Transcript

So this is the cabinet meeting, Monmouthshire County Council, 22nd of May. I'm Councillor Paul Griffiths, Deputy Leader of the Council. I am chairing this cabinet meeting because the leader of the Council, who is the formal chair of this cabinet, is attending from a venue in Leeds, where she is now. representing Monmouthshire at the Business Symposium. Councillor Brocklesby will be participating in the meeting, but I will be chairing it. Apologies for absence. We've had an apology from Councillor Sandels, who is at a conference. I believe there are no other apologies? No. Are there any declarations of interest from cabinet members? None. The third agenda item is the formal feedback to cabinet from Performance and Overview Scrutiny Committee, which on the 14th of May of this year, considered a report on additional learning provision and specialist resource basis. On the public agenda, the points raised by that scrutiny committee are recorded. The role of this cabinet is to note that feedback, for which we are very grateful, and thank the members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Having noted it and committed ourselves to consider those points, we can move to the next agenda item. That agenda item, agenda item 4, is the local food strategy. Councillor Brocklesby, from your Leeds base, are you in a position to introduce this report? I am, Councillor Griffiths. Thanks very much. I would also beg grace because the internet has been fairly intermittent throughout the day. So if I disappear, bear with me. Also with me to present the food strategy to you is a key member of the food team, Marianne Ehrlich, who's been instrumental in driving our strategy and will, as part of the presentation, take you through in more detail the key elements and how we are currently working and the opportunities we are facing through this strategy. So thank you, Chair. Food has been very much on the mind of the Council in various ways over the last couple of months. And that's not only because of a specific issue, which has come up in Council. It's also because food is absolutely part of our identity in Monmeshir. It shapes the story of who we are. It shapes our lives. Farming and food is part of our heritage, the heritage that increasingly our children are learning about in schools. And increasingly, we are finding different ways to work in partnership to ensure that that heritage is sustainable, nature friendly, but also is absolutely part of the flourishing economy. And it's what we do in this strategy. We were not starting from zero. We were starting from, I think, a very proud fact we can have as a Council that we have been thinking about how we can support food in our schools, in public procurement, in the way we support our festivals, and various projects over, well over a decade. Why we and this administration decided to bring this more into focus is that the opportunity to bring coherence and build on what has been done before, largely on a project by project base, either through the EU Rural Development Programme and more recently through UK and Welsh government schemes, had to be taken because of the goals and objectives of our community and corporate plan. So we set clear the ambitious strategic goal for a fairer, greener, healthier food and farming in a flourishing economy, which benefits all our residents. And I'm sure you will understand that while this is within the remit of a greener place to live, it cuts across almost all the objectives. And it follows the same guiding principles of tackling inequality, addressing the nature and climate crisis, and working in partnership with those people who work within farming, within food businesses, and along the supply chain. And very much at the core of this strategy is supporting sustainable and innovative economic activity. While farming itself and the production of food accounts for six to seven percent of our economy, which is a sizable amount in itself, when you add up food, hospitality, tourism, coming to visit our farms or eat our food, then it's more of a third. So it's a sizable part of what we do. What we do in this strategy is start to unpick and clearly define those key concepts and how we align with what's happening with our partners in the marches, in the Cardiff Capital region, in the Welsh government and the UK government, by explaining the kind of food that we're promoting. Safe, healthy and nutritious food that's accessible and affordable to all. But we also support those artists and business producing luxury products, which is in line with our economic employment and skills strategy. And that's our cheeses, for example. Some of the cured meats that we produce, some of the apple and cider that we produce, and wines increasingly, award-winning wines, which I think is a wonderful part of Monmouth year. And we've also clarified how we understand local in this context, which aligns us with our socially responsible procurement strategy. And I will repeat here, but this has been repeated in public, in council, in scrutiny, that local is not defined in law or in procurement frameworks, because it can cut across borders and at times it means a village and at times it means north Monmouthshire or south Monmouthshire or central Monmouthshire, times it means Monmouthshire itself, times it means the region and times it means Wales. It depends on the context on which you are procuring and which you're operating in. What we also do is place sustainability at the core of this strategy in recognition of our nature and climate strategy. Because if we cannot produce food sustainably, then we cannot have food security, either in Monmouthshire or more widely in Wales and across the UK. This is a council document and it concentrates on what is ours to do, recognizing that we can only contribute, which is a far wider challenge of both food insecurity and unsustainability of current practices in many ways. But what we have done is consulted widely with members, with officers, with our thriving Monmouthshire Food Partnership. And we brought in an external reference group of independent expert but critical friends across the food system that included farmers themselves, policymakers, campaigners and people from our food partnership. We've consulted widely with farmers, farming unions and farming bodies. We've also talked to food and drink businesses and with community volunteers working on allotments, community growing spaces, incredible edibles and the wider public. And this spirit of collaboration will continue through development as working in partnership and empowering communities is central to our approach. What we do in this strategy is identify the core themes, key partners and our areas of greatest influence. And I'm bringing in Marion to talk about that specifically and to give you an idea where the