Transcript

viewing. The images and sound recordings may be used for training purposes within the Council. I, the Chair, have discretion to terminate or suspend filming if it is my opinion that continuing to do so will prejudice the proceedings of the meeting. If you are seated in the public gallery it is likely that recording cameras will capture your image and this will result in the possibility that your image will become part of the broadcast. Any views expressed by any speaker in this meeting are the speaker's own and they do not necessarily reflect the views of Stashamours District Council. Please come members be aware that the webcast will continue to be streamed live 20 seconds after the close of the meeting. This is due to the time delay in transmitting live. Apologies in absence. Yes, thank you Chair. So I've received apologies this evening from Councillors Jones, Roberts, Whitehouse, Salt and Emery. Notifications of substitute members, if any. Yes, so we have Councillor Malion for Councillor Jones, Councillor Hopchoff for Councillor Salt, Councillor Taylor for Councillor Whitehouse and Councillor Beswick for Councillor Emery. Declarations of interest, disclosed with human interests or other interests, if any. You have approved the minutes of the previous meeting. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Urgent items of business? None. Questions of the portfolio holders? None. Right then, so it's beat the cold presentation, so I'd like for everyone to introduce themselves. Thank you. Oh sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. The programme. Councillor Johnson. Hi, yes, two items. I think the Food Bank are due to come and present, not at this meeting but in the future, if we could just get confirmation of that, because I may have missed it. Yeah, July meeting. Right, great, okay. And in the minutes of last meeting, it mentioned that the air quality was discussed, but no decision was taken. Can I just check the status, because I think the air quality report, the long overdue air quality report is due soon, and as I understand it, the intention was perhaps that it wouldn't come to scrutiny under the new arrangements for a number of reasons. One, it's a statutory duty. Two, many of the levers are not in the District's hands. And three, that under the DEFRA air quality guidelines, there is a kind of steering group which has Councillors on. But I'm not sure that not bringing such a long delayed report to scrutiny suddenly, as it were, not bringing it is perhaps the right approach, and I think the committee might take a view that for the first time at least, it comes to scrutiny. I'll hand you over to... There is an information digest which will go to all the members of this committee. I've seen a draft of it this morning, it's going to be cleared by the portfolio order, so the members of this committee will get to detail that report. Would you like to come back? Right, so that's an information digest not coming to scrutiny. But give me, I'm a bit naive on these things. It's just a written briefing as opposed to bringing it for discussion. As a matter of fact, it just details the progress that's been made with the action plans, et cetera. I prefer to. Councillor Lail. Just a point of information, really. I would imagine once Councillors have read that information digest, if they would like it to come to this committee, there would certainly be no barrier to that happening, in my view, if members are happy with that approach. Yep. Just to add to what Councillor Johnson said, I spoke to Alicia today. Our member services will be contacting Councillors about setting up the steering group you mentioned, the statutory requirement, in the next few weeks. So I think the combination of the information digest, what comes out of the, in terms of that steering group, may give you a steer on which direction you want to go. Okay. Questions of the portfolio holders, which we have none. Obviously now, beat the cold presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, esteemed colleagues. Thank you for welcoming me here to the Energy Advice Service Review. And thank you to Sally for the invitation. And my name is Fiona Miller. I work for beat the cold. I started there in January of this year, so still plenty of new enthusiasm. And I've got a background at the Chambers of Commerce, a very used, and the Sentinel, so very used to working with local authority as commissioners. So my reason for joining is that I grew up in Biddulph and suffered from fuel poverty as a young person, and so I understand firsthand the impact we need to be making with these services. So I won't keep you for too long this evening, but just to give a quick overview of what we'll be going over tonight, we'll cover again a recap on beat the cold, look at the nice guidelines which really dictate the service and how we operate. We'll look at the overview of the beat the cold team, service level agreements and KPIs, and then we'll finalise with a couple of very local case studies. So as many of you are aware, beat the cold have been operating in Staffordshire as an energy advice service and also energy efficiency charity. And we offer our advice to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable residents within our district. We were commissioned by SMDC in line with nice guideline 6 and that is to be the local single point of contact for housing and health referral. So we've got over two decades of experience in delivering impartial and trusted energy advice, and beat the cold started off as a project many moons ago and evolved into what is now an organisation with a number of employees. We specialise in retrofit schemes, so many of you will be aware of the constantly evolving landscape of grant-funded retrofit schemes that come through central government, and we pride ourselves in getting up to speed and working very closely with Ofgem to ensure we have all the latest updates with these schemes to deliver them effectively to residents in order to combat fuel poverty and improve the quality of our housing stock. I think one thing that really surprised me when I joined beat the cold was just the unscripted approach. So I spent my first week out on the