in the capital program I think I think everybody's making some wonderful comments I think we have fantastic towns and parishes and market towns and you know good for them to do in all the work and for all hard-working town parish counselors fantastic but this decision is about just putting it back in the capital program and I'm not going to move it but I do think we it's a decision that we can all agree on fairly quickly okay I've got one um Sarah Wakefield and then we'll move to the vote on this after going to the vice yes I was also going to thank you I was also going to bring it back to the the motion my understanding and I'm sorry if I'm wrong about this is that we don't get the DCMS funding unless it's in the capital program it's as simple as that we've got 10 million pounds that we're hoping to leverage in to this council for this project we have to put it in the capital program otherwise we don't get that obviously we need to do it thank you Martin yes I'm sorry I've started this off really um but as usual I I was referring purely to the agenda item and what was on the papers and I was asking for and have gained some information about the 1.25 million gap apparently it's now it's now only uh 1.1 million which is very good to hear or is it less than that under a million but that was the point of my question I'd like to say that as an ex-South Somerset Councilor I have been I was on for 20 years on South Somerset and over that time supported the Octagon Theatre I uh they attended the Octagon Theatre on many occasions and enjoyed it and I have nothing whatever against the Octagon Theatre and I hope it will be successful the mere point the whole point of this is putting it back on the capital program which we're going to vote for in a minute and my whole question was on the financial gap and the end of the paper itself which says we um there could be a financial risk and that was the whole point of my question uh the rest of it wasn't thank you chairman thank you Andy Sandton who's going to second thank you chair um bringing the Octagon project back into the capital program we'll see that with the support of DCMS that we can achieve a flagship theatre for Yeovil and I stress for the wider Somerset as a Somerset Councillor and leader of Yeovil Town Council and one of the divisional members for Yeovil South in which the Octagon is situated I acknowledge I am wearing more than one hat this project is not only important for the survival of the Octagon but also to further regenerate sorry the further regeneration and economic development of Yeovil as a whole I look forward to working with fellow Councillors officers in Somerset Council Yeovil Town Council DCMS and the arts to see this high profile project to fruition therefore I'm pleased to be able to suck in this paper all right can I go back to Federica just to sum up and then we'll take the vote um really I'm grateful for the supportive comments that I've seen today it is about us adding it back into the capital program quite simply as um Councillor Fothergill said um so um I'm going to present it as it is and it will bring back updates as and when we get them thank you the uh recommendation has been put and seconded full council add the revised Octagon project to the council capital program on the proviso that a build contract is not awarded and building work does not commence until a devolution deal has been finalized with Yeovil Town Council could I see a show of hands all those in favour anyone against and there are any abstentions that's one okay that is carried right I'm going to have a short break for 10 minutes just to come for a break and then we'll plow into the rest of the agenda so I've asked the centre to turn off the arctic conditions so hopefully that will uh and obviously we've closed the door at the front as well so hopefully it will become a little warmer okay moving on in the agenda to item nine which is the first year review of the council's constitution uh Ross Hanley to present the uh report thank you very much we have um obviously some amendments coming in but if we take the report questions and then deal with the amendments after that hence Ross thank you very much sir sorry for jumping the gun there chair um as chair I said this is the first year of use of the council's constitution uh item number nine on your agenda and I'd like to point you on your printed agenda to the recommendations which are item number two beginning with 2.1 uh the development of the council's new constitution in early 23 followed extensive partnership work by the five legacy councils and was influenced by the experience and the constitutions of previous local government organizations in Buckinghamshire Wiltshire and Dorset reference was also made to the good practice and the best practice made from our five legacy councils women before we came into one now the council committed to review of the constitution during its first year and asked that the constitution and governance committee lead and oversee that review and then make any recommendations back to the full council at its annual general meeting in may 24 and here we are and areas of the constitution the committee agreed for specific focus included public question time procedures of committee meetings for council meeting procedure rules planning committees terms of reference licensing and regulatory committee terms of reference the scheme of delegation decision-making process procedures i beg pardon contract procedure rules and financial regulations now three member led working groups were established last october with support from offices in planning licensing legal and democratic services the planning committee terms of references were led by the five planning committee chairs and vice chairs and the lead member for economic development planning and assets the second one licensing and regulatory terms of references led by the committee chair and vice chair and lead member for communities housing culture and a third one was set up on council procedures and public participation i'd like to thank all of those on those working groups because they've been really absolutely sterling job they've put an enormous amount of work over the last few months and for every other member who submitted their feedback as well and i'll talk a little bit more about the process and the different elements of the process of the feedback as well member participation the three working groups presented their review and recommendations of the constitution governance committee workshop which took place at dean house in taunton fourth of april and following that in this committee meeting on the 17th of april i'd like to highlight the feedback and debate in relation to paper d in particular that's where the large amount of discussion the debate took place p paper d of course is the planning committee terms of references i'd like to thank members members for their input into this at both of those meetings we had some fantastic engagement from people right across the political spectrum of the council i know some members who put some questions in and officers went away and they got written answers later on really good debate and i particularly like to thank members of the constitution and governance committee we would spend about i think five to five and a half hours over those two meetings looking at these reports looking at these recommendations and particularly looking at the planning committee's terms of references it's good to see healthy debate and discussion on these important elements of the constitution because this is so important that we get this right now a little bit about the process a member survey was sent out a few months ago and there was large engagement with that and then the planning committee for instance each meeting members of the planning committee were encouraged to complete a survey at the end of each meeting which were collected up then we had the working parties which were the planning committee chairs and vice chairs and council roswike the workshop on the 4th of april and the constitution governance committee on the 17th of april so i do believe it's been a really robust and strong process there's been an awful lot of engagement right across the political spectrum of the council and lots of opportunities for members to participate in this the council will see the recommendations from the constitution governance committee in papers a to f and i do note the proposed amendment in relation to the paper d from counselors manston and filmer and i would highlight to the council that there's already been as i just said an extensive amount of work done as part of this review and the committee has already indicated they will conduct a further review of the planning committee terms of references by the end of 2024 and i'd extend an invitation to all members to take part in that further review i was talking um over lunch with a member of the council here and planning uh is something which evolves as time goes by um how planning committee terms of references look now may look very different in five ten years time and it's a constant living document and of course we're going to review any recommendations that we approve today we're going to look at these again and it's enshrined within the report in 24 25 we're going to revisit this and give us this due time and actually look at this again and actually see what's working and what's not working and how we can tweak this so it's already built in that there's a further review to look at these issues again and issues that are raised by members um in the proposed amendments and other questions we got from the members we will have the time in the next operational year of the council constitution and governance to to look at these issues and debate them and discuss them and also like to highlight the further review the constitution the scheme of delegation will be required in the next year as a consequence of any changes the council's target operating model and its organization organizational structures as part of the council's improvement and transformation program the constitution of governance committee will maintain a watching brief and oversight of this further review and we'll bring forward any specific recommendations of course in due course for the council which is the decision-making body in terms of the constitution and in closing i'd recommend and commend the recommendations and papers a to after council today and i call on my vice chair councillor curly if he'd like to add any points now reserve his right to speak at the end of the debate and potentially second this report thank you tim thank you chair i would like to second these recommendations and reserve my right to speak at the end of the debate please thank you is there any questions on the papers except those relating to the amendments yes mandy uh thank you very much just a couple of questions really and um just to also say i think learning wise on the very first constitutional governance meeting we had looking at this we were asked to set up those groups um i think i did put forward and ask that there were people on that group certainly with the planning that were not just chairs and vice chairs and again looking forward i would urge the chair to consider having some of the constitution and governance members on that group so you have that link back to the committee and they will have had of course the added information of those conversations that went on within those groups and i think that'd be really helpful moving forward the other thing i note with that is that the the two days consultation with councillors i have read and looked through all the feedback from councillors that's formed part of the papers and that was raised as an issue by a number of those comments that we returned and that hasn't probably been taken on board um the issue i actually want to bring up it's not around planning it's around the uh the financial part the financial regulations which were another part of the constitution we've reviewed um that did not have a working party there was not a huge opportunity to ask any questions and subsequently i had a large number of questions that ended up coming to the constitution standards committee meeting which was far from ideal i think if that conversation could have been had offline it would have been much easier so i will thank the chair for allowing me to put those questions um those questions have all been responded to and i thank the officers for that and that has resulted in a number of changes to the financial regulations which i'm appreciative of my question is i have been through all uh of the papers and quite a lot of the changes that have been made i'm pleased they've been made have not been put through as track changes so nobody else in this room will actually know that they've been changed and what's been changed so my plea is if you are going to have changes if you're going to track changes which the papers do make sure they're all tracked and i have got a list here of what's been marked as track changes what hasn't most of them haven't been marked in the paper so like i said everybody in this room will not know or not be aware um and my last plea again is to save time and effort and paperwork um where you have track changes on a paper you don't need the original you just need the track changes paper because if you read through all your documents you'll read through the original think you've read it all and then it goes into the track changes paper and you are reading the same thing twice so i think um as far as council is concerned as long as they have the paper that shows the track changes what it was before crossed out what it is now i think most people could manage to take that on board and you would save yourself probably a couple of hundred pages of paperwork today thank you chair thank you mandy ross did you want to thank maddie chill course actually for the questions she brought forward the constitution and governance committee and she put in a lot of effort into drawing the questions i think it was was it 17 different questions and i'd like to thank officers for taking those away and getting some timely answers to to mandy on that and uh she made a really really good um uh engagement on that and asked some very good questions and again i i note what she said you know when we set up this process i think it was the meeting we had in in yovo in last october constitution to governance committee when we talked about um the composition of the uh various different working parties and you know we had a very thorough discussion about that and i accept you know and hear exactly what you're saying and of course we'll have a further opportunity to uh look at all these issues all afresh on anything which is proposed and supported and voted through today in the next operational year thank you are there any further questions before we move to the amendment paper no okay we have two amendments um if we take the first one which is proposed by david mansell and uh seconded by bob filmer so dave would you like to go through the first amendment yes thank you chair now um as has been a bit echoey hopefully people can hear me uh okay um i don't have any adjustments i'm hearing very echoey where i'm sitting at least thank you yeah hopefully that sounds better i think it does thank you um as well have been gathered already the there are actually concerns about uh proposals in this paper uh related to the changes to the planning terms of reference um and there were a number raised but uh most notably and the biggest one was in relation to the provision for referral of planning applications involving divisional members to area planning committees as has been mentioned there were surveys as part of the process looking at some of the aspects of proposed changes and it is worth noting that the survey response on this one uh which suggested that divisional members would only have two days to contact the chair with planning reasons after the officer report is published that the majority of the respondents uh were not happy with this changed uh more um said no to the change than uh than favored it uh and some of those now um i've also been aware since myself raising concern on this area and like most of the other members i know what goes on in one area one of the four areas of the council but uh rather less in the other four but since i've said that there's problems in our area on this i've heard from other members who have said in the other three areas of the council this process has not been working correctly and there have been uh problems with it so there's been a universal problem uh throughout the summerset area in all four areas now if what was said in the constitution currently worked i think things would be fine um but for whatever reason uh what the constitution currently says has not been uh what has been happening in practice and as a result there are a number of divisional members who have not been too happy with the outcome and don't feel they've been treated fairly when decisions on uh referral to committee have taken place um the working group has been mentioned and unusually the the other working groups that are set up involved the constitution and governance committee members now for some reason the planning one had no members of the constitutional governance committee on it and this is where the proposals came from now it may not be significant um but one result of that is that um the proposals have largely come from one group on the council other groups were excluded from that working group um it also may not be of great significance and i certainly have no wish and i'm not questioning the integrity or the diligence with which the planning chairs and vice chairs and the lead member approach their task in the working group but it does have to be noted they have a certain perspective in this process um whereas others may have a different perspective on it now it is general generally thought when you're looking at something that it's important to involve a wide variety of stakeholders and to take account of a wide variety of stakeholder views my observation is that did not happen sufficiently in this case um the wider council membership was not represented on this working group and i'm afraid that may have been why we get to the situation we're at now it is really important and this has already been said about other matters raised today that the council's constitution needs to serve the whole of the council and serve the whole of Somerset that is a really important overarching principle and there's reasons for doubt in this case now the best way of sorting this out is to refer it back to constitution and governance committee and that is what the amendment what this amendment proposed to do just please to take the planning terms of reference the other working group proposals fine but please the planning ones they need to go back to constitution and governance committee they need further review this should not result in any significant um delay the important consideration should be to get it right please support this amendment bob film now thank you chair um i'd like to second the the moment that's been put um firstly also to thank the the chair of the constitution committee and for the work they did on the the whole report was massive and the amount of your committee had to get through was was a huge amount to deal with um so thank you for the detailed work that went into the whole thing i think my concern with the the elements that related to the the planning section is that particularly the issue has been raised about the the two-day call-in issue for members and i know a number of members have got real concerns of that that things can be missed when you've only got a two-day window to get a response in the planning service is probably one of the most forward-facing departments that the council has and is one that is engaged with widely by the public um it's also is one of the few ones where if mistakes are made those mistakes are literally set in stone if they are not cut out before the planning is decided there is no way of going back if if that gets missed so i think what we would like to do is as has been said by by councillor mansell is to ask for the planning section just to be referred back to allow other members to have a more of a feed into it at this point and to to help get a service that will be more responsive and and maintains the democratic input into to planning i know officers have raised concerns about delays that this might bring into the system but i think the the four district councils that operated before have all shown that if you've got processes in the background that work you can make it work with the democratic process being fully engaged with and that members have that ability to call things forward so