opportunities are around this strategy. This strategy is ambitious, but it also, as I said earlier, it recognizes where we can make the biggest impact within our council and within our partners. It does not try to do all things to all people and accompanying this strategy, as you will see in the papers cabinet, is a delivery plan which sets out how we will act internally and with our partners to achieve our objectives. I hope cabinet will endorse the strategy this afternoon, so that we can all see these activities taking shape and making a difference to the people, landscapes and nature that make our precious county such a special place to live, work and visit. And I'd now like to bring in Marion, and as I do so, I would like to thank her and the whole team for the work they have been doing over the last year to develop those conversations, to develop those partnerships and linkages, which has made this strategy a real living document that we can take forward, aligned to our community and corporate plan. Over to you, Marion.

Thank you very much, Councillor Brocklesby. Please just bear with me all while I share my screen and can bring up some slides for you. So, here we are. I've been asked to talk a little bit about the practical details of the what, the how, the why in this strategy. I've got five minutes, I'm told, so it will be a bit of a whistle-stop tour, but hold on tight. Our core themes here, I've used this slide because it shows not only those core themes we identified, but also some of the work we did mapping what we've already committed to in other strategies, aligning them with the core themes that were emerging through the consultation process, Councillor Brocklesby just described, and then also provided the framework from trying to then bring some more coherence and focus to that work through our strategy. So, we have improving local and ethical supply chains, closely aligned, developing food as an economic sector, and then community food, access, education, and participation. And as you can see, these are picking up a number of existing documents and commitments across the Council. That was all still very broad, though, and we thought we needed to put some more focus on it, on where we can best use resources, our own resources in the Council, to support our core objectives. And we narrowed that down to these three themes of the food that we buy, you can see there the settings that we buy food for, the land that we own, which is in various kinds, and then more broadly, the conversations that we convene with our communities, supply chains, investors, policymakers, partners. And so, the delivery plan that we then put together focuses on each area, and it weaves those funded work streams together into a coherent support package for each. And an example of what that looks like, some of the grants that we've given recently to community organizations who are working predominantly around access and education, are now, instead of going to Tesco's or Morrison's, as they might have done beforehand, working with our local businesses, and they are sourcing their ingredients from our independent high street shops markets. So, we're bringing together that work on our local economy with the community side of our work. A bit more detail on what each of these areas of influence looks like. So, the food we buy, our strengths, we have in-house service delivery of school meals and domiciliary care. That gives us the staff, the infrastructure, and the autonomy to really shape that service, which is something not all local authorities can say. We have a track record of innovating and embedding that innovation in our business as usual. Primary school meals delivery is an example of that. There's currently innovation going on in domiciliary care, our momish meal service. Another strength, we're pushing on an open door. There is significant interest in this area from key stakeholders, both in the community, our businesses, our communities want this, and nationally, governments say that they want this as well. And our heritage attractions provide an opportunity for us to support a different kind of local business. Those artisan luxury goods that Mary Ann Brocklesby just mentioned to really cover all the bases in our county, the treats that people would buy on a day out or when they're visiting the county. But we have opportunities. We can shift to more seasonal and local menu planning, which will boost our sustainability, our self-reliance and resilience in food production, and also contribute to economic development. We can increase uptake of school meals to tackle health inequalities and ease food insecurity. Some of you may have seen a Guardian article today, type 2 diabetes up 25% in six years for under 40s. Steps have to be taken to reverse these trends. We can improve the health and well-being of our senior residents and provide career opportunities and care catering where we know there is a big skills gap. Work to engage more with our diners and their families to create better eating environments and reduce food waste. Some of our schools are doing really innovative stuff around that, partnering up juniors and infants to help them eat their lunch and encourage them to eat their lunches and reduce food waste. And as I alluded to, that smart use of grant funding to achieve multiple objectives at the same time. Land we own, strengths. Again, we've retained land and farms in our portfolio, which is, again, not something every council can claim. Our novel approach to re-letting farms is delivering on our objectives, and we can and do set an example through the schemes there for how we wish to see land managed. Also, the council's endorsement of the incredible edible movement provides a really strong foundation for a provisional right to grow and facilitate access to our land for communities to take food production into their own hands. Again, though, we can build closer relationships, particularly with some of our long-standing farm tenants. We can develop clearer processes to facilitate that access to land for community growing. Consider new approaches to how we do manage that land and access and more generally support our local farming communities through this very, very challenging time through policy advocacy and on-the-ground measures. And then the conversations we convene, our strengths, we can take a long view as a local authority, and our reach extends deep into local communities through the work of members and officers and out to regional and national government. We have strong current networks and partnerships, such as those before you, which interlink in a complex web with other networks convened by other departments. But again, we can widen our networks, particularly around supply chain partners that work on developing the local economy and addressing infrastructural gap