road with the team in the homes of vulnerable residents and there really was no enquiry that was too complex or long-winded or challenging. For example, the team will spend a couple of hours if necessary on a conference call with energy suppliers, really getting to the bottom of the trouble that residents are having, and that's just one small example. And really I think that is beat the cold's unique selling point, in fact that nothing is too much trouble, and it's really unique to see this. I think when you look at an advice-led service it's usually dictated by length of time spent working with the individual residents, and that's certainly not the case at beat the cold. So most of you will be familiar with the NICE guidelines. Beat the cold are very familiar with them because we've provided expert witness support to divide these guidelines. So this is the guideline of excess winter deaths and illness and the health risks associated with our cold homes. And I've picked out five key aims here which you can see on the screen, and that's really what dictates how we work as an organisation, and also provides a framework for everything that we do. We run through these guidelines and this is why we operate and this is how we operate. And it's really interesting to see the guideline definition of vulnerable people as well within the NICE guidelines because it's really broad. Again you can see that on screen, but really we're looking at the residents who have got morbidities, we're looking at mental health conditions, disabilities, even young children in the house, so it's not always poverty-led and it's not always fuel poverty-led, but it can be still working with vulnerable people, and essentially we don't turn a single resident away regardless of their status. So the beat the cold team, as I said earlier, we started out as a project with one person delivering that work I think a couple of decades ago. We've now developed into the team that you can see on screen, and I'm very, very lucky to have a really long-standing team who have got over 67 years of experience across the board, and it's been a brilliant transition for me to be able to get embedded in there because they really are the experts in this field. So we've recently undergone a restructure in terms of the stature, which was at the point in time when I was brought in, to oversee the team. We appointed again an operations supervisor just to make sure that we were really making the most of that day-to-day work. My operations supervisor and finance and data lead are both fully qualified home energy advisors, and that really gives us additional capacity. When we get busy they're able to jump onto that phone and work through those calls. So we've got seven home energy advisors at the moment with additional capabilities and capacity through those two, and we're just undergoing a program of recruitment over the summer. So many of you will be aware that the calls I think were certainly at the top of the tree when it came to handling a lot of the energy crisis work, and at some points in time that gave us capacity issues as it would do, going from a small team to taking on those volumes. But we've come through the other side. I'm really proud of the team when I look at the numbers, how we handle such a volume of work in a short space of time, and now we've got this period of time where we're starting to see the energy price caps reducing. We're in this brilliant place where we can really start to strategise and plan that resource for the future. Our service level agreement with Staffordshire Mourners District Council has a number of key indicators, and also some more qualitative aspects as well. So ultimately it's to provide an energy advice service to support the residents of the districts, and we were also measured on home visits and events. I'll take you through the juicy part, the performance data. So Beat the Cold in the last 12 months have supported 451 households in the moorlands, with 672 enquiries, so typically around 1.5 enquiries per household. And the majority of those residents that we're working with are vulnerable through multiple disadvantage, typically poverty and health conditions. As an organisation, we're really keen to support local authority in the wider state to get towards prevention and to ensure that we can eradicate fuel poverty over time, but that doesn't take away from the fact that we've got this immediate crisis relief need. The last 12 months Beat the Cold have signposted our residents to over £60,000 of fuel voucher support, 95 households have been issued with food bank vouchers, and over 100 to water tariff support. So we understand that the challenges are still there, we're absolutely still seeing the cost of living crisis. I haven't seen typically in the figures yet the classic spring/summer decline, we're still where we were in the height of winter in terms of coal volumes. We've supported residents at events, and we are now keen that we've got more capacity and the team is able to be more open to which events we attend, and we certainly want to get more of those underway in the next 12 months. We have delivered home visits and we're always open to those as well, so any council who believes that we need a resident who has to have a home visit or should do them, please always send them our way with that indication. You know your residents better than we do, and we can perform that screening in the first instance through a call but we're absolutely open as well to hearing more from yourselves. We work very closely as you're aware with the NHS, we're building those links all the time, we've got new projects coming through and many of the team over at the NHS are really up the skill to look for the key indicators where it would be the call referral would be really useful and so we're starting to build those numbers coming through as well. Eco4, as many of you are aware, is the latest retrofit scheme, it's quite a new scheme, the statements of intent were only very recently signed off and so we've got 22 households through already. This is growing all the time, there's been a lot of interest but we can definitely do more here with more outreach and more targeted work. So