i would ask if the chairman would be please prepared to take this back give it a second look and then bring it back to us again thank you yes sue osborne um thank you chairman i think i've substituted the last couple of times on constitution and governance and i have to say i support councillor mansell's amendments because i know this was of great concern to a lot of us if we're going to review at the end of 2024 and we are now into may 2024 i see no reason why we cannot bring it back now to constitution and governance to have another look at it and make sure we get it right now at least at the moment we have the staff to do it come the end of 2024 we won't because we're making a whole pile of them redundant so let's do it now and get it right and i'm sorry officers with the greatest of respect you are there to advise but it is us as councillors who get to decide and i fully support the proposal put forward by councillor mansell and seconded by councillor filmer thank you thank you um just to say that there was officer comments put forward on a separate paper for those that have read them um rost would you like to get very much so and and i thank uh again council osborne as well for her comments i know she's been a very valued substitute on that committee and makes a very full uh value contribution to it as well and make some really intelligent sort of uh um contributions and questions there i wanted to come back and some of the points raised by council mansell filmer and osborne and my concern is with these um recommendations these amendments i do apologize i think actually we're seeking it actually is seeking to do something or achieve something which is contrary almost to what they're actually suggesting um we've already said that uh the the process i think has been rigorous and robust um we're actually seeking at this stage at for council annual council to introduce new procedures which have not been subjected uh to the the process they haven't gone for a member survey they haven't been through a workshop they haven't been through a working party and i think you know this potentially making policy on the hoof here uh and i think that's that's regrettable and i think probably not the best way forward and i think the way forward is actually to approve the uh hang on a sec point of order i think uh the council is responding to the second amendment which we haven't come to no no no no i wasn't no i just okay if i can continue the amendment is to defer it back not to take all the um and i was trying to explain i was trying to explain that i would not wish to support deferring because i think that um and i think sometimes there's a comfortable position there is a comfortable position to defer to delay to not make a decision and not reach outcomes i think sometimes we have to reach outcomes and i think uh the vast i think the majority of the support and the support i wish to support i wish is to vote through this afternoon but what i wanted to do is and and again make the point crystal clear that we are already going to be looking at this again in 24 25 the valid points which have been made by councils mansell filmer and council Osborne and others we will have an opportunity to properly discuss and debate all these proposals and indeed more during the next operational year starting after after this annual council meeting the next year it's already enshrined in the report that we are going to be having another look at the planning committee terms of reference back to you sir thank you that is precisely what the amendment to paper d item nine the first proposal is to bring it back so we can do these workshops so we can look at it properly and let's do it now rather than kick it into the long grass till next year when we won't have the staff to do it or the will to live possibly let's do it now let's get it right now that is what is being asked by this amendment and i stand to be corrected by councilors mansell and filmer because it is their amendment not mine um let's do it now the other bit um recommendations to one that you go into next that is basically the backup that if you fail to back this then we would have to sort of proceed to the next part but part one um bring it all back to constitution and governance which would be the correct process so it can be done properly and let's do it now and get it out the way then it's not something else you've got to worry about further down the road when there may be other things we need to be focused on section 114 perhaps and i go to roswike and then quill ren thank you chair i'd just like to remind um members of three things if i may first of all planning is not supposed to be political and therefore having the chairs and the vice chairs who are the experienced members and the ones who are seeing it on a weekly basis if not daily basis as they see referrals it's not an unreasonable thing to actually have them look at it secondly the proposal i believe actually throws out all the changes all the amendments and i think it's really quite strong to say let's do it properly i mean for goodness sake surveys going to everybody who attended for six months every planning committee across the council and surveys for not only members from members of the audience for agents for applicants so there was quite a broad spectrum we then went and took um considerable line by line legal advice because this is a legal document and we need to get it right and therefore and then it went to the constitutional committee workshop and it was for them to decide who they wanted to be at that workshop and then onto a recommendation so it has been done it may not be done according to what you want as the result but it actually has been done i think fairly fatherly and and i think the the third thing i would say about this is that all members get notification they legally they are required 21 days you get 28 days so you have a chance to hear what the parish councils are saying this is an opportunity in addition to the 28 days where you can see the officer's report and and consider it i think in any any member dealing with quite a large number of planning applications which some of you are you know the ones you need to watch for the ones you want to see what the officer is saying rather than the ones you've already um heard what the parish council is saying and you have a a position on whether you believe it should be referred or not so it's not as if it's only two days it's actually two days as part of a whole process so i think it it is actually really um reasonable and the third thing is and we mustn't forget it this is a service trying to help people and get their planning applications we're working to quite tight deadlines statutory deadlines and if we fail to actually and consider applications appropriately then um applicants can ask for their money back they can challenge in all sorts of ways so what what is being proposed it's not an unreasonable way of doing things and i would also like to suggest that if you're going to do changes then you don't do them on the hoof we will go through the process again it's embedded in the in the proposals and i think to suddenly throw it all out of the out of the door and say oh we're going to do it again i think it's really quite disrespectful the amount of officer and members times to get to this position it's been huge i think we need to respect our colleagues that they've done their very best i think we all recognize that it will never be perfect for everybody and we will have to take a view at some stage of yes we'll look at it again and we'll do it it's in there and we'll come up with some other changes i'm sure planning is a live um process it's one which everybody in terms of members get has an experience every single week of our lives as members and therefore i think we will continue to tweak it but please be respectful please recognize that we've done something which is and there are many changes in this document just not just this one and we need to get that give those changes a chance to see how they run and then we'll review it again and we'll get it better next time again and we'll be listening again and i recognize um the point um being made by councillor chillcote that um having a some members of the constitutional committee may be a way of adding to understanding of the overall process and i'm really happy to take that forward i'm not in any way suggesting that shouldn't be the case but i do think we should respect our constitutional committee they've made some serious recommendations we should go with it and then we'll review again and that is actually embedded in the recommendations bill ren uh thank you yeah okay thank you thank you mr chairman um if i think one of the things that the proposer councillor mansell said at the outset was that the majority of those who came back in the survey were unhappy with the two days consultation i think that's possibly the the nub of the issue here that it's really not that long enough um and so therefore the proposal is to rather than wait six months for the review let's just have a look at that the whole thing again now i don't see i don't really see what the objection is to referring it back to the committee at this point rather than waiting five or six months towards the end of the year particularly if there are areas of serious concern council wyke has just made the the point which i i think is misplaced about this being political it certainly isn't i'm not a political person as anybody who knows me will testify but it was mentioned that the only people who were in this working group were actually the committee chairs now the planet they're planning experts but actually we are we ordinary members are all involved in this process we all have a part to play and so for us not to be involved in that decision-making process i think was unfortunate and so therefore hence the amendment let's take it back again let's analyze it through a broader membership and see where we get to thank you bill revins thank you chair and just take this opportunity to thank the members of the committee and working groups and the officers who worked incredibly hard on bringing a very detailed set of proposals forwards and i think it's perfectly understandable that some members will find something in a set of proposals that they are not happy with nevertheless there has been a process with which i am satisfied is robust and is supportable we've already had an undertaking from the chair of the committee that this is a living document will be under continual review and these points can be brought back and and and put forward at a later date i would also just just advise that the in terms of the redundancy point that was raised earlier just advise members that the uh planning services were exempt from the redundant the voluntary redundancy program and i would not expect any further um that situation to change so i don't think that's a that's a valid argument i think that's that one's a red herring i'm afraid i think we just need to focus on getting getting the the work that's been carried out by the officers and members here through we'll do the review and we'll look at it um look at it again with the points and concerns that have been raised over the next year david father girl uh thank you very much chair i think those that know me uh will know that i'm probably the least qualified person to talk about planning uh it's not my it's not my strength my core uh my core skills but i think this is a little bit more than about planning um and you know i do take exception a bit about the political thing this is not a political debate this is about getting a process right so that people in Somerset resident Somerset have got absolute confidence in the process for submitting their applications it's not about i think you said this is how we get planning applications approved it's about people having their voice in objection as well and that's where a lot of local members come in we are there to help people to voice their objections and i think that what we have now is we're taking up positions and this is wrong because we need to get the process right and there's a number of members which just happen to sit this side of the room whatever party and they're saying we have not been heard we've got some real concerns about this because when it gets to the public it will cause problems and we just we could resolve this and we could bring it back on i don't know june the 18th and we could bring it back on july the whatever uh and but let's just take another look at it the two days is the issue um all i'm saying is it's not political just listen to people that have got a lot of experience that weren't involved that could have been involved and they're just asking for more time to consider that particular point palin bradford take it mr chairman i appreciate all the work other people done regarding all this but uh we've got a gentleman in this hall we've done 14 years as chairman of a council counselor bob filmer bob is the chairman of one of the most successful councils within summerset now surely in my book experience of life counts for everything and really to look at this again that might be the right thing to do and i do think counselor counselor rosworn's right the time you get to sorting all this out there won't there won't be so many people to hand and analysts equip and i i do feel very strong about this i've never served under a chairman like counselor filmer you know exactly what he's talking about he knows the way they run the run the run things off the top of his hat no question about that at all and i think he sort of people should be listened to is there anybody else in this in this room who's done that amount of time and experience as a planning chairman i'd like for them to raise their hand if they have so i'm right experience counts for everything in everything in life john hunt thank you uh mr chairman um i have to say i'm thrilled because there's been lots of talk of uh non-political voting which is absolutely fantastic to hear and uh counselor um dike i think it was wike sorry my apologies um was saying that uh this is not party political in any way which is tremendous i hear from uh counselor father gill that also there's no party political from his side either which is tremendous obviously being independent politicians there's clearly no politics going on over here and in fact the nice thing about being independent which of course we all are at this meeting as we are discussing planning the nice thing is that we're independent and independent of mine and we can vote the right way according to how we feel it's right for those we all represent here in summerset so i look forward to the um the vote on this particular amendment and based on based on odds one assumes that 50 percent of that side will want to go no and 50 on that side will want to go yes and the same probably on this side as well because we're all thinking as independent politicians and i ask perhaps that we all do just that we think of this as an independent human being representing the eight or nine thousand people we represent in our divisions what would they like would they like this amendment or would they not so i look forward to the vote thank you very much mr chair sarah wakefield um yes thank you um this is interesting um i have sat on planning committees um and i do get a lot of planning applications referred to me as as all councillors do when they come in and what i tend to do is look at them and think this might be controversial or this might uh be something that's difficult and i write in straight away if i think that and ask them to refer it to the committee if they are minded to approve it um which is what which is what i think people should do you can always change your mind about that but i do think it's incumbent upon us as council to keep an eye on the planning applications as they come in and have some idea whether they're going to be controversial or difficult or against what local people want um so that you can ask them to be called and if you think that's important and i've had several where the committee chairman has said to me well actually i don't think we are going to call this in i've accepted it but i i really think what councils are asking is for a rerun of a decision or a group of um uh review that's already been carried out and they're asking for more time for councillors to ask for the planning planning process to be delayed while a further decision is made and i don't think that's really fair we've got a planning planning team it's difficult to keep things going in the time scale the government sets us to do anyway and i think there will be we have said there will be a further review of this in during the next year but i do not think that unitary councillors can keep jumping in say oh by the way i want you to refer this now it's too late to do that do that when you see the application if you think it's going to be controversial and then stay with it if that's what you continue to think so i do think it's incumbent upon us as unitary councillors to use the um materials that we've got and run the process the way it is supposed to be run so i will be voting in favour of the original amendment and not the amendment from mr man's councilman mansell tony lock thank you chairman never ceases to be controversial uh non-controversial planning applications do they you only got to listen to the debate in this room now firstly as a member of the workshop which sat with the chairs and the vice chairs because they weren't mentioned by a couple of members and the officers who put many hours of work into this proposal which is in front of you today planning will never be run never be right for a lot of individuals especially when it's not the application they want and uh one comment just now and i can't remember who made it i won't use names anyway um try to do what our community wants actually you try to do maybe what your community wants but within planning guidelines that's what a lot of uh you tend to and a lot of uh people tend to forget these days it's the planning guidelines which you have to work to i've sat in on many of the area planning committees i'm not going to comment on any committee or any individual but i'm surprised very surprised with some of the comments which come out there in the in the committees and uh you know that's the way it is that's uh how planning applications are but we have to remember that this workshop sat come up many hours come up with these recommendations to try to make this planning aspect of this authority work in a better way than it's been working in the past 12 months now there's nothing to say everything that has come out in that paper is 100 percent kosher and right and going to work planning can be reviewed any times it doesn't have to be six months it can be nine months it can be a couple times a year as you're working through the process if you find anything which is going to help make the policies work better and you make the tweaks you can make them as you go along but one thing i would implore you not to do is delay implementing this as it stands at this moment in time give it a chance from the people the pla the chairman the uh vice chairman and the officers who've been involved with planning to see if this works if it doesn't then come back and say this is not working but don't leave it to the last minute and look up and say oh we would like this changed i didn't know this workshop was going to take place with the constitution committee i didn't know this was happening what is your duty as a counselor to know it's happening and it's unfortunate that you didn't know but you do know because it has happened and uh i was watching your head go red bob when i was speaking over there sorry i had to just have a make light of it there but i would implore this council to go with what you've got this is non-political as it's been stated by many counselors this is something we have to try to make for our whole authority to work better and to work smoother one thing that has not been mentioned is uh planning and planning officers in any authority these days authorities are struggling to keep their planning numbers up one thing we must do moving forward is avoid non-determination because non-determination would cost this authority a lot of money moving forward i think you know which way i'm going to be voting on this uh recommendation in front of us and i would implore you to do the right thing and uh do the same give it a chance to work but please don't just sit back and say i didn't know it was happening i did i missed that must have missed that oh and all the emails i get you know it's uh it's disrespectful to the people who've done all the work over the years the constitution committee and it's important you know that we move forward as one that's