and critical weaknesses ahead of time. And the local meat production and horticulture sectors are key cases in point there, which we have focused on in our delivery plan. We can use our respective position to attract and facilitate investment, and we can use our existing and developing networks to ensure that our young people are aware of career opportunities in food and farming and know how to pursue them. They may not always be able to pursue them in Monmouthshire, but they can remain in rural areas. They can get a good living through working in food farming and supporting industries, and then with any luck, they can come home to Monmouthshire and live their lives here, rejuvenating our rural communities. A very whittlestop tour of the kind of work we're looking at. A lot of it is going on already. There is much still to do, and I would like to take the opportunity to thank our communities, businesses, schools for all the support that they're giving, members and also the fantastic engagement officers in my team, without whom we would be nowhere near where we are today. Thank you. Thank you, Marianne. I think Marianne has shown how, with a very small team, largely dependent on grants, but by really strategic working across our organisation with different directors and with our partners, how much we are able to amplify the work we're doing and how much this is starting to build momentum. And I'm really excited about it. You'll know, Cabinet, that I went to visit Gilwin School to talk to them, to talk to the children in their Senate about what they thought about our school meals delivery, and I went with our community manager, our catering manager. It was fabulous. They were so articulate, they were really challenging. It was part of their curriculum, they had growing spaces and that is what all our primary schools are doing. They didn't give us a tough time but they engaged with us in a really thoughtful, articulate way about how meal menus could be changed, what they'd like to see, and it's that kind of granular interaction, which I think is starting to make a difference. And it's feeding through our curriculum, but at the same time, we've got a pilot going on our community meals. We won an award last year for the way in which we did community meals for elders that was not just giving meal at the doorstop but coming inside, having a cup of tea, sometimes sharing the meal, being part of that social care, recognising that food is social as well as economic. As well as the actual production of it. So I recommend the strategy to you, as Marion indicated, it's ongoing because it picked up on what we're doing, but we are refocusing on ensuring that we can show up impact and we can show impact together with our communities and our partners. Thank you very much Cabinet. Paul, we can't hear you. If I could invite any questions from Cabinet on the report presented by Councillor Brotlesby. As the Cabinet member for the economy, I would not so much ask a question but share some thoughts with Cabinet colleagues that the synergy between this food strategy and our economic strategy needs to be recognised and built upon. If you take the whole chain of food production, food processing, food retailing in our shops, in our hospitality industries, then we're talking about a food economy across that whole supply chain which, according to the report, which I figure I've seen elsewhere, probably contributes about 5,000 jobs to the economy. In employment terms, therefore, about 12% of our economy is the food economy defined properly in that wide way. It is not the whole of the Monmouthshire economy, but I think it is pivotal. It provides an image of the Monmouthshire economy which attracts the investment into that other 90% of the economy when we do it right. So people will invest in manufacturing, they will invest in our firms, in the digital economy, in our service economy, they will invest there because of the attractiveness of our food economy. It's somewhere where you can enjoy living because of that food economy, so it's got that spillover effect which I think is very important. I've noticed in the first line of the report that we're claiming the title of the food capital of Wales. I'm happy to make the claim, but I do remember in my school days we were taught to refer to Mon Mam, the claim of the island of Anglesey to be the mother of Wales for its food production. I wonder if we should refer in future to Mon Mam, so Monmouthshire can claim that title at least alongside this one. An important report and what I'm saying is that we need to build on it as we will and recognise that synergy between the food economy and the rest of the Monmouthshire economy. Any other thoughts, questions? I couldn't agree with you more, Councillor Griffiths, and I'm regretful at being in Leeds because tonight we have our Food Business Forum network which brings together various food businesses across Monmouthshire along with food producers to discuss these very issues. That's been quite an important part of developing this strategy and thinking about how we can really build on the fact that we are the food destination. Maybe there's one in North Wales, but given the work we do and given how we are perceived in Wales and in other places, it is because of the hard work of our businesses and the way it contributes to our economy and we do have to make more of it and I think this strategy helps us do it. Thanks very much. So the recommendation is that we approve the report, the cabinet members content to provide that approval. Councillor Griffiths, I believe we have questions from Councillor Taylor. Oh, sorry Councillor Taylor, I missed that. I'm obviously under equipped for this role. Councillor Taylor. Thank you very much and I have to say it was really good to see this coming to cabinet, but I just have two questions if that's okay. So firstly, noting the mention of county farm land, I wondered how many council-owned acres of county farmland that we have that are currently either untenanted or vacant or on short-term leases, obviously thinking about the strategy. And then secondly, how many of our existing county farm tenants is the council currently working with to see if their lands could potentially be used for creating, as the strategy talks about, small-scale sustainable food opportunities for growers. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Taylor. I think these are really important questions. The council's agricultural portfolio is 2,773 acres, which is inclusive of county farm holdings and grazing land. The majority of county farm holdings are in the south of the county. Approximately 686 acres, amounting to 24.7%, are occupied on short-term agreements and you didn't actually specify what you meant by short-term, Councillor Taylor. So we took it to mean as annual licenses or agreements that can be terminated within 12 months. Less than 1% of the portfolio is currently vacant. With regards to how the councilor is supporting farmers and supporting growers, it is an important part of our strategy, as I think you recognize, Councillor Taylor, and at the moment we're supporting three farm tenants who are actively working with local growing groups to explore opportunities for small-scale sustainable food growing. This includes a trial diversification into vegetable growing, supported by Farming Connect, and the collaboration with Irish Care Group, whereby young adults with complex mental health needs visit the farm to grow fruit and vegetables. Tenants have expressed interest in releasing land for professional growers to manage, and the council has been open to the suggestion, but there has been a lack of interest at the moment from growers, housing usually being the crucial limitation. Re-letting land or identifying new tenants, consideration is given to the opportunity to support food producing, more sustainable farming practices and diversification, which has proved successful through recent letting at Lower House Farm in Carewent and Woolstones Farm in Port Skuet. This has resulted in a variety of different enterprise being achieved, including a new farmer cooperative, tenants becoming active members of a local regeneration agricultural discussion group, and attending events on the principles of sustainable grazing and soil management. And we will continue with this strategy guiding us to engage with our tenants to explore means of delivering these opportunities across the whole county. I hope that answers your question, Councillor Taylor. Thank you, Lida. We've lost sound again. Yeah, we can't hear you, Paul. Your microphone isn't on. I'm asking our cabinet members content to provide the approval for the local food strategy. Yep, right. Thanks very much. So if we can move on to Agenda Item 5, a strategy for commissioned domiciliary care in Monmouthshire, and I'll ask Councillor Chandler to introduce that report. Thank you, Deputy Leader. Cabinet, as you know, our social care service is facing immense pressures. Like most other areas in the UK, Monmouthshire has an ageing population. In fact, 26%, that's more than a quarter of our residents are aged over 65, which is significantly higher than the Welsh average, and that proportion will rise even further over the next decade. So that demographic change, but also along with the after effects of the COVID pandemic, is driving increased demand for social care, as well as a greater complexity of the care needs. So in lay terms, this means that the number of people receiving care is going up, and that the average number of hours of care provided per person is also rising. We currently provide around 8,000 hours per week of long-term domiciliary care to about 600 adults, either through our own staff or via commissioning care from external agencies. And these pressures that we face are compounded by workforce challenges. Despite paying the real living wage, ourselves and care agencies struggle to recruit and retain the staff that are needed. But despite all of this, we have been successful in reducing the number of hours of unmet need to 306 per week at the end of March, compared with a high of 1,262 hours per week in October 2022. So we've reduced that by 75%. It's a massive improvement, but it is still higher than we would like. And of course, Cabinet, you're well aware of the strain that domiciliary care is putting on the Council's finances. So we need to go further and take some longer-term decisions that will help us to stabilise and sustain our care provision. So therefore, we have reviewed our current commissioning arrangements and developed a new commissioning strategy for your approval. To explain, we currently provide domiciliary care through three main routes, through what we call framework providers, approved providers, and our in-house provision. We have a small number of providers on framework contracts. Our framework providers are those that are on what are called framework contracts, where the hourly rate has been agreed in advance. And these are our providers of first choice, and they deliver around 19% of the hours needed across the county. But increasingly, we are having to spot purchase care packages from other providers who we call approved providers. And their rates are not always, but generally higher. And these now account for 57% of the hours delivered. And we are particularly dependent on these high-cost approved providers in the south of our county. And finally, we are increasingly having to deliver long-term docillary care through our in-house team, which would normally be focused on the short-term reablement work that is needed to prevent dependency on long-term care. And this is particularly an issue in the central part of the county, sort of from Monmouthshire to us and the surrounding rural areas, where it's been hard to commission care externally. With one exception, we don't guarantee any number of hours to providers. And this presents a significant barrier to new providers entering the market and has made it harder for existing providers to recruit and retain the staff that they need. And this impacts on the people receiving care, who have told us that continuity of care staff is important to them. The exception about guaranteeing hours is the USK area, where we have piloted a block purchasing scheme, giving a guaranteed number of hours so that providers have the security to recruit and develop their staff, resulting in better care for local residents in an area that has traditionally been challenging to cover. So the details of the strategy are in the paper. But in summary, our proposed strategy is to build on this pilot and commission the majority of our standard long-term domiciliary care through a number of block contracts. We will still need to spot purchase care packages for more complex cases, as well as filling in any gaps. And the intention is that this will allow us to refocus our in-house service on reablement and rehabilitation. We will undertake an open procurement process to enable existing and new providers to tender for both the block contracts and the spot purchasing contracts. And these contracts will include the requirement to deliver outcomes for people and not just be task-focused. They will also mandate payment of real living wage, travel time, holidays and mileage rates. This new 10-year strategy will be rolled out in phases, and the first phase will be to introduce the block purchase contracts in the south of the county. And this will allow the opportunity for us to evaluate our approach as we go along and make any adjustments as needed. So in summary, colleagues, this new strategy is a key part of delivering a community and corporate plan, and is also in line with our socially responsible procurement strategy. It's forward thinking. It is a forward thinking and decisive approach to addressing the challenges that we and other councils face in delivering social care, and I recommend it for your approval. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Chandler. Are there any questions of Councillor Chandler? Right. Ben, Councillor Callard. Thank you, Deputy Leader, and thank you, Councillor Chandler, for bringing the report. I think this is an important strategy to bring forward. But you said that the new community care strategy helps deliver our community and corporate plan. But I wondered how does it help address our ambitions relating to the climate emergency? Yeah, thank you, Councillor Callard. And I'm very happy to have this opportunity to answer that. The blocks of care that we will put out for tender will be locality-based, so as to reduce the distance that care workers need to travel between clients. And sometimes those blocks of care will be in walking routes, eliminating the need for cars and enabling those who don't drive or don't have access to a car to be recruited to the care providers. So this should have the effect of reducing our carbon footprint. And it's important to note that it's consistent with the Welsh Government's Health and Social Care Climate Emergency National Programme, as well as the Social Care in Wales decarbonisation route map. So I'm very pleased that we were able to drive this one forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Chandler. And a question from Councillor Mayb. Thank you. Thanks, Deputy-General. Could you describe, Councillor Chandler, in any way how this would impact on people receiving care and how would the new strategy affect them directly? Yeah, thanks, Councillor Mayb. And obviously that's at the crux of it, really. I mean, although there are a lot of drivers towards making this strategy, at the end of the day it's the people receiving care that we need to be taking most into account. And there will be, in the longer term, we believe that people should experience an improved continuity of the care staff attending to their needs because of that guaranteed block purchasing and the certainty that will be available to providers. But, however, we have to recognise that in the short term there may be some disruption if new providers win the contract for their care. But we will mitigate this as much as possible through the transferring of individual care staff from the old provider to the new provider under the 2P rules. That's the transfer of undertakings protection of employment regulations 2006. So the new arrangements won't, so that should hopefully mitigate that change in provider. But I also need to emphasise that the new arrangements won't affect the support that people receive from their social worker and everyone will continue to have an assessment of their needs. Thank you very much. I haven't got in front of me any of the questions pre-tabled by party leaders, but Councillor Taylor, do you have a question on this report? I do, Councillor Griffiths. I don't know if Councillor John, sorry, has had questions because he generally goes before me. Well, I think we should break any such assumption, Councillor Taylor. Councillor Griffiths, Deputy Leader, we received no questions from Councillor John. Okay, thank you. Okay, so one of the questions I had, Councillor Chandler, is would you please advise, and I appreciate there are differences, but the average cost of in-house care per hour, framework provider care per hour and approved provider care per hour, please. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Taylor. And as you have seen in Table 8 in the strategy paper, we've talked about the bands, lower, medium and higher bands of costs. We've done that and we haven't set out the actual specific costs in the strategy as it is commercially sensitive information. So I can't answer you that question directly, but I can say in general terms the unit cost of our in-house care is higher than the care that we procure from providers because of our inbuilt management costs, the on-costs and the costs of the therapeutic staff who support the in-house team to focus specifically on reablement and rehabilitation. The rates for the approved providers vary as we set out in Table 8 in the strategy paper. The framework providers fall within that broader price range of the approved providers. So I think that's the information that I can give you in a public forum, but I'd be happy to share the specific information with you out of this meeting if you like. Thank you very much. My second question, Councillor Chandler, is in respect, the strategy talks about the difference in the cost of care, or the cost of providing care provision in the north of the county and the south of the county. In respect of those differences, to what extent are they demographic, social, economic and geographical significant factors? Thanks. It is quite a stark contrast. The providers in the south are predominantly what we call the approved providers, and as I said, although the rates vary, the rates in the south are generally higher than the framework providers, as well as the framework providers and the other approved providers that we utilise in the north of the county. The nature of the approved contract does allow for individual fee negotiations, and that inevitably leads to differential rates based on market position, and the fact that there are fewer providers in the south with less capacity to meet the demand actually offers them an advantage on this. Conversely, there are more providers in operation in the north, creating a more competitive commercial environment. This is in part due to location, which makes recruitment easier, and also the proximity to other local authority areas where rates are lower and where the provider may also be operating. So it's from that regard, I think. I do need to emphasise, though, just in the context of this question, that while there are differences in ability to recruit based on location, all of our providers are required to pay the real living wage, and we have identified no discernible difference in the quality between the high and the low-cost providers, and I think that's important for us to be reassured about that. The other thing that I'd probably just take this opportunity of saying is it's worth noting that the domiciliary care market in Monmouthshire and across the whole region, the Gwent region, has stabilised since the significant workforce issues experienced during and after the pandemic, and this is positive for us, and it offers an opportunity to develop further capacity and quality with our provider partners, and this strategy is a key part of that, so thank you. And finally, if I may, you mention, or feedback is mentioned in the