we also add residents to the priority services registered through National Grid and those are the most vulnerable residents through health conditions and we've put through 81 residents in the last 12 months to ensure that if there was a power cut then they would be first on the list to be reinstalled. Also signposts to other partner agencies and that's typically for wider support with cost of living, debt advice, usually typically the citizens advice, support Staffordshire and the groundwork UK as well. The largest age group in the last 12 months for the Morelands was the 40 to 65 age group and the majority of those residents were either long term sick or unemployed. Overall around a third of the residents that we dealt with there and then on the call said that they immediately had an improved sense of wellbeing which is really an important metric for us to make sure that we are making an impact as quickly as we can. So I'll move on now to a couple of case studies and then I've done, I promise, we don't want more death by PowerPoint. So the first one is a family based off in Cheadle and we can all imagine something like this happens where life is absolutely as normal and all of a sudden one of the working parents has a heart attack and unable to work, no replacement income and was signposted by DWP to beat the cold. They were at the crisis where they really didn't have a way to pay their energy bills when they reached us. So we advised about keeping a warm and healthy home particularly to support with getting through the illness and we added to the priority services register as well. We were able to provide some more practical support such as the referral for the £450 energy vouchers and water tariff support as well and we offered ongoing support with ourselves and our partner agencies for peace of mind. Knowing that something like this service was available when this family had never had services in this case in the past was really useful for them. So the final case study tonight is a retired couple based in Leek and this is the difference between the previous resident who only visited the service once. This is the resident who once they've had interaction with Beat the Cold they've visited us seven times since late 2022 and we don't turn any residents away, we don't mind if people visit us one time, seven times, 20 times, it doesn't matter it's what they need and we're there for them. So these residents were vulnerable through health conditions but they were only claiming attendance allowance. We were able to support this couple to take a benefits check which meant they were eligible for pension credit which has really been life-changing for their household income. We've provided a reassurance and helped to get make sure that their heating set to be as efficient as possible and we've also successfully referred them to the household support fund for fuel credit and also water support. We did work with their supplier to make sure that their bills were correct and we were able to save them £672 in the year as well which on their income was a really significant saving and I'll leave you now with their testimonial which we got from them recently just to close off this case study that receiving support has been wonderful, it helps us financially and we weren't aware that we were entitled to any assistance. The affinder also helped sort out our benefits which has been a game changer for us. This service has made a significant difference in our lives. Thank you very much for that. Have we got any questions? Oh, Councillor Johnson. Thank you very much for that presentation Fiona. It was good to, you could feel your enthusiasm and it's good that as it were, fresh face beat the cold and very good to hear that your background too and I mean that genuinely. You mentioned capacity but you put it in the context of the energy crisis. Now of course that did increase pressure but those of us who have been sort of as it were on the street in this area know that there were issues with capacity of beat the cold and indeed your peers as it were before the energy crisis. So what I'd like to know is are you very confident that you have got over those issues because they did create tension. You didn't work weekends for example at events. There were those of us who were giving our own time to stage events, we don't get paid for it on energy et cetera but we could never get anyone from beat the cold and it was frustrating. I know of Councillors who have at times late on Friday afternoon for example tried to get a fuel voucher for residents and have not been able to get through to beat the cold. I'm not doubting your commitment, I'd just like some reassurance on that and I've just got another follow up question after that if you don't mind. Thank you Councillor Johnson. Now you're quite right, I think I would be foolish to sit here and say we were perfect. I think there have certainly been some challenges. What I will say to you is that I've got probably a different background than some of my previous colleagues have had. I managed tally sales teams for years in my early days at the Sentinel and so I've got a real understanding of how to manage phone line volumes and compared to resource. What I would say with weekends is I'm not going to sit here and say to you yes we'll attend every single event on a weekend because I have to balance that between having resource available to take those phone calls in the week but ultimately nothing's off the table. If we've got the capacity and the capability and there's an event that's really important to any Councillors then certainly it can arrive at the desk and we can make those decisions and I'm certainly open to that as well. As we continue to grow and move forward with those scale up plans for new team members if it's certainly a challenge with events then we can make sure that we've got the right employees to handle those for you. Just following up on that then, can I ask what's the market like for the kind of people you, Home Energy Advisors because I know that other organisations that are in the same area as you, I'm talking about, actually it's probably invidious of me to mention names because it's confidential but I think you