all i want to say chairman and uh you know without the risk of repeating myself but as i say i am very very surprised and shocked as i've said i'm going to repeat this i think there are a lot of people on this authority who really need some serious planning training thank you okay thank you uh i've got three more speakers i've got dawn johnson henley hobhouse and then i've got um lee redman and then i want to go back to the proposing seconder and move on the vote for this who we've had i know but okay um we've had quite a lot of debate on it and i think we need to we've got another amendment after this one so okay dawn johnson please thank you chair um i i don't have the years of mr filmer so i'm sorry i apologize but i can say that i have been very involved on a number of planning applications my area does seem to have an awful lot of rather controversial ones um and i'm really a bit confused and you know we have 28 days to pass an opinion on on an application as far as i'm aware um all the two days is about having heard the officer's report now from the ones i've dealt with you get a fairly clear idea of where the officer is heading um and whether it's going to be either going to committee or not you could have asked for that yourself you know way back in that process so i'm not quite sure what this problem with the two days once the report's written is about because that's really not my experience of um dealing with planning matters um and also on the consultation the to me there's been a lot of consultation you know the public had a survey um had a consultation that they could participate in i shared it with my parish council i put it on social media anyone that wanted to comment on the planning has been given plenty of opportunities including all the all the political parties that were able to attend those planning workshops so i'm really struggling to feel that people's voices haven't been heard because we had the forms to fill in at planning meetings if you attend planning meetings you had those forms perhaps your opinion so i i don't think any further consultation is going to hear anything more than what it's already heard and the decisions that have been made have been considered and are what is proposed to move forward um i think that's all i need to say but i mean we have this opportunity to revisit if the two days is not sufficient for people not to be aware of where their planning applications are um and and to suddenly register something that that will emerge in the next six months um i think perhaps it's a timely reminder for every counselor to keep an eye on your your emails if you've got a planning application that you feel strongly about henry hobhouse thank you mr chairman i was very shocked when we started a unitary council that the unitary counselors were not consulted after the parish councils had been consulted because at the end of the day i've got 13 parishes i do not attend any of their planning committees there are too many i already tend 13 of their full council meetings i really don't need to sit and listen to all their planning committees and i'm getting told that 28 days that somebody wants to cut a tree down in castle carrey and i'm getting pretty sick of it to be frank with you and i need to be told that i have a parish council that is unhappy with the officer's recommendation do i want it taken to the planning committee and the answer that question is i can make my mind up in two days if i wasn't concerned or i wasn't i'd probably miss it but i've been doing this for 18 years and i'm sorry bob i've not got quite your experience as chairman but i was doing that for four years and it really for those who don't look at their um emails daily i really do despair thank you uh lee redman thank you chair i wasn't going to take part in this because i didn't think there was much complication there with what's being asked for this amendment but i just wanted to come in and a question first of all please and a lot's been made reference to this workshop that was held could i seek clarification the workshop was advertised to all members to be able to attend please ross do you want to i believe it was all members of the constitution and governance committee uh workshop and other members were there and members of the working party were there as well um uh david our monitor officer may wish to add to that i'm not but that is my understanding was members of the constitutional governance committee any other substitutes they may have had and members of the working parties as well so just for clarity so no is the answer then and he's out and you wanted to come in as well i'm sorry as for clarification and i'm sorry i'm going to seek to come back um that that may be so but constitution and governance committee voted for all these proposals they actually reported the proposals it's a crossbar party body all members have the opportunity to take part in the the members survey which went out to all members all members of any of the four planning committees were regularly surveyed after every single planning committee meeting it's it's just not correct to suggest that this has been a decision which is made quite tightly by a few number of counselors there has been open equal opportunities give me chair i thought it was my opportunity to respond to ask my question it was a relatively simple question i thought could you wait until the answer and then come back please sorry did you finish ross andy did you want to add something to clarify yes thank you chair um i think it's worth looking at the history of this actually because the original terms and ref terms of reference for the planning committees were um looked at by the constitution and governance committee in late 2022 um around about uh christmas or probably finalized in january of 23 before vesting day to my knowledge and i would like to be corrected if i'm wrong but to my knowledge there were no chairs or any planning committees involved in that consultation when we set the terms of reference the reason we've had this review is because what was set then wasn't correct and wasn't working we've had that review we've come up with some recommendations now and we need to try that out to see if it works to bring it here at this last minute to try and change that without due consideration that we have put all that work into um i think it's not right so i think we need to accept this document in its entirety try it bring it back for review as has been promised in the paper so i will be supporting this thank you chair so moving on so the question that i asked was is the number of things has been made clear today that the and my i just needed to get some understanding so the workshop that's been referenced wasn't made of a the opportunity to attend wasn't made available to all members of this council that's just a clarification i wanted in the first instance i wanted to go on to say i'd like to take the opportunity to thank members of the planning committee because they do a bleeding hard job they put a lot of time and effort in and they did but they're and i'm pleased to say i only have to sub in onto some planning committees which is which is useful for me however one of the things i do rely on is is our email process and the ability to be able to have time to review things sometimes as it's been made that as a local member we're made aware of planning applications at a very early process however there are other times when we may be aware of a planning application but not necessarily of any of the input from parish councils town councils responsible bodies standard bodies or anything else and the first time some of us members get to see the planning application in its fullness before it goes forward with the officer's recommendations attached to it is when we receive this that email that comes through to us i've managed to to adjust my system so a little red flag it goes on to a planning application when it comes through so that i try to look at it we receive as members a lot of emails some of us more than others some of us less than others there are some members that work full-time as well as do their council business the ability to see all emails in a time and efficient way isn't always there the five days allows members that little bit of an extra gap the way i read this the only point in the the amendment is is what asking to review is that two-day five-day period there's no other bits so as far as any other of the decisions that have been made in this paper were suggested there's no disagreement from it so all i'm asking is that because of the concerns that okay i missed it when i read the first draft of the papers and didn't get the consequence of that part but since it's been made aware to me and become clearer i think the ability to consider other what we're saying across the council to say please reconsider the two-day five-day decision element of the planning it will i'm pretty certain the majority of the other points will be accepted it should just give give us time to that's what this is asking to do and pretty it would be i'm pretty certain if that bit was changed from two to five now you'd get majority the the a vast majority of the hands accept it when pausing it i'm sorry won't be major would cause major problems because as has been made clear a couple of times today the current planning uh procedures seem to be working reasonably okay with some minor tweaks and changes so if we were to pause it to take a review then that wouldn't make a big difference of what's going on so chair i i i wasn't planning to come in but i just wanted to make clear that not all members were given the opportunity to have complete and out of sight of what was going on and this is a minor change that would make the system better for us so i will be supporting the amendment chair thank you lee just to clarify for your first part of the uh question can i go to david just to absolutely bottom that yeah thank you chair so just to confirm the the workshop um was a combination of the chairs vice chairs of the planning committees plus the the lead member and the constitution and governance committee but all members were obviously invited to the constitution and governance committee on the april 17th where the the matters and the findings of the workshop and the review were discussed at full length thank you hew i did notice that you haven't spoken at all i will allow you to come in before i go back to bob and to oh sure thank you so much i did vote for you again thank you chair chair um can i just say that when i was on west summerset i i wasn't on planning for a lot and i hated every moment of it but if there was a calling of three days even that was a nightmare because of the geographical area that we are in and and the way of trying to count each other because of we don't live in the same part of the world as it were even though we're in west summerset if you get the drift but three days wasn't long enough in some cases i had to actually go around in people's houses to get them to buck up and do the job together so if you'll reduce it from five to two that's not playing the game why why was it reduced by such a heavy amount why okay thank you there's any do you want to go back on that ross or are you okay that's fine i mean i'm sorry i i apologize to leave for a sort of butting in there and sort of bringing some wider points into the discussion i just really want to do if you're allowing me an opportunity to sum up i'd like to i would urge people to reject the amendment and say we will look at these items as suggested and enshrined in the report in the next operation of year 24 25 and all we are doing is actually supporting the recommendations made by the constitution and governance committee who have looked at this at great length which is a cross-party body i know that not everybody is satisfied not everybody's happy but the majority of the constitutional governance committee were and i think it'd be disappointing if we were to overturn any of their recommendations brought before for council thank you bob did you want to add anything before we go to the vote you will be coming to the proposal after me yes yeah yeah okay um i do want to take take his place so all i was going to say was two things in terms of some of the comments that have come back um one of the things that i think not all members are are getting hold of with this is this is now a two-stage process that we're operating on so you have first consulted as a ward councillor to make your comments on the planning application the two-day bit is what gets it to go to committee or not and so even whatever your comments were first time round you have to comment that second time to take it to the chairman and vice chairman for them to agree whether it goes to committee so that's the that's the concern that members have got you can have raised your concerns at the first stage but if you don't raise it in those two days it will not make it to committee and we lose the opportunity to have that public forum so that's that's the issue that we're there and and again i don't think any of us are trying to do anything that's outside of the constitution of this council the point is all these documents come to us for full council to allow every member to have their say irrespective of which committee it's been to in the past so we're just simply taking that opportunity to flag up an issue and ask with the greatest respect to take it back to that committee and have that other look so we can at least have that review thank you um right dave mansell before thank you thank you chair um it's been an interesting debate i think it has shown that there is a certain element of misunderstanding and confusion over what um is actually being proposed uh here just possibly that alone suggests there's a problem i think we should be clear that the survey response was against the proposed change that is uh has come forward um i absolutely agree and i think i suspect all of us do that this should not be and is not a political matter but there was a problem i'm afraid with the working group that did really it should have had wider council involvement uh in that process and the little that there was i'm afraid was insufficient um now uh regarding the changes that have come forward to the uh the terms of reference for for planning um yes absolutely most of them are fine they can and should proceed um it is not the intention to to to block them however there is one element in particular which is causing a fair degree as has been gathered of concern and think and that it will lead to big problems trying to disentangle that from the others at full council is not the ideal situation and not really what should be happening and that is why this proposed this amendment was to refer it refer it back the the problem is in particular about this two days and as bob has just highlighted um if you if a divisional member has a view on an application yes they should be making that early on and and there's a time limit for doing that at an earlier stage this is a separate stage right at the end which only starts the trigger to it is the case officer report and this case officer reporting comes entirely out of the blue you don't know when it's going to come but it will suddenly come to you and there it is and you've got it but you you don't know it's coming in a day in advance there's no advance notice of it um you could be waiting weeks months even years for it to appear um and then when it appears with these with the what has been proposed is you will have two days to look at that case officer report you've got to interpret it and you've got to think about the material planning reasons which you originally raised and whether they still apply or not and whether they've been dealt with or not you've got to think about it you've got you should be if you're a decent counselor doing what you should be doing that is what you should do you might be going to a full council meeting that day you may be attending three parish council meetings that evening and you may have something similar happening the next day it's not unusual it's happened to me last week and it's happening to me this week this is the way things go and we're being asked to turn it round within two days i'm sorry that is not reasonable um it we should not be put in that position now yes the planning process is to serve Somerset correctly that is what it's about and that does and the the public that's being served here yes it is the applicants but it's also those affected by applications and their voices need to be heard in this process correctly as well and one place that may need to happen is that planning committee and those members of the public should expect us to ensure they their voice when it needs to be heard has that opportunity and the proposed change i'm afraid could deny that now we have a constitution in place already on planning it's not perfect there are problems with it but it has been working along i have to say in this particular aspect i think what is currently there if it was done what is said in the constitution would work better than what is proposed so it's not my ideal but the current is better than what is now proposed here it needs a further look i'm sorry the proposals which have come before us are not right it is important that we do get it right and the right way to do that is to refer it back to constitution and governance committee for further review please support the amendment thank you can we have a name vote please chair we are we're just sorry can we have a name vote please how many people would like a named vote no that's snack done then okay that's not enough okay the uh amendment has been uh put forward proposed and seconded detailed on page three and page four of the document that you've been circulated could have a show of hands all those in favor um those against you over there it's barry clark to right at the end just on on this side was how many voted against sorry just to confirm that's fine too thank you okay the amendment falls yeah it's 35 4 47 against so it falls so now we move on to there is a second amendment that's been put forward again it's back to dave mansell and this time at week will rent a second all right thank you so i have to quickly get together for my head together for this one i i'd hope not to put this one i have to to say the intention is this one would just have been withdrawn if the uh if the referral had happened but uh well unfortunately it's not so let's try and correct the uh try and correct the problem see how we get with that um okay so um adding a bit of context um i found myself a substitute at this constitution and governance committee um i've been taking an interest in in this um i knew a little about what was had been going on i have to say i found myself really rather surprised when i started reading the papers and getting more detail on what it what happened the um it was clear that um probably the the planning aspects were the bits that were most contentious they were taken at the end of what was a very long meeting there's already been talked about um the the meeting and that there was a lot of discussion uh but for some reason the planning got pushed to the uh pushed to the end there was some debate i have to say for my judgment it was not dealt with properly at that meeting i'm sorry and that is why we've ended up now debating it today it needed better debate than it had then and it really what it most needed was good discussion from within the working group with a wide involvement from the council membership and and it is very disappointing that that didn't happen i do hope some lessons are being being learned um here now then sorry i've realized uh i've got my wrong bit of paper out so there we are amendment two i'm looking at it now sorry so what this one's about um this is now then it's um and it's quite complicated what's in the in the paper we've got a main paper with recommendations those main recommendations then refer on to the planning recommendations which are on page 180 of the reports uh the recommendation that is relevant is two point one one one two point one one one on page 180 uh and what the amendment now this one does is add a little bit of text at the end um and it replaces what um has been the proposed changed in the terms of reference five point six b to c now that does sound complicated i appreciate that what i would suggest is the full text is in the amendment and the amendment is in supplement two that shows the full text of what is uh what is proposed the the effect is to replace what has been proposed um through the uh through the main report and it very much focuses on this the two day uh the two day um uh problem that uh has been uh has been highlighted um okay so i think we've put i hope that we've probably got it um as i tried to explain