strategy documentation, can I ask, have care providers and service users specifically been consulted on the content of this commissioning strategy? Thank you. Sorry, microphone. Yeah, in terms of, we do reference this, I think, in the cabinet report on 3.1.11 and 3.1.12, so 3.1.11 says we've used the feedback from people using the service, the general feedback that we get, where we're constantly assessing their needs and the quality assurance work to inform the strategy, but they've not been consulted directly on the strategy. But we will be involving service users in the implementation process, so the voices of people receiving the service are heard, and what matters to them informs its development. In terms of providers, yes, existing providers' views on the current domiciliary care contracts and provision have been sought, and they've been used to inform the strategy, and a copy of the draft strategy has also been shared with them. There'll also be a market engagement sessions with providers, including potential new providers, as the implementation process moves forward. So, yes, we've tried to take those views as much as possible in the most appropriate way. Thank you. Thank you. All my best lines are lost, by the lack of a microphone. In my role as the cabinet member for the economy, to share a reflection, in all our commissioning, procurement arrangements, we need to be open, transparent, competitive. But at the same time, it's very important, as a county council, we build up our partnerships with local suppliers. And I think it's in the interests of both the employees and the users of those services that those long-term partnerships are created. And it's in that context that I think the intended rebalancing between spot contracts and block contracts should be seen. I think it's a pattern that we should reflect in much that we do as a county council. With that, all that questioning and answering in place, the introductions of the report, is the cabinet content to endorse the strategy for commission domiciliary care? Yes. Yes. I'm looking all around. Yes. So, cabinet has endorsed the strategy. Thanks very much. The next agenda item is that of the local housing market assessment refresh. And I'm the responsible cabinet member for housing. So, I'll provide an introduction to this. Monmouthshire County Council is required by Welsh Government to undertake and refresh its local housing market assessment. And this report provides that refreshed assessment for the recent period. Cabinet approval is required before the assessment is signed off by Welsh Government. That makes this sound as though it is some sort of required bureaucratic process, a tick-bock exercise. It's not. This assessment is an essential tool and we use it. We don't just do it, we use it as an essential tool for the manner in which we seek to influence housing markets in the county. It's being used as a foundation block for the development of our replacement local development plan. When we submit what's called the deposit plan for our local development plan to the Welsh Government later this year, the examination of that deposit plan will focus on the alignment of the plan with the assessed housing need which is in the report before you. The report identifies a need for an additional 499 affordable homes per year until 2027 with an additional 90 affordable homes required until 2037. The report also identifies a need for 126 market homes per year over the 15-year period. Those figures more than justify, I say more than justify, the rate of development proposed by the RLDP. When we debate the RLDP, both in council and in our communities, we will be tested with the question, is this rate of development necessary? And the answer to that question will be found in the report before you today. That report more than justifies that rate of development. The report also justifies the proposal in our RLDP that 50% of our additional homes should be affordable and predominantly social housing for rent. Throughout the assessed need data that you've got there, it's broken down. Market housing, affordable housing, social rented housing. We cannot and will not replicate the data at any one particular point in the RLDP. But the breakdown that we've put there, 50% affordable housing of which 33% will be social housing for rent, that requirement which is in our preferred strategy is more than justified by the data in this report. The assessment divides the county into three housing market areas and the data provides the evidence for additional housing, whether it be affordable, social housing, market housing in each of those market areas. And that subdivision is important. In the debate on the RLDP, I often get the suggestion, well, maybe the county needs all this extra housing but my town doesn't. And we can test those questions by actually looking in the subdivisions in this report. The data before us supports the selection of strategic sites with new housing in Abigabeni, Monmouth, Cornycott and Shepstow. I thank our housing team, in particular Sally Merrick who's with us today for all the work that has gone into the report. It's detailed, it's meticulous and it's been presented with clarity. So I recommend the cabinet approves this report. But before it does so, I welcome questions. Are there any questions on the report? I'm pointing at Catherine. Thank you, Catherine. I'm not seeing this. It's my new eyes. They're not working. But thank you. Catherine, I've got Councillor Mabie. Thank you very much. It was just a detailed question, really. The report refers to the Shepstow housing market area. But that actually seems to be about half of the whole county. Can you comment on that and why it's done that way? Is it useful to do it that way? Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Mabie. We have traditionally, over many iterations of this report, divided the county into the three areas referred to as Shepstow, Monmouth and Abigabeni. It is based on ONS travel to work areas. So that part of the county in the Newport travel to work area is referred to as the Shepstow area, perhaps not very usefully, and covers Caldicott, Shepstow, Raglan, Aske, a large proportion of the county. It doesn't have to be done that way. So the question you're asking now, I think, was very usefully raised in the scrutiny committee by Councillor Penny Jones, who robustly challenged the merit of subsuming communities like Raglan and Aske into the Caldicott and Shepstow area. In the report itself, there is now an appendix which responds to that challenge, and we've developed an analysis which subdivides the so-called Shepstow housing area into a seven-side area and a rural central area. So we've been meeting the point raised by the scrutiny committee, and I think it's important to note that in so doing, we've clarified the housing need