will know the names. They're struggling with capacity at the moment so and they're struggling to get the kind of people they want in the volume they want so I'm kind of wondering why you might be different than them. It's a great point, thank you and I certainly know that it is an industry that's full of challenges. You saw earlier that all my team are qualified to a high level and just to give you an indication that we're looking around £30,000 with on costs for an Energy Advisor, I won't go into marrying the figures up but you know what a local authority commission contract is worth and it's about balancing those challenges together and ultimately we do have to top pots up on occasion and it is hard, it's hard to recrease. I think it's a hard sector in the fact that it changes so variably but we have our eyes on everything. I've got a business background so I've also got an MBA so I'm very used to strategic planning and I think that these skills have not been seen and beat the cold for a while now and so I bring that fire and enthusiasm hopefully underpinned with a strong skill set and I'm looking forward to taking that forward. Councillor Campton. Thank you. Great work you're doing and really good clear presentation, thanks for that. It was just really relating to the key performance data. I just wondered how does this compare to the original targets that were set? Have you exceeded your initial targets? Are there other areas which you have been more challenged on and alongside that then what does that mean for some of the difficulties you may have faced over the period? Thanks. Thank you Councillor Canster. Yes we're on track to exceed the targets by the end of the period. Whether they were stretch targets or not remains to be seen. I certainly think that we will improve and deliver on the value for money that was expected at the start of the term and moving forward where we see the challenges lie is that we want to get out and be more targeted. Many of you in the room know that we've had discussions with some of your colleagues around the UKSPF funding and what that would enable us to do is to be more targeted with that outreach, spend more time at events, reaching those people who perhaps don't realise that they can have support from us and that's my real focus for the next 12 months of the contract is not preaching to the converted but making sure that we're getting out there in those hard to reach places. Thanks for the presentation. I might be repeating a little bit about what my fellow Councillors have said but just looking at the key performance in their data obviously you did have the leak event with 50 residents and you've talked a little bit about some of the challenges around events but I just wondered if you had success with the town councils with getting lists of their events and what's coming up that you may be able to tap into and come along and connect with people and then just on the KPIs for example 30 home visits, I've missed this apologies but that's a KPI per year isn't it and your home visits this year was 15 so that's obviously 50% off and I was wondering if you'd like to comment on what can you do to hit that KPI going forward. Thank you. Thank you Councillor. First part with the town council as I know my very good colleague Gillian who I work very closely together is linking me in with the right people there and making sure we were at a bid off event only recently I think in the last few weeks that was a town council event I do believe and so we're absolutely looking to link in more closely and to make sure that we're getting out to the right areas. In terms of the home visits targets and please feel free to tell me differently but when I've digested the SLA in detail I know that these are up to so what we're saying there is that within this contract there is capacity to provide up to 30 home visits. We tend to when we look at the KPIs flatline that across the three so it may be up to 90 across the three. I'm not concerned that we didn't meet those because I'm really confident in my team's ability to diagnose and triage residents and if we need a home visit and a resident would benefit from that then we would be out there doing that but it's certainly something we'll be looking to keep our eye on in the final 12 months. Thank you for all the great work that Beat the Cold does to support vulnerable people across the moorlands. Just two points I was going to make, first of all you're always welcome to come along to ending Community Cafe attending Methodist Church that takes place every Monday. There's lots of people who attend that, it's a really good venue if you ever want to chat to residents there. Myself and my colleague Councillor, Philander run our surgeries there so you're welcome any time. The other point I was going to make was it relates to what Councillor Johnson was saying about capacity so obviously over the last couple of years you've had to expand an awful lot to deal with that extra demand that we've got at the moment with the cost of living crisis and the energy crisis. How have you managed to upskill the team with the right skills that they need, you know those green skills in particular, to deal with all those extra demands because obviously it's a short space of time and you've had to probably take on lots of extra staffs, how have you dealt with that as an organisation because obviously you've got to keep those high quality standards. Thank you and thank you for the invite, I'll make sure that we look out for that and seek to get the team over. So in terms of balancing that, it's an absolutely valid point and what we've been really keen to do is make sure we maximise the benefit of having colleagues in the organisation who have been there, some of them 15 years, some of them 20 years, which is quite unheard of and I think was one of the reasons I took the job, I thought if they do that then they must be doing something right because you don't see many people sat there in a seat for that long these days and what we've been able to do is use that and maximise that opportunity to make sure that the colleagues who have been there for a long time have really taken the newer employees under their wing so to