just now this is all about the two days when the case officer report comes out and the divisional member who finds that they've then got a contrary view to what the case officer has said and they won't know until then um when they then find out they've got a contrary contrary view they've got two days to look at their material planning reasons and consider the report and then make a representation to the the chair or the vice chair they've only got two days i'm sorry that is not enough i suspect there's going if we go with this there will be members on both sides of this room who get caught out by this and the world be member the world be residents throughout summerset in divisions of all colors where members of the public are very upset with the the outcome of what what is risked if we go ahead with the change and don't don't amend it we will not be serving our public correctly now there's also i i hope made clear it is understood that division members have to have material planning reasons for their referrals that of course is important and right and no one is questioning that it's all about this two days what the the amendment proposed is is a simpler approach to this because what is in the current constitution and still what is has been proposed is pretty complicated and not a straightforward and simple approach so there is a simple approach here if the divisional members requested referral with their planning reasons and then at the end of the process if they find that the officer has taken a contrary view to the divisional member and do remember the divisional member is the one who has lots of knowledge about the local area they're the ones who live there and well have insights that result from that and that is the area they're represented to they're elected to represent now if the divisional member having viewed the officer report the proposal the proposal is with the amendment that it would be an automatic referral to planning committee if the divisional member had a contrary view to what has emerged in the case officer report it would be automatic unless the divisional member withdrew which they might wish to do they may realize they have no it may become apparent there's no material planning reasons for do so for doing so everything's been well addressed through the process but if they think they've still got some then they're right to think that it they may be right to think it should go forward so it should be an automatic referral onto planning committee but they could withdraw their request and that is the better way of going through it keeps it simple and it should ensure the mistakes don't occur some of which we have been seeing occurring over the last year quite as importantly it would also apply to both minor and major applications now i don't know whether it's been noticed that it has been said that most of the referrals come from the the parish town and city councils division members are not the ones with making lots of referrals they only do a few of them the officer response said it's mostly the pla it's the parish's towns and city councils who who do this so divisional members are doing it less and may have further you know given lots of consideration when they do it on the more rarer occasions now we've got a two-tier process though will emerge from the the proposals because major applications will automatically be referred to plan committee if the parish town or city council has a contrary view for some reason divisional members are not treated in the same way apparently our views are not counted in the same way as the parish town and city councils will be we won't have an automatic referral that does not seem right why why why are our why is our contribution not given the same respect in the process and i'm afraid that is part of the proposal that's come through um our automatic referral for major applications has been wiped away it should be there it should not be wiped away so please keep it let's please keep it back um okay what we need is a clear fair transparent and simple process that is what this amendment aims to aims to do i think i've probably said enough please please support it i really do see big problems arising for all potentially which could happen to any of us within this room if we do not ensure we've got this right this amendment will correct the problem in the proposals and i do urge all members to support it thank you will ren okay thank you mr chairman um clearly we don't want to go and repeat the the debate we've just had but what i what i would like to say in supporting this amendment is just to point out that we 110 of us are all involved in the planning process we are all we all get notifications about planning so i would ask you to seriously look at how this current system is going to affect you because it will if the current constitutional changes go through and you've already put your views in on a planning application they will count for nothing at the trigger point when the officers report land you then have to do go through the process again you have to trawl through the report and then you have to go back through the process again you've got two days to do that been mentioned i don't want to labour the point but this is on all of us this is going to be this i think we will all find will be quite onerous okay now the amendment in front of you does genuinely try and simplify this so for the first thing if the officer recommendation is ultimately in agreement with the views of the unitary councillor and let's not forget silence if you don't respond to a planning application that means you're in agreement with it you have no problem with it that will automatically go through through the delegation process the issues arise actually if you have a view that is articulated to you by local residents by parishes or whatever or on your own views of what's going on then you will put that in fairly early in the process i suspect because we all have a member member consultation form we are all expected to put planning reasons on the bottom of that and that is your view until you decide to change it you don't have to come to another decision again when the planning officers report falls that stays with it now there is plenty of opportunity for the planning officers to come back to you this also provides an opportunity for the chair or the vice chair to discuss it with you you can follow the process through to see if there are any conditions attached or being proposed that will make the application more palatable this i think is a much better system than the one that you're being asked to vote through today i therefore urge you to support the amendment thank you right if i can throw it open ross do you want to comment i wait to hear any other contributions first of all reserve the right to come back chair any other members wish to comment i'm looking along the lines oh john hunt thank you chair i i'm going to labor the point a little bit but i completely agree with uh what will has just said um it just makes so much sense and i have to say the two-day thing is just that a little bit too short all we're talking about here is extending that to five i think for all of us counselors there's not 110 of us here today but i'm sure those that aren't are listening it's going to affect us all we're all going to miss one of these on holiday whatever it is we're all going to we're all going to miss one of these and it could be the vital thing that really does affect those we represent and the applicants as well so i do think we should think about this highly before we vote it i should have had a bit of fun with you earlier on and suggested what the score would have been on the last vote so i'll do that now last time it was 47 against including two independently minded people on this side of the floor it would be nice to see that there are perhaps more variety this time so i would expect at least 45 from one side and possibly a few from this it would be nice to see that everyone does look at this as independently minded i cannot believe all of you all of you to a man and woman have the same thoughts on this i can't believe that i mean it's just not possible is it one or two of you must surely agree that this is correct thank you mr chairman roswike thank you just thought it might be helpful for some clarity on this because there's slightly different interpretations of what you've got and what this system is being proposed first of all you don't have 21 days you have 28 days parish councils have 21 and that's to ensure that you have an opportunity at the first bite of the cherry to actually hear what the parish council is going to say and you can then make your comments and i think you'll find that many councillors actually say at this stage i want to refer it or not once they've heard particularly the parish council um the the second thing about it is that the two days is to allow people to have a second look at it once the officers report now the experience of the planning department is that when you have five days most of the um referrals have already occurred and so majority of the planning applications are sitting there in total silence for five days so that's one of the thinking around it was trying to um save really precious time in the process now we could pull back um the 28 days back to 21 days to buy some time once you've um um you've received the officer's report but again i'm not quite sure whether people will turn around and say well 21 days it's not good enough i need 28 i think the point which is being made quite clearly by people is that you do not need to put in a second bite of the cherry once you've seen the officer's report if you've already asked for a referral and most of you who are experienced will know the ones you want to refer um then you don't need to do it a second time it's only for the ones and the marginal ones i guess where you may want to wait for the officer's report though indeed i think you'll find that many people um will find that picking up the phone to the planning officer or the chair or vice chair early in the process again helps matters and the planning officers do and respect the fact that ward members want to have a conversation early days on the conditions or whatever else so coming back very clearly you've got 28 days you've got 21 for the parish council gives you a week to consider that at any time you can put in a referral and the chairs and vice chairs know the historic information they don't wait for the two days around the officer's report so what we're trying to do is speed up the process in a way which actually delivers an efficient and a system and there is a commitment but we'll look again but just be be aware that it's not trying to constrain and one of the things i would i would suggest is that the current system has actually empowered our parish councils because in some parts of the county they never had the ability to refer and the parish councils that can refer to the chair and vice chair so all in all that's good and there is a role for the chair and vice chair and to have automatic referrals in essence the and and removes the authority and the support of the chair and vice chair on items on the committee on the um on their committees and i think we need to respect the fact the chairs and vice chairs are experienced individuals they have long conversations with planning um officers that understand the underlying issues as well as the maybe not so obvious material reasons so i reiterate please please take the proposal from the constitutional committee let's run with it let's see what they come up with with with a review thank you i can't see any more hands so can i go back to gwill and then obviously back to dave before we go on this one yeah thank you um i'm picking up a degree of confusion because the proposals as read i mean great play has been made of the fact that the two days act is a new trigger point for the local member to refer to committee and i'll take the trouble of reading through what the constitutional amendments say they say where referral the committee has been requested these applications will be referred to that's the first application where we put in we go back and say yes this needs to go to committee where it's been referred to committee it will be referred to the vice chair or vice chair of the relevant area based planning committee with a copy of the officer report and recommendation and copied the divisional member who requested the referral this is the crucial point the local council should be council member not council member the local council member will be responsible will be responsible within two days two working days of receipt of the report and the recommendation of informing the vice chair and chair with material planning reasons if they still wish the item to be referred to the relevant committee so it is indeed it is a trigger point you can put in your views as early as you like but actually if you miss that two-day deadline when the report drops you won't get it to committee that's what this that's what it says that's why this amendment's come forward thank you Dave Montal thank you well you've made the point very very well this is the the key issue it's about this two days at the end where if it's going to be referred to committee the divisional member has got to respond got to notice that the reports come through digest the report and contact the chair vice chair and that two days is too short that is not that is not a fair system it's going to if if if it's accepted it's going to trip people up all over this council um so it's it's not right please change it please go with the uh the amendment that will ensure the constitution can serve the whole of this council and also very importantly respect the important role of the divisional member which otherwise i respect is being sidelined thank you please give the amendment your support thank you okay the amendment has been put and seconded so we need to vote can i have a show of hands please all those in favor of the amendment yes any against so any abstentions yes that is 28 for 42 against and five abstentions so that is lost so that brings us back a point of order before you move to the next place please just a bit of clarification really um i'm assuming that the the six items uh six items uh on the agenda you'll be taking as a whole could i ask this is me speaking personally now and i hope it would be supported if we take each element individually let me clarify why if you take the six items individually there's only one bit that i'm not supportive of so it would give me an opportunity to support the other ones object to the one i don't want rather than abstain from the whole vote yeah so if we take each element yeah so we got one uh items one two three five even six are you saying that would be acceptable on block i'd like them to be taken individually chair if possible individual um okay if that's um that would make it a lot simpler i would do i think it's uh item four that causes the issue but if you're not content with taking them then we'd have to vote on the individuals okay i need to go back to uh tim curly and to uh our proposer just for their summing up before we take the vote thank you chair um i think there's been some really good points made in this debate both in terms of changes to the constitution and also in the procedure for constitution governance going forward but i would just like to reaffirm that this is as others have said a living document but also and very importantly it is quasi-judicial in its nature we must do the due diligence on this not make policy on the hoof i would invite all of these great comments to come back to constitutional governance at the appropriate time and the appropriate place thank you chair ross i'd agree with my vice chair has said wholeheartedly um these are well meaning and i understand why councilman and others have brought them forward but it is i think uh disappointingly council and policy on the hoof they've not been tested by the council as a whole for the process the members surveys and also constitution and governance committee and as we keep saying it is deeply enshrined within this report that even when we propose if we accept the recommendation on block or what papers one to six uh we will be having a thorough review and we'll be able to air these issues and have a proper full debate by the constitution and governance committee which is the appropriate place to have that debate in the operation of year 24 25. so i i would strongly support the members would support what cross-party constitution and governance committee recommended for four counts to look at today okay i think we can do this swiftly taking them one at a time um so could i see a show of hands all those in favor of item one sorry yes can i just a very brief point of order if i look at um the last item there's agrees proposed changes to the financial regs as shown in paper and the track changes quite a lot of the changes have not been tracked so i think you'll need to remove the track changes because quite a lot of them haven't been to if it's helpful i think you could just delete the words track changes because it is correct it's just that some of the changes haven't been yeah like i say are you accepting uh the removal of those two words ross and tim track changes be to accept that okay all right so that sorts that one out so going back to item one a show of hands all those in favor those against any abstentions so that's carried item two all those in favor any against any abstentions that's carried item three all those in favor against abstentions okay that brings us to item four those in favor you okay any against any abstentions so that is carried item five all those in favor any against any abstentions and finally item six with the two words withdrawn all those in favor any against and any abstentions that is also carried right okay that concludes that item we move on to item 10 but i have one eye on downing street and one eye on the meeting so as soon as anything comes through we'll let you know exactly what it is um is it is it now when you can't he's not come out here but he's going to the next two minutes he could have come yeah well he's coming out in two minutes come for a break come for a break and then once he's announced it we're back so bodies and panels and the calendar of meetings david thank you chair yes members will be aware this is the the um regular report that we bring to annual fuel council and it's split into three different papers uh paper a looking at the political balance of the council um and looking to agree the political political proportionality in terms of the uh allocation of committee like committee places um and also to bring in the to to nominate and agree the chairs and vice chairs of those those committees in terms of paper b um that's uh looking at the um appointment of members to internal partnerships and outside bodies and you'll also note uh on paper c is to approve the calendar of meetings for the council moving forward for the next um fiscal year and as the leader has correctly pointed out the eagle eiden amongst you will note that the constitution governance next committee is on the 4th of july but i think we will all be busy on that date so that will be a subject to subject to change and you'll notice in all three papers there is a delegation to myself to make changes throughout the year um in consultation with the group leaders and just for anything that arises as a result of changes that come forward and one one point of note um just in terms of the political proportionality we received a notification of a resignation from a political party um only yesterday that has a very minor impact on the calculations for for proportionality um that officers haven't really had time to bottom out at the moment um but through that through that delegation that's there under point five we will do so um in consultation with relevant group leaders if there are any resulted changes to committees as a result of that change um other than that i would commend the the report to to council and uh secure agreement thank you very much liz lation thank you chair i'll be really swift paper a there are a few changes paper b we've dealt with the changes under delegated decisions throughout the year and paper c the calendar nobody's come up with a better option so i commend these three papers thank you chair thank you and sorry chair may i just thank scott waldridge for his work with this his unfailing patience tolerance with me as i try to put things together and to the other group leaders who bring forward names as required thank you thank you david father girl uh thank you chair and uh i'll be delighted to second it just a couple of points to make first of all my thanks to uh scott waldridge in particular but also to liz lation who seems to