in the rural area. So again, I often get the challenge, well, there may be housing need, but it's in the towns, it's not in the countryside. In that appendix, by identifying a specific area for the central rural, which includes the likes of Raglan and Aske, we've identified or we've broken down the need to report a need, for instance, of 74 additional affordable homes each year in that rural central area. And when we take the RLDP forward to the deposit plan later this year, we should be tested on whether we've made sufficient land available to meet that rural need. So it's an important subdivision which has been provided. It's difficult to sort of chair my own question and answer. Does that answer your question? Most definitely, yeah, thank you. Are there any other questions? I'm not going to ask a question. Yeah, thanks, Deputy Leader, and I have to say this is a very impressive report in terms of the analysis and the data and the comprehensiveness of it. But I just wondered if you could maybe highlight a little bit about what does the report tell us about levels of homelessness in the county, because I know homelessness is not quite the same as housing need. So I'd appreciate a little bit more clarity on that, please. Yeah, and it's important to make the distinction. One can be in housing need and very many people are without necessarily being homeless. But the report does provide the data on current levels, past levels, trends in homelessness, and I think it does it in a very useful way. In the period covered by the report, homelessness presentations have varied between 600 and 900 each year. Now, not everyone who's presented presents themselves as homeless has a case which results in a duty to accommodate, so if we distinguish between homelessness presentations, all of which are serious, all of which we respond to, and they add up to 600 to 900 each year. We identify our duty to accommodate for families adding up to around 200, between 200 and 400 each year in the period of the report. This has increased significantly since 2020 due to changes in homelessness guidance and legislation brought in by Welsh government. In the last year, there has been a decline from the peak, and this has been assisted by the preventative measures taken by our housing team. However, there can be no certainty that there is a downward trend which will be sustained. The need to make extra housing provision is made very clear in the report. Thank you, Councillor Griffiths. That's both encouraging but no need for complacency, so it does emphasise, as you said, the importance of this report, so thank you. Thank you. So, are there any other questions? I'm looking around. No? Okay. And so the recommendation is that we approve the report. Are cabinet members content to approve this report? Yep. Thanks very much. And that takes us on to agenda item 7, the repurposing of the 7 View residential home in Chepstow. And that, again, relates to my cabinet responsibilities, and so I will introduce the report once I find the relevant piece of paper. Bear with me. Yes, cabinet members will be aware that the new residential home provided by Monmouthshire County Council at Crick Road in Caldicott has now been opened, and many members, cabinet members and non-cabinet members, have visited and have admired the quality of that new provision. I think the residents of the existing residential accommodation in Chepstow have now successfully been transferred to their new accommodation, and I thank all the staff involved in a transfer which I believe has been successful and very sensitive to the needs of those residents. It had been assumed, as the Crick Road development was debated in previous cabinets, that the site of the former home in Chepstow would now be sold, and a capital receipt gained. But in the budget agreed earlier this year, we built in an assumption that we would, rather than sell the site of the former residential home, we would transfer residents from existing temporary accommodation, and thus make savings more than justifying as foregoing the capital receipt. That was all laid out in the budget and agreed in the budget process. This report requires that we, as a cabinet, formally approve the repurposing of the Chepstow-based 7B residential home for the purpose of providing temporary accommodation for homeless persons. I am grateful for the partnership that we have developed in recent years with providers of temporary accommodation. Very often people who have made available space in what was once hotel accommodation. But whilst being grateful for the accommodation that has been provided, I am confident that the 7B repurposed will provide a higher quality of accommodation. In the report, there is reference to the £250,000 which has been provided for necessary upgrading, and that includes fire sprinklers for the safety of residents. There will, in the new accommodation, be more communal space which can be used for the support services that are offered to residents, and be provided, I believe, in a more effective manner. I do need to stress, and you can see it in the report and in the financial appraisal, that all the security services and support services currently provided in existing accommodation will be transferred to the new location. The financial analysis provided in the report shows that in a full year, the current net cost of provision of over £400,000 a year can be eliminated by the transfer, and that all the support costs can be covered by a range of specific grants. What the report shows is that by its recommendations, by the transfer, we will be providing a better service to homeless persons whilst eliminating £400,000 of cost. I ask that Cabinet approves the recommendations. And having made that request, are there any questions? If there are no questions, I can move straight to the recommendation that Cabinet approves the transfer. Okay, so the recommendations are, first, that the Cabinet agrees the repurposing of 7B residential home in Chepstow, now advocated for the use of temporary housing accommodation. Does the Cabinet agree that recommendation? All agreed. Second recommendation, the Cabinet agrees to delegate authority for approval for the final business case to the Chief Officers of Communities of Place and Resources in consultation with the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Sustainable Economy and the Cabinet Member for Resources. Do you agree with that recommendation? Thank you. And third and last recommendation, the Cabinet agrees to fund the consequential shortfall in capital funding for the 7V Park development costs of £900,000 from the existing capital receipts reserve. The capital receipts reserve would subsequently be replenished when the receipt is eventually realised. Do you agree with the third recommendation? Yes. That is agreed. Thanks very much. And