speak and enabled them to flourish but what we've then seen in turn is that those new fresh eyes have also invigorated those long standing employees and we've got a mix at the moment on the home energy advice team where I would say we've got 50% of the longer standing colleagues and 50% of the new and it feels like a good balance, of course that balance will tip as time goes on but then those staff who were new are now not so new and they're getting up to speed so in terms of balancing that with getting into the energy efficiency aspects it's a really complex sector, I've had a baptism of fire I'm not going to lie, I'm from a sustainability background at the Chamber of Commerce, carbon and electricity certified and there are days where my kilowatt hours are just pickling my brain so I can understand the complexity certainly with the sector, I think the training that we undergo is very comprehensive, I certainly haven't put myself forward for it yet because I think that I will certainly have egg on my face at the moment in front of the team but it is a very, very comprehensive course so they're all trained up to level 3 and also level 2 in renewables and I think that makes a real difference is that we get our team on the phones quite quickly and as many of you in the room will know regardless of what work you undertake you learn by doing and so they will always have a shadow or a mentor with those more senior staff to make sure that we're giving out the right advice because we understand that it's absolutely crucial to get that right. Thank you very much. Councillor Giroz. Thank you very much. Thank you for a very clear presentation as well. I really appreciate the case studies that you've sent us but one thing that has left me wondering, I noticed there was no reference to rural residents and I'm slightly concerned and maybe it's something to come back with. I'd like to know if there's data to suggest that we are keeping up and that rural residents aren't being left behind. To my mind there's the potential, a lot of these new technologies aren't always applicable for the kind of housing that's built in rural areas such as stone built housing. There's a lot of things that just physically can't be put into there and then there's been the highlight that we need to make sure that we are actually managing to get out to the areas to reach them in the first place so I suppose my question is, is there any data to suggest that we are giving access to rural residents? Is there anything to show that they aren't being left behind and is there any specific plan in place to make sure that they can keep up in the future? Thank you for your question, really great question and I'm certainly not going to sit here and say oh yes we reach everybody because I don't have that data in front of me but what I will say is if the panel wants to provide me with a list of postcodes or awards that they want me to check how far we're reaching in in comparison to the whole of the moorlands then I'm absolutely willing to of course do that analysis for you. I think as we move forward, particularly with the UK shared prosperity funding as well, we're going to absolutely have the capabilities to get out into all those harder to reach areas. I totally empathise with the digital divide that sits in rural areas, we've got a lot of experience around connectivity and the challenges that residents can face and so we're absolutely willing to find new ways of working if we need to to reach people but I think the first port would be start with the data and please do tell me where you want us to look at and we'll do that analysis and not shy away from it whatever the outcome. Councillor Taylor. Councillor Ward. Thank you chair. First of all thanks for your presentation. It's good to see you here and it's very interesting to see how it's progressing. We commissioned your services a couple of years back now but it's good to see the organisations growing and maturing. It's been a pretty deep learning curve I thought but it's growing quite nicely. I've got two questions, one for yourself and one maybe more directly that I'd prefer to get a hold of themselves but just looking at for example case study one, it's good to see that we've offered timely advice to a family and given them all the support that they need but I noticed that a couple of the interventions are relatively short term using termism vouchers etcetera and I know you mentioned that you're offering ongoing support but I'm just wondering what form that takes rather than just reiterating vouchers and that. What else could we do for this family to make sure they've got a longer term sustainable solution for their particular needs and then just coming back to the second question if that's okay. I know we were commissioned in 2022, it's due to a finish in 2025. I know there's talk with the shared prosperity fund. Is there an intention to renew this contract beyond, because it's only nine months away now from when it would have effectively come to an end, are we as a district council one intending to renew this contract and secondly are we looking at upscaling, it's obviously been successful, there's obviously demand and demand continuing to grow, are we looking to add further funds to that, because obviously if these guys have only got nine months it'd be better for them to know sooner rather than later that they can start upscaling in advance of that award if you like. Just to know what we're doing as a future district council, thank you. Thank you and I think it's a really valid point. I certainly wouldn't want to think that we were a fuel bank factory, I think there's certainly been times over the height of the cost of living crisis where that's been the case but the team are highly skilled in providing that in-depth intervention and that can be anything from behavioural advice in the home, how to operate the kit that they're working with to heating one room and all the rest of it in between and what we like to do is work with residents to get them to understand that wider suite of intervention is available and we could work with them on numerous occasions and still find a new tip to provide them with. So that prevention work is really