put so much effort into this and it's completely thankless task so i would like to thank you um i would also just like to uh to thank all group leaders for finding common understanding on some of these i think it's important that we find the representation and move away proportionality in certain areas and i think we've come to a good agreement on that and last of all i i hope ross henley will be pleased to know that we've got one final amendment which is we are taking christine lawrence off constitution and governance and putting sue osborne back on there that's that's a change that's coming along and that brings us to sue osborne did you have your pen up so did you have your pen raised yes i did but not in relation to me um replacing christine on constitution and governance so i'm sure ross will be absolutely delighted and welcoming me with open arms i'm sure thanks twice jen i want to say i fully welcome sue osborne to the committee and you make a very valuable contribution to the committee and i want to pay tribute as well to christine knowledge for coming off the committee who's made a valuable contribution that was lovely to see christine have a quick chat and catch up with you lovely to see you christine today yeah and i i did have another point as well i'm not sure whether i should raise it here but it was a point about um the outside bodies um because we've got about 32 pages of appointments to as well as our own committees also to outside bodies there's an awful lot of them and i was wondering at what point in time we were going to have a review of the outside bodies how many of them still exist and still meet and still invite their nominated members um do they actually still need an appointed summerset council member because a lot of their historically and finally what is the reporting mechanism for members reporting back to council on the activities of these bodies from a council point of view because unless there's a report back what's the point of putting someone on in the first place and i think i'd have another question as well in terms of on the regeneration boards in terms of how are they now going to report back and to whom and when and how often are these proposed to meet so there's a couple of things in there liz thank you there is ongoing review obviously uh for vesting day we reduced from something like 250 lines down to about 150 one of the criteria for whether or not they should stay on the list will be reporting back from those who are appointed that is a really good point uh and what was the last bit sorry there was another bit that was really worth it yeah the the last bit related to the regeneration oh yeah which i think there's three or four if you count the octagon and it's what are the proposal as to how these regeneration boards are going to report back to this council um how often are they going to report back and to whom and how often do they meet uh so chair i can report that we're awaiting um commencement of employment for the replacement for joe warton who was overseeing those regeneration boards she starts lara bell is her name she starts in mid-june she will overlap with peter padden for a couple of weeks and then one of the things we'll be taking to lara in her early days is how do we cope with those regeneration boards how can they be most effective how will they report back clearly their advisory rather than decision making but what i have seen of them so far is they bring the local knowledge as you would expect and the commitment and they are extremely useful i think in in reporting as we've been discussing on planning they're really useful in bringing the local knowledge forward i think they're absolutely critical but that will be for lara bell in her early days so the view was at this stage and i was completely in agreement that we leave them in the list because if they're in the list then we review them and work on them thank you thank you chair thank you okay any more questions if not uh the recommendations one to nine are on your papers can i have a show of hands all those in favor any against any abstentions that's carried okay we move on to the next item which is item 11 which is the summerset council redundancies requiring full council of approval right over to you thank you very much chair thank you for letting me bring this report um so i'm just looking at the leader who no sorry i thought you were jumping in for a second uh thank you for letting me bring this report today um this paper is effectively required under legislation um which requires us under regulation to ask council to remove all packages um over a hundred thousand pounds um for anyone leaving the organization um the paper also covers the fact that for a couple of officers particularly the um executive director corporates and resources uh we do have as a 151 officer special protections which means that full council need to agree any dismissal whilst the colleague has actually applied for voluntary redundancy under the voluntary redundancy scheme this is still a dismissal by reason of redundancy so therefore it still requires council to approve the dismissal as well as the costs of that post um and we're also asking for delegation to me chair to be able to agree the final details of all the packages um making sure that all the packages obviously will not be exceeding any contractual entitlement people have within the local government package of employment and the pension scheme or in one case i think or two maybe the NHS scheme so the report itself just splits down and gives the background chair and the first section is about voluntary redundancy there are 45 posts which have been identified which need to come to this council meeting for approval under the voluntary redundancy scheme um all of those colleagues have voluntarily asked for redundancy um it was an open scheme to colleagues we did restrict the number of people who could apply not in terms of numbers but in terms of skills so jobs that we had to difficulty to recruit to posts that we would struggle to recruit to we did say we wouldn't take applications um i think we got um over 370 applications in the paper 201 have been accepted of which 45 need to come to you today for approval the second part starting at 317 in the paper is four um redundancies which are over the figure which need to come which make the 49 total which are a result of the local government reorganization work that we're still doing to bring services together um so those proposals are actually in line with the proposals in the business case of how we brought things to together these ones actually come from a certain part of the organization which has just completed its first restructure um it's worth pointing out chair the constitutional requirements so in section 3.2.2 we set out the reasons in the constitution about why the paper is here but there are say two reasons in the paper the first one is any package over a hundred thousand pounds must be approved by council and a number of posts are actually protected therefore their dismissal must be approved by council so the paper in the recommendations i've mentioned does both of those things um special members panel met on 29th of april to consider the voluntary redundancy applications um from staff executive service director level and um the other applications all fit within my delegation so don't need to come to full council um special members panel approved um the two executive director applications sorry two service director applications and the executive director application and but obviously full council does need to approve the application effectively the redundancy of a section 151 officer we've laid out some of the business rationale within the paper in section 2.5 onwards chair and the financial implications are covered in section four um this is part of the work that we set out as part of the budget we would have to do to reduce the size of the organization significantly and one of the things i would say which is really helpful um in terms of the overall process we're all working with the unions and officers to minimize the number of compulsory redundancies that we will have to take forward so therefore it was a very sensible suggestion on everyone's part to run a voluntary redundancy scheme first and see how many of the posts that applied we could manage to lose from the organization without significant impact on services or significant restructuring because of that so this is the list that we have got um we have late listed in section 4.17 to 4.10 the different terms which apply to each of our predecessor councils and the county council previous terms are in 4.111 obviously everyone is entitled to the terms that they still enjoy if they're protected so we will have people whose packages are different even if they're doing exactly the same job for the same pay because of the length of service they have the pension entitlement they have and the predecessor council they worked for will affect the terms under which their calculations are made so that is all laid out in the paper chair i wasn't intending to say any more but i'm very happy to take any questions from members bill over to you because you're proposing uh yeah i'll if i might formally propose and then um reserve my right to speak later in the debate but just take the opportunity to thank all the staff who are involved with this process um particularly the chief executive but also the to just to mention the exceptional services have been given by the post holders to this authority and its predecessors um that i mentioned in this paper um they have given outstanding service to this council and i think that should be recognized please thank you chair i second this and reserve my right to speak thank you thank you questions mandy thank you very much chair and obviously um huge thanks goes to all of those staff you know every member of staff is valued by the organization i wish them all well should it be approved today as they move on and forward with their lives but i just have a couple of issues to raise if i may and actually relates to 2.3 the dismissal redundancy costs of the executive director corporate resources and actually in particular to a line in the paper that reads the statutory 151 officer designation is proposed to transfer to a service director finance post holder by april 2025 which is a level lower than the executive director so i spent a lot of day at the day yesterday actually having a look around and trying to ascertain how common this was in the council i think it's fair to say about 70 percent of councils upper tier around the country have it at the highest level and about 30 down a level slightly um so i had a look at that but um for me and i'll pick up a comment that was in an article entitled 151 officers must remain at the top table and then it says too often in the current times section 151 officers find themselves outside the inner circle of management it could be argued that this risks undermining governance and financial controls just moving on from that i then went on to look at the sip from the solace guidance which we follow as a council and within it the governance requirements state that the cfo should be professionally qualified report directly to the chief executive and be a member of the leadership team with a status at least equivalent to other members the statement requires the this is the statement the financial statement that the council makes every year requires that if different organizational arrangements are adopted which this would be the reason should be explained publicly in the authority's annual governance report which we see audit committee together with how these deliver the same impact i.e why you not comply complying with the sip from solace code in short the 151 must be senior enough to be impactful my concern is this decision moving forwards the one moving the 151 to a lower level is not the right decision for this authority at this time so my questions there are three of them why given the financial pressure that this authority is under are we looking to not comply with the sip and solace code given the status of the 151 will not be equivalent to other members of the senior leadership team secondly when will the chief executive bring the plans for the restructure of the organization to counselors and will that include the opportunity to challenge whether this authority should have a finance director at the most senior level and finally in bringing this paper here today can you explain exactly how the proposed transfer of the statutory 151 officer designation to a service director finance post holder by april 2025 which is the level lower than the executive director will deliver the same impact within the organization again that's needed uh governance wise um i hope that you will um while some in the room will share my concerns um like i said i think uh for me it's the the wrong time given the position we are in and i'm absolutely sure that we need a 151 officer absolutely in the center of things with that power to be there for the decision making and be impactful and my concern is if you downgrade that role effectively to me it will not be as impactful for the organization so thank you duncan uh thank you chair and thank you for those questions um in terms of the first question um i have to say it is in virtually every professional body's guidance that their chief officer in every council should be reporting directly to chief executive at the top table i've heard that from a large number of different organizations if you look at things such as monitoring officers for access if you look at planning they all agree with that as well unfortunately that would mean the top team reporting directly to me would be absolutely huge so we have to make sure we structure the organization as we can um the 151 officer in future will still be at the top table they will have a dotted reporting line to me on financial matters and they will still be part of the senior team and that is not not just a case of when we meet with the wider management team they will be invited to attend executive leadership meetings as well as it's currently structured obviously in the new structure with you people will be looking at that model again but they will remain at the top table because i actually agree with the points you're making and that's it for solace make about them needing that voice in the room and needing to have that parity in terms of the second level of the restructuring happily share that with all members when we have something to share but it is a officer decision through me of head of page service how i deploy the resource you give me to actually deliver on the services that you want delivering so of course i'll consult with members i always always do and obviously we've spoken about the senior management restructuring already and that will be something where i happily take challenge and as you know from previous conversations on structure we do change things because people make points and so yes that's definitely better than what we had already so i'm very happy to agree that we'll be doing that with members when we have some things to share um i'm sorry i do apologize council chill i've lost your third point i know i said a lot i apologize as is often the case um so the thing is in bringing this paper here today can you explain exactly how the proposed transfer of the statutory 151 officer designation to a service director post holder uh which is a level lower than the executive director will deliver the same impact within the organization again that's part of the what you have to put in the annual return i'd be really interested in making those comments how in your mind you think they will have the same impact within the organization thank you and thank you for reminding me um in terms of the return as you pointed out i think a large number of councils actually have the arrangement we're talking about moving to in place already so i don't think there's an issue with the return and the languaging in there in terms of the actual impact i think the post hole has had a huge amount of impact i would say i'd suggest that they would have had that impact whether they were a service director or an executive director because it's about the person in the role and what we need to make sure is that all of our statutory officers and all of our officers to be fair actually have the ability to do that make that impact so they need the support they need the visibility and they need the empowerment i don't think a different person will have any less impact because of the structure because we'll make sure that the structure isn't an impediment what we need to make sure is we get the right person to follow and continue the great work that the current post hole has been doing thank you look forward to the challenge duncan i'm sure we will have it thank you chairman possibly not dissimilar to the concerns expressed by um council chilcotts so eloquently um i was actually at a parish council town council meeting last night and they expressed some concern over the potential over the proposed redundancy of the section 151 officer they asked the question is it wise to lose the section 151 officer or make them redundant in this case during the financial emergency and how are you going to ensure that you have stability and continuity within the organization and how are you going to reassure people outside of this organization that that stability and continuing continuity will be there because that there is some concern about what is happening thank you thank you for the question um it's always a concern when things change um you know managing change is a key part of any change program um we will make sure we have someone covering the section 151 role supporting the team as we move through the next um effectively six to nine months setting the budget this year but also actually restructuring the wider council and of course the team that currently reports a section 151 officer will be changing in terms of structural proposals and as part of a wider work looking at the tiers four to six as chancellor council chilcotts just referenced there'll be further changes in the team as well i think the way we reassure our partners that we will be able to keep dealing with their issues and support them in their activity is to make sure they understand what's going on what we're doing and we're very open about the process so you know we haven't kept this confidential we have talked to people we have gathered views from other colleagues of the partners i've spoken to a number of people as we've gone through the process um what we will keep doing is getting that feedback from them so something we do and i'm not talking about the individual section 151 officer i'm talking about the restructure in general if things we're doing aren't working for people we want to know and we can look at how we fix them in terms of 151 specifically we will have someone covering that post there won't be any gap there will be continuity in terms of someone qualified in that role and what we will want to see is whoever's in that role will be covering the post with the oplomb that the current post holder does i have to say whilst i accept the challenge of it looks odd to be part in company the original purpose of the vr program was to save money and we had a number of applicants and we had a three-year payback we didn't restrict the post sorry the vr program um from senior officers or and from the skill set that section 151 officer has so i think there is a need to actually also in terms of that process treat it fairly alongside all the other applicants but i do recognize the impact because the 151 officer is a key role within the council and someone that most people know quite well federica um thank you chair um whilst i think for me this is this i guess a sad day to have to make a decision because these are brilliant people who do great things for the community we are kind of being put here because of the position that we are due to central government not funding us i think my question um for you duncan is i understand why we've got to do what we've got to do but if we were speaking and we did a press release on and it's been out there in vbc news of the pension strain and the costs that we have to pay i get it i'm wondering if you can explain it simply so that we can ensure that we residents understand why these costs have to be incurred because it is quite for many people to see these figures at a time when we're in a financial emergency they can't put the two and two together thank you chair and thank you for the question now i i agree um it is difficult sometimes to explain the figures to people because the figures are just so big so in terms of the total costs of any redundancy in local government um obviously we're bound by