so, if we can move on to Agenda Item 8, where there is a report on the development of a supported accommodation provision. And that is back to Councillor Chandler. Thank you, Deputy Leader. Cabinet, our local authority has a legal duty to provide sufficient and appropriate placements for children who are looked after, which includes a range of supported accommodation options for young people who have left or who are preparing to leave care. However, at present, MCC has insufficient suitable supported accommodation placements and very limited options for young people who have medium to high support needs. To address this, you will recall that on 18 April, Council agreed our policy on developing children's residential and 16+ supported accommodation placements. This set out our ambition to significantly increase the number of all in-house placement types, including fostering residential and supported accommodation placements over the next one to three years. This will ensure that the needs of Monmouthshire's looked after children and those young people who are leaving care are consistently met with increased opportunity to be placed closer to their homes and communities. That policy set out our plans to repurpose suitable properties that we own and, if necessary, acquire new properties on the open market so that we can provide safe, nurturing and local homes for some of our looked after children and those aged 16 and over who are leaving care. Council approved a borrowing headroom of up to £3 million to deliver this policy. As you know, we have already successfully acquired a property in Monmouth so we can develop a residential home for four children. This report that I am presenting you today is for the repurposing of a property in Caldicott that the Council already owns so that we can develop a supported accommodation provision for the five care-experienced young people aged between 16 and 21 years. The provision will provide a homely setting where 24-hour support will be available to assist the young people to develop their independent living skills. During their stay in the provision, the goal is to equip the young people to progress onwards to accommodation that has a lower intensity of support or even into independent accommodation. In this sense, the provision will form the first step in a young person's pathway to independence. Alongside of repurposing the property, the intention is to seek to commission and enter into a contract with a suitable external provider that has experience of providing accommodation-based support to young people. A robust evaluation process and ongoing contract monitoring will be put into place to ensure that quality standards are maintained and that young people are provided with the individualised support that they require. The business case that is in Appendix 1 of this report sets out that we may need to draw upon up to £300,000 of the agreed borrowing headroom to fund the works needed to repurpose this property. However, it is likely that any borrowing will be recouped through a grant from the Housing with Care Fund. The business case also sets out the likely running costs of the new home. Currently, the annual cost of providing the care and support that will be replaced through the development of this property is approximately £625,273 for five children and that's based on an illustrative cohort of six children that we currently have in spot purchase provision. So, in contrast, the cost of commissioning the support element of this scheme has been calculated based on an equivalent service model in a neighbouring authority. In other words, a local authority-owned property but with an external provider contract to provide the care. And the cost of commissioning this support element is estimated at around £350,000 per annum, although that could be £374,000 per annum if we need to fund the borrowing costs for the refurbishment. So, taking a cautious approach of an 80% occupancy rate, we anticipate through delivering this, repurposing this property, that we would have revenue savings of over £200,000 per year. So, in summary, the business case represents an important step in the Council's ambition to increase the overall number of in-house placements for children, including supported living accommodation. The proposed development of the property will meet the wellbeing and safeguarding needs of care experienced young people and provide an affordable means by which the Council can provide good quality support. It would increase the services' ability to appropriately plan and control care pathways for children and young people in keeping with their needs, as well as reducing the Council's dependency on an uncertain provider market. So, this business case represents a viable way forward for an existing unused asset within Social Care and Health Directorate, with the opportunity to maximise potential grant funding and generate savings for the Council. So, I recommend it for your approval. Thank you, colleagues. Thanks very much, Councillor Chandler. Are there any questions relating to this report? No. I note once more, if you could look at this report and the previous report, the ability of this Council to make effective use of the availability of grant funding from Welsh Government. In both cases, I think, can be seen in the report. So, I think acting with innovation, acting with agility, acting in response to the opportunities provided, we can see services being developed for very needy citizens within the county. With no questions, I ask Cabinet to... Let's find the right verb from the report. Four recommendations. There we are. So, the first recommendation is for the Cabinet to approve the business case for the repurposing of Council-owned property in Caldicott, allowing the development of supported accommodation provision for care-experienced young people. Cabinet? That's agreed. Second recommendation to note housing with care fund applications being made to fund the works for up to a value of 300,000. Happy to note? To allow for a maximum drawdown of 300,000 from the 3 million borrowing headroom agreed at full Council meeting on the 18th of April 2024 to enable the service to proceed with the project, subject to an anticipated successful application to the housing with care fund. Agreed? And finally, to enter into a contract with a suitable external provider to provide the housing-based support for young people residing at the property. Agreed? That's agreed. So, the four recommendations of that report are agreed and that concludes the agenda of this Cabinet meeting. I thank you all for putting up some time with my inability to both present a report and chair the meeting and for having a digital presence of the appropriate Cabinet chair from Leeds. Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Griffiths. You did splendidly.