crucial, the foundation of the nice guideline six that we operate under and I think that we would like to see over time there wouldn't be a need with the fuel poverty height to have the vouchers because as an organisation and certainly as an individual I believe that it doesn't always help with those immediate handouts and whilst there is a need for that immediate poverty relief at the moment I would like to see that we can get towards something more sustainable. Just to share an insight into the way I think with that I'm currently working with a global manufacturer of sustainable kit in this sector and we're looking at running a pilot, I was speaking with the Department of Energy Security net zero a couple of weeks ago before the period of sensitivity and there's a lot of appetite for the ideas that we've got to really support the most disadvantaged residents and take them on that sustainability journey with us but without giving a handout and to build long-term infrastructure so I'm really passionate about that and on your page. And absolutely of course we echo the sentiment we would love to know as soon as we could about next time. Councillor Yates. Yes thank you and what's interesting about coming towards the end is you're picking up bits and pieces from other people and first of all thank you for your presentation, very informative and picking up on comments and questions which have been made both by Councillor Duros and by Councillor Ward. The agreements with Beat the Cold and like similar organisations were basically a rolling 12-month agreement. It was extended to a three-year one to give a degree of continuity so that we could actually plan forward and ahead. There is a proposal which obviously Beat the Cold are aware of that we're discussing at the moment and at the point of really very close to finalising which is for the use of the UK shared prosperity section e13 money which is community measures to reduce cost of living including measures to improve household efficiency and to pick up on the points which you've said. The thing which pricked my eyebrows so to speak was looking at those case studies there was, everything was quick fix, short-term intervention, a food parcel as opposed to a slow cooker, that kind of approach so to speak. So what the UK shared prosperity money does if we get that proposal firmed up and over the line which we are very positive about is that that is in rough terms around about 80-85% capital and 15% revenue. So what becomes important with that is that the revenue funding is finding routes to save on energy costs, finding interventions to make sure that the bills are right. The capital funding is improvements to the fabric of the houses and that's something which I'm very keen on both from an alleviation of fuel poverty indefinitely plus also to help to meet our climate change targets at the same time as well and the kind of things which we've discussed as part of climate change and the fuel poverty which is in the things like doing home surveys, EPCs, seeing what the recommendations are for EPCs, changing minimum interventions, changing all the light fittings to LEDs, dust proofing, draft proofing, putting insulation in the loft, that kind of thing, potentially double glazing, there's enough money to do that and we've got to spread the intervention. What becomes important and interesting to hear is how do you reach those parts of the community who don't engage through the normal route, who wouldn't know to phone Beat the Cold, who wouldn't automatically phone Staffordshire Mall and District Council and that's something which Councillor De Rose has picked on. I know that we've got matrices to do with housing benefits and some of the support funds which we have here. I know GDPR comes into it but somehow we need to get those lists through so instead of being reactive to pick up the phone, you are proactive to take ownership of the phone and phone through. So I'll be very interested to hear what you do with that. And again, picking up on a very valid comment which Councillor Porter made about ending. You're very much aware of the 'bit of work together' project, something which we've been doing. There's quite a lot of home energy projects within there and groups which meet to have lunch and activity. They'd be fantastic things to just go and walk around to look at so if you can refresh yourself with that and then a bit of proactive feet on the ground. But the other thing which is important as well is steering the rural areas to the HUG funding for those who aren't on mains gas. Now that's a strange fund because it's isolated some postcode which is difficult but it's really getting to the grips with that matrix because I am well aware if this proposal gets firmed up, which I've got a high degree of confidence in, that you've got an awful lot of capital and that capital meets a lot of the targets which the gentlemen across the way are talking about. Super, thank you Councillor. It's a brilliant point and absolutely we are really keen to reach those harder to reach residents. You're right with HUG2, it's an interesting fund. I know that some of my esteemed colleagues over at the Staffordshire Warmer Homes Partnership are already looking into work on how they reach the right postcodes and we're currently in talks with the Morelands Council to do a mail out. We are going to wait until after of course the 4th of July to look into that but we've got plans underway. We very much have, you'll be pleased to know that one of the first aspects of the communications plan of the new fund should it come to fruition is that we communicate through the network of councillors and Gillian Wright's been really vocal and supportive to make sure that everybody knows what's going on at which points in time and can refer residents in. You're absolutely right as well, this fund being a targeted outreach project would be much more of an approach of outbound work because the incoming work would be the coldest preaching to the converted as we said earlier and we really want to make sure that we're utilising this fund to get to those people who don't know that we exist, they don't know that there is funding available and that's what the