law in terms of redundancy type costs none of people who will be leaving on this program receiving any enhancements more so than their contractual terms allow so that's the same in many organizations that the redundancy will be the redundancy cost that is the smallest element the reason the cost of them are so many people coming to council for approval today is because obviously involuntary doesn't see people think about what's best for them and their families rather than just the organization so we have a disproportionate number of people in the program who are over the age of 55 the national regulations in local government pension say that if you're made redundant over 55 you get access to your pension at that point unredacted sorry unreducted without any deductions that's probably better english um what that means is the money we're talking about in the column on employers pension cost does not go to the employee it is not a cash sum to the employee it goes to the pension fund and effectively compensates the pension fund for having to pay out that pension from the day of a redundancy earlier than they would have done if a person stayed working and it also compensates the pension fund for the loss of contributions they would have got from that employee had they stayed to their pensionable age so we don't have any choice in this i'm afraid this is national rules the government set the pension scheme and control it if our member if our colleagues are part of it if they're members of the pension scheme when they're made redundant then those rules kick in so it is a huge figure i do appreciate for a number of colleagues and a huge number for lots of members of the public who are struggling with cost of living crisis right now but the key thing to bear in mind is the vast majority of the figures and the tables that you have in appendix a are contributions towards a pension scheme to compensate it for the loss of that person's earnings and the costs they have to pay out they're not payments to the individual course the individual benefits through pension from those payments but they don't receive that cash them in any way shape or form rosemary woods thank you chairman um i was i i think speechless when i saw this um full recommendations um i think i i regret of course that we have to make people redundant but i think it was clear when we were made a unitary authority that there will be required less posts so i'm not concerned so much about that except personally for people what i am concerned about is the second part of this where it comes to 2.3 the dismissal and redundancy of the executive director corporate resources the 151 officer if you need a post you need that post because it's been shown after the last few years while my colleagues on the other side have been in charge they don't didn't really take this on board when they were elected in the first just after the first christmas of the council when we were just somerset county council i was asked about putting a forward a recommendation is that i wanted to know the figures for the last two months so that would have been october november of that year they were not available that put me in a picture of what sort of council i was now involved in we cannot afford not to have a fully constituted 151 officer we need the seniority we need his experience or her experience and that is what i would like to see i don't think you can just say these posts are being made redundant not the people the post and you're saying you're not going to have a fully recognized 151 officer and that is not acceptable and i'm sorry about that because i love you all but we've got to run the council properly and i don't have that much confidence in the people i see opposite that they can run it competently without a fully qualified 151 officer thank you sir thank you chair and thank you for the question i'll i'll cover sorry sorry chair can i ask for this proposition be put in two parts one for the redundancies the 49 people a separate vote on the 151 officer thank you can i pick up that point later rather than lose it you don't need to respond to them so thank you chair just to reassure councils we will have a fully qualified section 151 officer at all times we have a number of very competent colleagues already in the organization will be for the purposes the rest of this year making sure we have absolute continuity what the proposal does is say we will have a different structure in terms of senior management which reduces the costs of the council going forward the voluntary redundancy exercise saves just over eight million pounds a year it does have a payback period of about one and a half years until it starts to make that saving but because we'll be capitalizing the cost the revenue benefits of the council actually starts pretty much from first of april next year so we will at all times have a qualified section 151 office who is on the senior management team working with colleagues in exactly the same way the current section 151 officer does it will be a different structure from the first of april and a different person but there will be no gap in continuity and everyone who's in that post must by law be fully qualified. David. Thank you very much indeed so let me deal with 49 first and you know losing anybody particularly valid colleagues is really really disappointing a sad day but we've got to recognize that these 49 people have accepted voluntary redundancy so it's part of their life planning and therefore it's right that we should recognize that and support them and if that's what they choose the difficult decisions when we're going to be making a lot of people redundant who don't want to be made redundant these are the easy 49 if we can put it that way and we'll just leave it there but we I have a lot of concerns about losing the section 151 officer as an individual but again that's a decision that he's made but my biggest concern is the downgrading of the job and we can't have it both ways you can't say well actually we can make the person voluntary redundant because the job's going to be a different job and then say actually we've not downgraded the job it's one thing or the other so I think we're treading a very fine line and so I would like to request that we take these votes as separately so we take 2.1 and 2.2 as one vote and 2.2 and 2.3 and 2.4 as a separate vote I think they are very different and that we've got a lot of concern I've got a lot of concerns particularly about that down rating on the job and no place at the top table. Do you want to comment? I'm just trying to take advice chair if you give me a second I'm trying to understand how the logical work of agreeing to make some redundant but refusing to dismiss them I don't quite understand how we can have those two votes. Well the one vote is about the 49 and the second vote is about the section 151 section 151 officers part of the 49. Well then we should make you 48. Back Liz. Chair please let me try and clarify something at the moment we have an executive director of resources and his responsibilities are as 151 officer finance but also strategic asset management and ICT. My understanding is in the new structure if it is adopted and don't forget it's still out for consultation in the new structure the 151 officer will report through a through to corporate and resources if that is the post for an executive director and with a dotted line straight through to the chief executive where we are in an incredibly fortunate position to have a chief executive who really gets finance and drives it in a way that we absolutely need for the future of this council but that person who will be designated 151 because they are properly qualified and they have to be will have that absolute focus on finance and the other line management routes will change. So whilst I so if I if I can just use these as my final comments whilst I share the regret about losing specific people and I won't name people because we don't want to have to go into a closed session I share that regret I think from the point of view of the structure that may come forward we may have a slightly narrower but greater focus on the finance and that in my view may serve us better over the next at least couple of years. Or David whichever. So sorry I understand all that Liz and but I think that there is a perception here about losing the role of the finance director the corporate finance director and downgrade it to report through somebody else to the chief executive and I know you say there's a dotted line of course there's a dotted line but there's not a straight line and I think that's the big problem here so this is not about the individual this is about the positioning of the job in the new structure which gives a reason to lose that person under voluntary redundancy and all I'm asking is that we take the first two as one vote and the second two as a second vote having adjusted the number from 49 to 48 that's all I'm asking. The only thing I was going to just mention chair recognising the concern the paper today is driven by the voluntary redundancy proposals the proposals for restructuring the council are still out of consultation and don't close until I think the end of next month so I think we need to separate out the concern which is being raised around the structure which is still out of consultation is not part of the paper today versus a paper which you have before you which is about the voluntary redundancy process and the application in there the post holder you're talking about has applied for voluntary redundancy if we're accepting that application we have to make them redundant we can't say yes you can go on voluntary redundancy but you must stay the concern about the structure of the council is not in the paper today it's commented on because it's commented on the special members panel because we were asked the questions but the paper today is a result of the voluntary redundancy program and the applications we receive from the voluntary redundancy program the consultation on future structure of the senior management team is out of consultation hey did you want to come in yeah that actually makes it worse if we haven't completed a restructure then how do we know that that role is redundant and if we don't know that that role is redundant how can we vote to make that role redundant if your consultation is not complete surely that is an unsafe decision for us to be making today from the explanation you just gave yeah thank you for the question that's exactly why we've got the delegation in and we're not dismissing anyone till we finish consultation process but people couldn't wait until the end of the process and apply for voluntary redundancy because we agreed with the unions we do voluntary redundancy first but people will not be leaving on the paper or the person the post holder in question will not believe in the organization before we conclude and if we decide that that's not the way we're going then it wouldn't be but we have done the assessment through the vr panel that we can lose that post and that was a question so the fact we have to do the restructuring to actually pick up that is part of the process that we would have had to follow anyhow so if that came to pass the situation you're talking about then obviously we'll be talking about that again and that wouldn't go ahead but at this point in time that is the proposal and we have the vr application as part of that process quite appropriately and i think i'm struggling a little bit in right in public session chair to keep talking about an individual it's starting to feel very unfair baby just want to come back yeah this isn't about an individual it's a about a role and you make a post redundant you don't make an individual redundant and i would refer back to everything that councillor chilcot and and councillor fothergill have said but i think that bearing in mind there is an individual behind the post what you're saying you are going to do is make a decision now which will affect an individual and their post which may then get rescinded when you finish your consultation which feels like a very difficult position for a member of staff to be in while you're waiting for your restructure to be through consultation so if anything i think we're getting more into the weeds with what we're talking about here than coming out of them i have to just let the processes that we have here we have an application we have a number of applications for voluntary redundancy from individuals we set a three-year payback period we did take a few people not the post holder we're talking about i should say slightly in excess of that where it made operational sense to do so in a couple of those cases we will need to restructure the organization to lose those roles and make that stack up and that's minor restructuring in that sense the fact that in this case the post holder is a more senior role unfortunately we can't do the restructuring and have voluntary redundancy the two don't work voluntary don't see people asking to go because we think we can manage without that post going forward which is exactly what we do think and what the vr panel decided if we wait until after we decide to structure then that's compulsory redundancy and that's what we've been working try and minimize the number of people we make compulsory redundant so we have to run the processes the way we've run them i take the point and at this point in time we believe i believe because that's a proposal we put out for consultation that we can manage without that post going forward but that is a different process for the reason the paper is here today thank you i just wanted to ask a question which i think might shed some light on some of the concerns which have been raised your consultation on the tiers two and three structure is still a consultation and the outcome of that will be determined whilst i'm not advocating a change to that would it be possible following that consultation for a different approach to be taken so that there was still a 151 officer who was at tier two but was not the same role as currently exists is it necessary from the decision that we're making today that the 151 officer will in future sit at tier three or could it be a different structure with a different set of responsibilities and still have them at that post what the reason i'm trying to make that point is not that i'm necessarily advocating it but i want to make it clear to everyone that the decision we are making today is not that the 151 officers should in future sit at tier three that's a later decision and this doesn't necessarily lead to that happening yeah i well i would agree with that as the point i was making earlier the paper is not about the future structure and in that case council but philip outlines yes it is quite possible as a result of the consultation we come with a different structure entirely which still doesn't have the current job the way it sits at present and has the responsibility to separate it differently so yes that's quite possible there will be changes with all the consultation that's why we consult in which case obviously we'd still be in a position of working out what we need to do with the post as i keep coming back to the paper today is about the individuals who have applied for voluntary redundancy it's not about their post per se it's about the fact that they as individuals so i agree entirely with comments made earlier that we make posts redundant not individuals but in this case it's voluntary redundancy the individuals have asked us to make them redundant therefore that's why the paper is before you but council but felt absolutely right the structure could well change as a result of the consultation into something entirely different again uh thank you um just to reiterate what the chief executive said that the section 151 officer will be at the top table and this whole organization will maintain its laser-like focus on resolving the financial emergency that we find ourselves in um i see no difficulty or contradiction in voting um through for this uh v vr package um there is nothing easy about any of this process it is it is truly heartbreaking what people will have the difficult choices that people have had to make through this and i reiterate my thanks to all those who are involved in the process and all of those who contributed to this council over a long period of time thank you rosemary you wanted to bring a new point yeah i just want to make sure that we'll be given a choice to vote separately on this because to a lot of us the actual do what we see from what you've given us and that's what we go on is that the 151 officers post will be made redundant you can't make a person redundant under this it has to be the post and you're saying well actually we're going to do it a different way how can we get that assurance oh i believe i believe that uh it is up to you how to structure the vote so you could i don't i'm checking the standing orders i can't see anything about voting on motions in past in parts even though um that is something we do customarily i do wonder whether on july the 4th the constitution committee might look at that oh no they won't be um if it helps we could vote on 2.3 and 2.4 first and if if that they aren't carried we could then amend 2.1 to be 47 rather than 48 sorry 48 rather than 49 i did not be reading glasses on um does that help yeah but i'm just i'm just kidding to move on and make yeah that's right if that's acceptable then we could do it that way so if we voted on 2.3 and 2.4 to start with and then move back from that yeah okay so we've we've had those two points um proposed oh sorry john hunt sorry jay yeah just a very quick point i don't know where else to fit this in it's not it is relevant um and i have brought it up before but i want to make sure that we are those people who've applied for uh vr and got it obviously that's what they want and they're on the way out but those who also applied and didn't get it are a concern in terms of how demotivated they may now be and feel and i have mentioned this before i know but i thought it'd be nice to do it in this scenario it's important clearly that we look after those staff members as well and make sure they're getting the um the duty of care that we have for them and make sure they're getting that care and mo and motivation as well i think that's that's extremely important just to make that point while we're here thank you going back to the um i think now if we can move to a vote on 2.3 and 2.4 uh which is now proposed and seconded so if we could see a show of hands all those in favor you could you vote um okay okay those against any abstentions so that vote is carried so that brings us back to 2.1 and 2.2 as written um that is obviously being put um yes liz if you say as written that's 49 posts you know and that's correct so we're taking the 49 so that is all of the posts on the spreadsheet the lgr on the br okay thank you 2.1 and 2.2 as written so all those in favor please show you those against and abstentions okay that is carried okay moving on to item 12 on the agenda which is the scrutiny review bob filmo please thank you chair and just a brief run through the agenda item 12 so this is a report back from the scrutiny review that took place which was uh organized with the five chairs of the the script the scrutiny committees and built on the previous review which i think was led by councilor buck philip um basically uh we decided we had a light touch review of the the scrutiny process that is currently operating um it is then the recommendations were taken to corporate scrutiny and were debated there and were amended slightly and have also been to the executive for them to to look at as well um the idea was to say build on the previous review that took place uh it was felt very much that with the current pressures the council is under the role of scrutiny is especially important at this time and that it was felt that the review that we've taken forward will strengthen the role of scrutiny within the council um we've also as you'll see from the recommendations built in a further review of scrutiny to take place later this year to see if there are any further requirements that need looking at um wanted to take this opportunity also to thank the executive because i know all the chairs of the committee had mentioned that the attendance of the executive at scrutiny has been useful over the last 12 months and we appreciate them coming to uh to hear from the horse's mouth what uh other members feel um and also want to thank you chair for for moving us up the agenda so we could be taken earlier in the meeting um so thank you very much for that but hopefully if members have seen the report they've seen the recommendations and i've put them before you thank you lee resman chair i'm happy to second with the uh i'll wait to respond thank you okay are there any questions yes please chair i'd just like to thank scrutiny um for their good work here in in this room when we were working through budget setting because they made it very clear how valued scrutiny was and the importance of the number or maximum number of 13 members on each of those scrutiny committees and that led us to change recommendations at the executive meeting before full council thereby proving the value of scrutiny thank you chair build uh yeah i just wanted to to add my thanks to um this those who are involved with this review particular chairs of scrutiny um i'm i support particularly um item four on the recommendations to bolster the communications with the executive and what i would like to do with executive meetings is bring in the chairs of scrutiny early in the debate when we have papers that been through scrutiny so that is directly fed in before the executive members have their debate i think that will show a a willingness to engage in in scrutiny um and to take on board your comments and when we make our decisions so very much welcome at that point in particular thank you any other questions yes thank you just a comment um absolutely value scrutiny all the work that they do they're absolute uh essential in terms of governance especially given the challenges that we are facing will continue to face in the in the coming years um i would just ask really we've got the all the scrutiny reports annual reports coming to us today um i just actually like to make a suggestion that at each full council we get one scrutiny's annual report because i think there's such a lot of good work that they do there's a lot of reading to read them all and they only get their sort of three minutes as chair i think scrutiny deserve more i'll just leave it there lee did you have your hand up the bat i was i've got a point of clarification before i finished formally seconded yeah that was what i was going to do sorry it's okay there were no hands up at there were no hands up at the time when i put my hand up so i i'll wait are there any further questions sue yes it's just a comment chairman but when this came to i think it was corporate to corporate and resources i think or constitution when we saw that paper um to feed back on um i have to say i felt there was very little to um query in this paper i thought the scrutiny chairs had worked extremely well together to produce a very good coherent set of um proposals and i think it does show the benefit of what happens when you do have a far more balanced mix of people feeding in and i think the quality of this paper does reflect that and i'm more than happy to support it thank you just back to you lee and then obviously back i'm happy to second that i'd just like to just double check one small point if i could item 10 of the proposals talks about the dedicated scrutiny resource from democratic services team and i just wanted to formally get this confirmation on on record for the minutes of um bullet point 3.11 specifically talks about the makeup of that dedicated scrutiny team can you please confirm that bullet point 10 in the recommendations is the same as bullet point 3.1 so in effect the scrutiny resource is as detailed there which is one scrutiny manager one governance specialist team leader two committee clerks and two scrutiny researchers as a minimum someone answer that everybody's looking at screens but any ideas no i forgive me jeff for dropping it in like this it's just the thing is i've been around for a while now and i like to make sure that my the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and if if it's the recommendation we're agreeing isn't necessarily a team of that saying the team of that size is just talking about a dedicated scrutiny resource that might be one scrutiny officer sorry i'm splitting hairs but i just wanted it recorded that's all thank you chair i unfortunately i don't think we can make that 100 commitment at this stage and just because the makeup of the team is subject to subject to restructure as along with the rest of the rest of the authority itself which will be subject to consultation um so we we would need to take all of that um that feedback into account before settling on the on the final structure ros you may be surprised to hear me say something but i i actually understand your request i always fought in local government that there is access to internal audit for the audit committee and i always felt that there should be some sort of reciprocal resource available to scrutiny i don't know where we are in terms of the reorganization and resources but i think we should just recognize that your request is not an unreasonable one bob back to you yeah i think hopefully if if members are happy to to to agree with the recommendations here i think it will be certainly the the view of the five chairs and i don't want to speak necessarily for them is is that we do need for scrutiny to be effective you need to have a a team that is actually of a workable size um so were it not to be reflected what is in here i'm sure scrutiny will be raising that with the executive and taking it forward with them okay yeah i'm a big believer in goodwill and i'm happy to second the proposal as written with a caveat that we ensure that there's clarity afterwards and just to let if the team isn't that big i will be in front of county hall with my placard right that being said we can now uh can i have a show of hands all those in favor of the recommendations anyone against and and any abstentions okay that is carried okay moving on to item 13 i did promise at the last meeting that i would give the five scrutiny committees their go so what i'm going to do is go to each member quite quickly give them the opportunity to say something take any questions and move on to the next so lee you're at the top of the party chair thank you for the opportunity to speak to a fully packed house this evening and for listening to mine and the other chairs request to allow time for scrutiny committees to be heard on the agenda i must open by thanking the officers from democratic services for their help over the past year particularly fiona as our clerk this is the first time the annual report has come to the meeting in this format and i think councillor chillcock made reference to it earlier it is not quite the annual report that we wanted this report is more of a actions as opposed to report annual report however members will note the work completed by my committee the membership has recently changed a little i thank those members that have moved on and welcome the new members it really is pleasing to see the enthusiasm members are showing in the last year one of our dedicated co-opted members has stood down so a special shout out to eileen tipper the strain on budgets is always one that we try to keep on top of external placements and home to school transport are not just a summer set issue a problem exacerbated by influences outside of our control the committee completed work on both topics in the last year and continue to monitor the problem cannot be solved locally unless there is a national solution locally we can only able to use sticking plasters one of the sticking plasters is the amazing work that homes and horizons are doing for us i continue to ask officers to be selective in how we increase the weight we are placing on this service let's not risk breaking it with overburdening them these young people deserve the opportunities they are now getting i wanted to make mention of what we may be drilling down on in next year we have already identified the designated school grant as the next landmine for ours and most councils it looks like the current government has kicked that one down the road particularly after the announcement earlier we have asked officers to bring a paper to our next meeting with details on how they are considering to close the gap a big thank you to me for my vice chair she's been an amazing support and has taken lead for the committee on the new education standards panel she has embraced the opportunity at our next meeting we are putting time aside to take a deeper look at the children's services transformation plan i thank the members of the committee that have have agreed to take time to better understand elements this helps us to cover topics in more detail finally we have been co-opted we still have co-opted member vacancies so anyone with any links into governing bodies please try to sign post them in our direction and i want to close by thanking officers members including the co-opted members for taking such an active role in our agendas i think the next few months are likely to be some of our hardest a quick shout out to senior leaders and our executive one of the most rewarding things scrutiny can do for a scrutiny committee and council is help with policy development i keep asking and i've acknowledged the leader council's comments earlier that you would consider this going forward thank you all i'm happy to take questions any questions for lee if not we'll move on to the next scrutiny and martin dimory's night give me i'll be really super quick but i just really want to say thank you i want to say thank you to to lee and to eve evey and to all of the scrutiny team they're doing a splendid job and the officers support them very well but um yeah they've done a really good job this year so i just want to say thank you very much okay henry hop house you're covering the next thank you mr chairman i'm going to be very much shorter um the climate and place scrutiny committee has been working hard we've just had a specialist uh look at the water and the mitigation across summerset we've run a task and finish group on renewable energy and a we're just starting another one on the mitigation the nutrient neutrality and mitigation uh and we've been filling in for the planning committee answers on regularly asked questions in planning uh the normal work um will continue i want to thank the staff that support us martin dimory and uh i was not here today which is why i am speaking on his behalf thank you yes ross thank you i'd just like to say thank you to you and your colleagues for your contribution to the myth buster um document which we'll be sharing with all members on planning issues particularly related to the wider environmental um agenda which is going to be increasingly a challenge for planning committees and in fact all members in planning applications so the contribution of your committee is really welcome go ran uh thank you very much mr chairman and i'll try and be reasonably brief communities scrutiny as you can see has met several times this year and we covered a wide range of topics from housing the glastonbury festival rough sleeping and taxis one of the more unfortunate topics we covered was cctv we had a very good presentation from the staff and we'd arranged a visit to go and see what they were up to which had to be cancelled due to the changes proposed in the result of the financial emergency um and so on that basis the i have to say that the staff in communities have worked very very hard and this is one of the directorates that has balanced its budget but nevertheless taken one of the largest proportion to hit in terms of having to cut back which is one of those things i suppose and it's a it's a true compliment for the dedication of the staff that they keep on going under difficult circumstances and to an extent understanding or shifting sands um so thank you very much to chris hall and and all his team and thank you federica smith roberts for all the support she's given um it's it's very good to have a very involved and knowledgeable executive member and that's not mentioned insult to the rest of you but fed and i think work reasonably well together um one thing that we have noticed over the years is that there is to a degree a crossover between the directorates and that occasionally has been slightly difficult to resolve um although the anticipated reduction in the number of directorates going forward will no doubt help to resolve some of those issues um but i commend the report to you uh we will continue work there are subjects keep on coming back like glastonbury we'll be doing a wash up on that in a couple of months time and of course the octagons we've heard about this this afternoon thank you um thank you chair um just wanted to say thank you to the committee gwil to yourself as chair and ray thank you for your kind words and to dawn as vice chair and all the committee members we have such a broad array of topics that can be discussed at this scrutiny meetings that cover obviously the whole geography and the summer set and so to tackle them all and to provide the constructive feedback that you do do i know involves a lot of hard work to understand and understand how they impact the different localities so very much great for your time and effort thank you chair um just again as as my previous chairs have said to thank the officers and members who have attended the the meetings that we've held and also the substitute members who have come along as well that's been really useful to have that input uh like to take the opportunity of thanking my vice chair uh who has been a support during the year um we've now as members would have seen from the diary that we agreed earlier for a calendar of meetings that we now have got the situation where corporate resources has now been put in front of the executive so that with the budget papers we can allow members to have that input to the executive which i think the officers and members who've been involved in sorting that it will hopefully make our comments more timely and useful um obviously as as you're all aware um from the report you've seen we've had a range of topics we've covered obviously budget management and scrutiny has been element of that which is is significant um and just in terms of going forward we do have an ongoing task and finish group looking at the lcn's which is being led by by my vice chair uh council hobhouse so uh again a busy year coming forward again thank you to the executive we've had a number of executive members who have attended and whilst you can pick up from reports and from minutes being there and actually hearing the discussion i think is often really helpful so thank you for spending the time for making that effort and thank you liz and i'd like to thank the chair the vice chair all the members of the committee that committee like order has had a really heavy load over the last year and i have no doubt that will continue but it is a very knowledgeable and committed committee and i i really thank them right last but not least and online it's still oh thank you chairman can you hear me yep you're fine thank thank you very much and apologies i'm not here today but i hopefully will will be very soon um i would like to thank all the officers for the new format for this report showing the high level overview of all the work undertaken by the scrutiny committees as chair of the scrutiny committee for adults and health i'm acutely aware of the responsibility we have to look into the quality of service and the value for money as this is such a large part of the somerset council's budget this committee has a duty to understand and be a critical friend in all areas to ensure that we are getting the best value and also looking to make savings that enhance the services not undermine them i would like to add to the detail already submitted in response to the public report critical of maternity services in somerset we have a report coming to the committee in july and have a report on the home assessment arrangements for western hospital as there have been some local concerns about these and i wanted the committee to have an opportunity to understand and offer some challenge if the information shared in somerset is correct there are two focus events this month looking at the lga peer review and another looking at the local stop smoking services i would welcome all counselors engagement and particularly thank the executive members with our scrutiny committees as they undertake a very valuable role in supporting somerset council in these very challenging times and i finally must thank jenny murphy governance specialist democratic services for supporting me and committing and her commitment to myself as i've had an extremely challenging 2024 as you know i also want to thank my vice chairman and all the committee who show total commitment to it and we will continue and we will we will look forward to the next year coming on and thank you very much mr chairman they're awake yes i'd just like to thank jill and her committee for welcoming me um relatively new in the post we've had some good a good meeting and i'm hoping for going forward that we will have more interactive responses and i will be able to bring forward the things they want to talk about and talk about more knowledgeably than i can yet but i am learning but no thank you very much still in the team thank you thank you thank you it's that item we move on to item 14 decisions taken since last council meeting bill for you uh thank you to formally introduce the report this covers our key decisions made by the myself the executive or lead members or officers under the scheme of delegation between the 12th of April and the 10th of may um and uh if there are any questions on this be more than happy to take them any questions on the report okay we're asked yes sorry mandy really sorry it's around the um pspos for minehead and if i'm out of date on this i apologize but when i last looked there wasn't anything online now i've been waiting for it to go online so that i've got somewhere to refer people to because i get a lot of questions about it i'm just wondering if anybody's got an update on that and i don't think the sign is up yet so there's a lot of falling out at the moment because it's not anywhere to direct people to and the signage isn't then it's causing some ill will thank you yeah fed i haven't got that data when the signage will go up but i'll get back to you mandy and i'll make everyone aware and it needs to be online as well okay thank you that report is for noting moving on to item 15 it's the annual report of the leader of the council and this will include the chair and the question from lee under annex b um would you like to set the question on the report first whichever you would like uh lee do you want to do your question looking at the time i have this question has been circulated i'm happy to take the question is read uh thank you lee for your question and for bringing the debate not hate motion forward originally um a number of activities have been taken undertaken in the last year to support and develop the aspirations of the motion um your motion was agreed uh so the somerset county council meeting on the 1st of march 2023 um and passes over to the new somerset council and that motion is on the council's website and in the minutes of that meeting and in support of the motion and in partnership with our health and safety teams the democratic services team have developed a personal safety handbook for elected members the council publicized its commitment to debate not hate with a press release and photos following the passing of the motion and this was shared on our social media challenge channels with more than 9 000 views and 500 engagements a statement signed by all the party leaders was promoted proactively and again shared on social media with a further 4 000 views and 1 000 engagements members are signposted to the lga resources regarding civility in public life assisting members with responding to difficult and challenging customers advising members on the opportunity for any of their interest to be considered sensitive and thereby withheld from publication sharing associated correspondence from the minister of local government and making contact with and signposting members to the recently appointed police special officer who's been appointed for that role um myself and other group leaders um do have ongoing conversations um that arise particularly if there are issues between members and we try and resolve those um as best we can outside the formal process and within it um you specifically mentioned in your question um behavior in council meetings it's for council best as chair of council um to to uh rule on that he's been clear with members that he wants meetings to be run efficiently and appropriately in a way that follows robust debates but ensures that all councillors can express their views if they wish how the motion was debate not hate and we want to see high quality debates in council it's not about everyone agreeing with each other it's about agreeing um when we disagree to disagree well um some of the issues i know council best is actively discussing with officers