work would do. Councillor Johnson. Thanks Chancellor, I'll try not to test your patience. Actually the first part of my question was asked, I think a hug is an important part of the answer to Councillor Girode's question. I'm very glad to see that you are linking up with Staffordshire Woolmer Homes who of course are the delivery partner on that. The second one is more general, you sit at the intersection between energy and health and I haven't heard mention of damp and mould, there's lots of councillors, damp and mould forms a large part of our case work. If it's your housing, I can certainly speak for councillors in our ward, we're slightly sceptical of whether they're achieving their new found statutory duties, in fact we're more than sceptical. When it comes to SMDCs responsibilities for the private sector, well I'll only speak for myself, I'm holding judgement as to whether that strategy and the enhanced capability actually delivers results. But my question is, damp and mould, how often does that come up in the conversations you have and what's your experience in this district, I know you haven't got that much direct experience of sorting out those problems for people who come to you? Super, you're absolutely right, there's a real cross over between fuel poverty and health and something that I've been working very closely with the hospital, just a bit of a side bar, I'm actually working on a brand new pilot that will be quite pivotal for the health sector, it would be only the second trust in the country but we've started to use the one-half and care data to identify residents within primary care under a new pilot to ensure that their children with asthma, which is the first cohort that we've selected, are well up to speed on keeping a healthy home with that morbidity and so absolutely I echo your sentiment of the importance of damp and mould, awareness and intervention with health conditions. I think there are some challenges when it comes to housing stock with tenure certainly, with the different schemes that are available, the dream really for some of the schemes is owner occupiers which for me cuts out the fact that these schemes really should be going to the most disadvantaged and although we know that we can't generalise and there are certainly owner occupiers in that low income category, we do find with the central government schemes in particular a real challenge in reaching the right people, certainly in terms of the housing stock, I know you mentioned there that you're working directly with your housing and I know that they will probably likely have their own schemes as well to get the stock up to scratch. I don't think there is one size fits all in terms of a solution but I know what Staffordshire Warmer Homes are doing is being able to draw on different pots of funding to try and plug the gaps. I think to some degree that's what we'd be looking to do as well with the UK shared prosperity fund whereby the revenue fund reaches the right people, those hard to reach targeted people and the capital fund supports us to make amends where they are not currently being made in the wider schemes. But it is, you're absolutely right, it's a huge challenge and I think to some degree certain schemes, the hands are tied, even though we know that damper mall is really, really important, there are just black holes in the way that the schemes have been written but I'll be absolutely lobbying to make sure that we close the loop when we develop new schemes. So I'm also involved in some of the policy making for the Department of Energy Security and that's zero and I'm not afraid to speak up for that. Councillor Cawley. I'd like to return to Councillor Yates' comments about short-termism. In 1986 I ran a project in the moorlands called 'Elderly at Risk' and it's revisiting some of the arguments that were advanced then, way back in the 1980s in terms of coal-related deaths and specifically in rural areas. Councillor Duro's made the point, I think this would be like a two degree difference in terms of urban and rural areas, in terms of temperature difference in the depths of winter. And some of the comments that Councillor Duro's made about stone-built buildings, for example, pre-1914 buildings, I think are still appropriate as they were back then. I think it's important to realise there is a sort of wider picture of this. I was told then that the UK has, in terms of coal-related deaths, has something like twice or three times the average of coal-related deaths in countries to the north. I just checked Finland, for example, has 2,000 coal-related deaths. According to age concern, this is a figure back from 2016, the UK has 25,000 coal-related deaths. So that's the level of the problem. And I guess that 2016 figure, the age concern figure, has probably increased quite dramatically since 2016. Of course, one issue might well be popularly insulated, and this is where the sort of short-termism comes into this. There was a project based in Stoke-on-Trent called the Centre for Refurbishment Excellence, which did not survive austerity measures back in the 2012s, 2013s, based on an old pop bank, I think, in Longton. I'm just reminding the name. But anyway, I just wondered, how many of your clients do you actually help or assist in getting their homes insulated? Because from what has been said, in terms of directing people to, it does strike me as being sort of not actually tackling some of the root causes. Insulating, as Councillor Yates has suggested, would be one way of a longer-term solution to the problem. It was recognised in the 1980s, when I ran that project. Still, it hasn't been recognised. And I just think that refurbishment, that project that ran in Stoke, did also offer young people the ability to train, in terms of this. It all links into illness as well, into death, co-related deaths. As I say, the fear that I have that a lot of this smacks of only looking at things in a shorter term, when there are longer-term issues really at stake here. Thank you. That's a great point. And yes, I'm familiar with it with coal. I used to visit over there during my time at the centre, and it was a super project, and as you say, it's a great casualty. I think you're