to how to advance these issues and they would appear to be around members understand the difference between debate and conversation um council meetings on conversations you express your views informed by officers advice and listen to other councillors opinion and vote to determine the council's positions all meetings in um should be all meeting remarks should be addressed to the chair who and that is who members are talking to at all times during members motions members shouldn't be using speeches for fact finding the evidence the debate is based on should be in the papers and other information should be sought in advance members in a debate should be respectfully listening to each other's views and expressing their own the way to disagree with a view is to express your own view and vote accordingly it's not necessary to or required to argue against other points as might be necessary in other um situations as we have a voting mechanism that determines the outcome in council the flow of debate should be proposed to explain the recommendations seconder who may reserve their rights to speak and members who wish to express a view seconder if they reserve their rights and haven't already spoken and then the proposer to sum up the debate obviously amendments and points of order can interrupt this flow but members should expect to speak once and once only and should not expect people to answer the questions they pose in the debate they should be taken as rhetorical or dealt with before the meeting none of this should stop members expressing their views and and where appropriate expressing them passionately and contributing but this shouldn't be done in ways that stop other members from enjoying the same rights the chair of council has told me that he plans to write to all members in the near future about the expected standard for behavior in meetings i hope that satisfies your question thank you very much chair um i'm i'm very aware that uh although the constitution of the council allows me 15 minutes to speak on my report um that maybe at the moment is perhaps perhaps not appropriate uh to go into detail um but to say i don't underestimate the challenges that summerset council faces at the moment um we know we're under enormous pressure and in spite of that our staff continue to perform magnificently under the most difficult of circumstances despite all these challenges we continue to keep sight of our vision and our values while we improve as a council as i said a year ago we can only do that in partnership with colleagues in our city town and parish councils the voluntary sex of the health service police and our business community and i thank all members of the council for their input wherever that comes so my report covers my portfolio areas around our governance our approach to continuous improvements our community engagement and our commitment to being a listening council working together the collaboration partnership which will be key to our future successes and with a positive vision for the future one on which we look ahead facing up to the challenges and embracing opportunity and while i've got the microphone i just wish to extend good wishes i think it's eight members who will be standing in the general election shortly and i do wish spend my good wishes to all eight of them that they have a campaign conducted in the spirit of debate not hate thank you bill any questions for bill if not we're asked to report um to note the report uh moving on to item 16 which is the constitution and governance committee and it's back to ross thank you very much chair i just really wanted to say um thank you very much to my vice chair tim curley this year who's been fantastic support in the committee and also personally i really enjoyed his company working with him and as i've enjoyed the company of everybody who's on the constitution and governance committee and those who substitute as well we've had some really thawsome debates particularly as we know about the review of the constitution and also this year we had a very interesting report on the elections act 2022 and particularly we were one of the first places in the country to be able to look at the data regarding the new voter id legislation and the impact it had on the summington and froom parliamentary by-election and the taunton town council elections and looking forward yes we'll be reviewing again the constitution 24 25 and we'll be continuing the work to review the somerset council electoral review which we had a report back on our meeting in october the one that took place in yobel and anticipate and i think coming to the next meeting which which due to be placed taking place on the 4th of july we um we may be changing their mending that date something else may be going on that that date uh we're looking first of all at the size of the council we had reported that to our last meeting in april and i think you know when we come to our meeting in june july whenever that may be we'll be looking again and considering and looking at the evidence there for the size of the council uh looking forward to the next elections which take place in may 2027. thank you very much and uh open for any questions yes mandy thank you chair you weren't disappointed to say i was leaving your committee but just to reassure you i'll be hopping back in and keeping an eye what i will say actually i think it's worth every counselor keeping an eye on constitution standards there's a whole variety of subjects there's lots of change ahead in a foot um and even if you can't attend meetings you know i think checking in with the agenda just to see what's on it is helpful for all counselors thank you chair thank you okay moving on to item 17 which is the annual report of the police and crime panel over to you heather thank you very much that's very tempted i was going to reward all of you late stays with my reading out word for word the 19 pages of my report but i've thought better of it given the hour um i'm here with my a different hat on i'm here as the chair of the panel of the police and crime sorry the chair of the police and crime panel um you know their job our job is to both well to support challenge and snap at the heels for accountability um to the to the police and crime commissioner who has the totality of responsibility for police crime prevention of crime and rehabilitation and the criminal justice systems it's a big old wodge of stuff we we get to look at a couple things i just want to say very quickly one is that this is one of the examples where an outside body is coming here um to say what we've been doing there were earlier this afternoon four members uh from this room um there was brian bolt martin wale uh nick clark i think he's still with us and also uh federica smith robertson who with myself with i gave you an extra name there smith roberts i do apologize for that um we five are part of the 17 who do that job and there are four other authorities as well are represented in the room um but it's important to bring that back so please do when you get if you haven't read it already have a look at the report it does include as well the views of some of the panel members themselves and the value they bring which i think is quite important in a report like this some of the things that we've been looking at in the last year we'll continue to look at are things like um public confidence in policing we have a public confidence in policing um working group we've also instituted this year two innovations we've instituted also a budget one as a budget working group but we're also interested and which will matter a lot to a lot of you here to make sure where it was bothered and some said that somerset got a fair crack of the whip um if you like on policing so it's things like uh neighborhood well not we've got neighborhood policing always looking at we're always looking at serious violence we're always looking at as well very importantly that the rural crime and crime in rural areas which is not always regarded the same way so we're taking it pretty seriously this year again as we usually do we did offer for the new police and crime commissioner to come today but it was a bit late notice for her diary her diary's all over the shop so unfortunately claire moody couldn't make it she's in london but we would have extended that so perhaps next year when we do it we'll that we'll do the same thing again for claire we'll make that offer um and i think that's all i really wanted to say except that yeah please if you haven't read i'll answer any questions now or with an email after and thank you so much for sticking with it to the very end yes mandy thank you and i did read to the very end and just to say there's a wonderful typo on page 614 and you've called it instead of a precept proposal it's a percept proposal so it's a lovely report and i was really delighted to find a typo so it's page 614 you might want to correct that um just for me the plea is for anybody involved please please please try and get that balance better between policing in bristol policing in summerset especially our rural areas i think the number of residents that complain that they don't see police officers pcsos yes peace uh police officers less and i am concerned and remain concerned that the resource heads into bristol and i hope that everybody that sits there on behalf of summerset will bang the drum to say we need police here a lot of the the crime starts obvious as it is in a in a big city but it's still here and we need a presence on that street and we are paying our precept of course just like everybody in lee redman chair thank you um just a couple of quick ones i support the comments of of councillor chilcot uh it the the fact that uh nothing is certain is something that we as councillors have to uh suffer every day but one of the points that that i think is important is the surprise events that we need to be prepared for and that's one of the things that police recently uh within the last few days i believe that there was an armed robbery in the middle of bridgewater that doesn't happen every day but however i was amazed to see how quickly the armed response vehicles were able to to be there to the point where that for those of you that hadn't seen it uh they were able to apprehend one of the the the the the alleged involved uh on video which was interesting um my question is in relation to the new police and crime commissioner uh your report was written i suppose looking back and looking forward slightly um do you see any major changes to the way the uh avian and somerset police are managed particularly in the fact that uh hopefully we will be looking at outside of bristol because the a lot of people don't realize that outside of the the southwest doesn't stop at bristol it goes a bit further thank you chair oh yes do you want to yeah if i may chair i'll come back to both of those points because they're related in some respects a couple things to say is um yes we're very alert to the fact that bristol you know if you go on the risk calm threats thing there is more crime in bristol therefore gets more attention however um one of the things that we're very keen to do is is to really push the prevention early intervention agenda and that means being out here where things like county lines are an issue where things like anti-social behavior is an issue children at school is an issue they can fall into crime so we're very conscious of that um the one thing i would say about having bristol is actually quite a bonus bizarrely don't say this very often if we didn't have bristol in our in our force area we wouldn't have our violence reduction partnership focus we were literally the seventh city we were just the smallest one but still classed as a city and we got that so if we can make the violence reduction partnership work as well as we can which was something we've been concentrating on the last couple of days that's really important because that will bring out into all the five areas out away from the city the big city not our lovely darling small one but the big city that will be really helpful the joint uh targeted area inspection that's been running in the last couple of weeks has been looking at children's and also um youth justice and also health and also the police to make sure these things are joined up and it's interesting that the the sixth national has gone to um has gone to uh somerset so we know somerset's important um but yeah that's all i really wanted to say but we will keep out those things thank you right thank you i was just going through to the last thing obviously we've got the exact here um so i was going to go through them to see if there was any questions for item 18 i'm sorry were you going to ask another question sorry just want to raise i mean and first of all i do think it's wrong to have members questions right at the end but here we go um i wanted to raise from the last meeting i did ask two really important policy questions um and the answers only came through to me yesterday after some chasing which was disappointing i've got to say i do understand the one which i asked about um preserving the last pub in every parish i understand that and you know i think i think that's maybe something where we could do some work i think the response on do we have a um solar farm drainage strategy um is really disappointing um it says that depending on the proposal it may not be necessary for a formal drainage strategy or if we haven't got one we wouldn't know i think it's wrong that doncaster city council have got one and we with 143 solar farms at the moment haven't got one um and i do do think that we have to take that one a bit more seriously i know that you know there is there is a solar farm which has just been referred to the secretary of state in Somerset and i think not having that strategy will undermine our case as a as a council so really disappointing i didn't get a response till yesterday really disappointed what it says right if we can go sorry ros just to reply i i apologize that the officer's response to you was so late but it um there is a real challenge for us at the moment is that policies of this sort of nature are part of local plans and we at the moment have six local plans and we have a long process to get there till we get the new local plan so i do take on board what doncaster is they're in a different um cycle to um somerset with the local plan however i have asked for some special planning guidance it doesn't it's not a formal policy but it will give the officers and developers something for the future and it will take a little while to produce to reduce in detail because we have to work across the patch it's not just planning it's also a lot of environmental concerns which my colleague would i'm sure echo it hasn't been lost david we all come back and can i thank uh executive member for that i fully appreciate what you're saying now and that's not what the response to me said in writing but thank you for your response thank you okay item 18 which is questions to the executive i start at the far end with sarah are there any questions for sarah before she i release her no that's fine moving down the line thank you sarah sorry to hold you back richard yes sorry richard we can't let you escape um not at this late stage i do have a question for you and it's actually about broadband and it isn't parochial because as i'm sure you're well aware that the broadband uk contracts for delivering broadband in somerset ran from 2020 to i believe 2025 um do you know how far they are from completing the work um because there are still quite a few areas where broadband is virtually non-existent you get you get a guarantee of between 6 to 18 megabits so what steps are you going to take to hold those contract holders to account in terms of have they done the work and if they haven't what are the next steps because also from 2025 some of those providers i know one of them has got a contract to deliver project gigabit which is ultra fast so is the super fast bit going to be dropped and the ultra fast part going to happen and um say how are you going to ensure that those bodies are held to account because those contracts were connecting devon and somerset but we do need to know that that work is going to be delivered because at the moment i don't think it has been richard um thank you um i kind of preempted this question coming because it's um it has some implications on my answer so i've kind of prepared a statement that will cover pretty much all that you you've asked um that doesn't put me in a wrong position so i'll read it out i'm also happy to accept a written answer at this time of day as well okay what an excellent suggestion mandy thank you very much again last meeting i brought up tree planting and took the town councilor supportive in my area to get some trees replanted that we've taken down we've got stumps just to say i've emailed dixie fed and yourself richard because it covers all areas um and the response wasn't satisfactory but the good news is that an officer felt it wasn't as picked up the phone we've had a conversation so what i would urge really is that all of you will help support that um and that will work uh with whomever it needs to actually get some policies and some agreements in place the money's there in the town council's pot and if we can get it sorted locally you could just roll out a policy in a simple process for the whole of summerset and i hope you would work with me and welcome that um yeah i i i'd like to say it's always difficult when we work across areas of the council to hang heads together sometimes should we say um i think we're getting there um and and actually it was a it was a great problem for us to try and solve what can i say because it it has enabled us to work across um directorates um and try and get that sort of moving so so hopefully we'll get a good result come the end of it thank you i'm not giving up and we'll be here next meeting if we haven't progressed thank you right we're going to jump down to roz because she's got to go next so any questions for her oh you got off with that one okay mr chairman mr chairman may i ask online you forgot me um can i ask a quickie you can always have a quickie um i just wanted to um say to roz i wanted to thank her so much um for getting me on the town deal unfortunately i i notice now on the the the paperwork it's not got me on the Bridgewater town deal and i just wanted to make sure that i would be added officially on there as i should have been because roz had worked to get me there but i'm not there i'm i'm so sorry jill i will find out what's happened but you're definitely on there we definitely expect you and we appreciate your contribution to the town deal which i'm sure will be significant thank you thank you very much thank you all right back to fed uh dixie any questions for dixie hi coming down the line back to who we got left oh heather oh sorry theo i missed you any questions for theo oh yes i'm not sure this is your question for you theo it's about waste are you dealing with waste no i'm sorry i missed that one i'm sorry dixie um i've got somebody in my patch who hasn't had their waste collected for six weeks now she goes on order mr chairman broke your question can i have you reported it yes but i was going to say that i've reported it i also reported it and they told me to report it so i have been onto the website to report it and i've gone through all the questions but i feel there was one on there that they didn't cover so it's not parochial it's it says if you've got any more questions you can ask them on the website but you can't it gives you a list of what you can ask but it doesn't save its general yes dixie i'll just respond um very quickly um rosemary the reporting system is quite complicated and and it only takes kind of one bit of information to be wrong for it not to work and it also kind of crosses federica's portfolio because in a way the the reporting system is under communities but i deal with waste but just as a solution please email me directly with the residents name and address and we'll work we'll work with people rather than computers all right very much dixie hi heather anything further no finally liz ah yes david i don't think it's finally because i've got three questions for counselor dance ah so i will cover counselor dance as you'll be aware he'll be stepping down from his portfolio imminently so i wasn't aware of that so i will be covering his portfolio area okay um they are very simple one shall i drop you a line then in the uh please do drop me a line you'll understand that he needs to step away from his portfolio imminently i understand that completely right as bill has already had his uh session that brings us to an end it's a very long meeting thank you for your patience and have a good journey [BLANK_AUDIO]