absolutely right. We really must continue to focus on the fabric of homes as a prior importance. And those schemes have been, the retrofit schemes have been boiling away in the background, but I do think that that immediate poverty relief has been not driven by my team, but driven by the residents, in that they don't always want to listen. They just want their fuel batteries there and then. There's definitely an education piece in that, which we have been working on very closely. I think it's brilliant to see the launch of the new Great British Insulation Scheme, the GVIS scheme, that came on stream only a couple of months ago, and that enables single-measure insulation with looser criteria than some of the previous schemes. In conjunction with Eco4, I think there's a real opportunity, and we're absolutely, since we've had statements of intent for both schemes, now getting those referrals through the Staffordshire Warmer Homes Partnership as a priority. But you're absolutely right, the ticket out of this immediate poverty relief is absolutely prevention, and certainly insulation goes a long way toward that. Right, that's the end of your presentation. Thank you for all your questions. Very interesting, thank you very much. The next item is Strengthening the Relationships with Town and Parish Council. I'm going to hand you over to Mike. Thanks Chair. We're bringing this report tonight about strengthening relationships between Town and Parish Councils, basically because it's a conversation that we've had in the past, in previous years, and those have continued this year, so we kind of want to formalise the way forward and how this can be done. Starting at the beginning, Town and Parish Councils are at the heart of local democracy. I think that's particularly true in a kind of three-tier system like ours, particularly when sometimes gaps can appear if communications are not good. I'm told there's no formal link between Town and Parish Councils and the County Council, beyond the good work that our County Councils do in their parishes. Now that's something that's beyond us at the present time, but there's plenty of stuff that we can do with Town and Parish Councils here to move that situation forward. I suppose summing it up I might say, and no offence is meant to any members here who are working on this, that Town and Parish Councils can reach the parts that sometimes districts and county can't reach, and I think that's really important. I'm delighted that we've got 42 active Town and Parish Councils. That's way in excess of quite a number of authorities, including our friends over the hill, but I won't give any stats on that for now, but just to say that we've got a really good rating there for that, and all of them participate in local democracy for residents. I think the point is they know their communities, they've got the power and the influence to mobilise locally and to achieve local priorities. They've got the power to act through local precepts and a lot of voluntary activity, some more than others on the precepts, and that's the way it is, some bigger, some smaller, and that's fine. We've had some excellent neighbourhood plans coming through from some parts of the district as well. Most of all, I think there's real potential, some might say it's a bit untapped, not that our present position isn't good, and if you want to know what our present position is, I'd really commend you to have a look at section 10 of the report, which really looks over time at what we've done at district with Town and Parish Councils in the Staffordshire moorlands, and there's an awful lot of good work being done, being done, and the question is how far can we take it in the future. In our CPC report they talked about us having the capacity to be more ambitious, and I think this is one of those areas where we can be more ambitious. You'll see also in the pack national reports that have come in that commend this way of working with Town and Parish Councils right at the heart of local democracy. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach. Not every town and not every parish can work in exactly the same way with districts, and nor should they. It's more or less about creating the framework that we can work together. You'd recognise that the capacity and the resources of a small parish council might be different from what can be achieved at a town council level, but that shouldn't stop us wanting to achieve everything that we can. We want it to be a cooperative approach, not a done-to. Some people say, Oh, you mean done with, and I'm going higher than that. I think it needs to be a joint approach where the views of towns and parish councilors are equally important in the process by which we put things together. And that's why in the report you see a kind of step-by-step approach. It begins with engaging with the Town and Parish Councils and the Parish Assembly and listening to their thoughts on how we can make this relationship better than it currently is. Not to say it's bad now, but what can we achieve for the future? It then looks at setting up a working group of members from this committee and parish assembly councilors to move it forward, jointly scoping and researching potential ways forward. Maybe getting to the stage where there's a statement of intent. If you've looked at the appendices, I'd just commend the parish charter approach that Bath and South Somerset have done together to produce their charter. It's really interesting. I'm not saying that's exactly what we would do, but it's just an interesting example of what can be done. And that would lead to an action plan to move things forward jointly with, I hope, milestones and targets, because if we do embark on a new strand of work and we don't have milestones and targets, there is a tendency for it to get lost somewhere, and that's what we want to do. We wouldn't want that to happen. Speculating on possible outcomes, and I say speculating because the outcomes come from the discussions that will flow on from tonight. It might be that we're developing more town centre partnerships. Now, toes have been put in the water in the past on that. Can we do more in the future and get to some more meaningful outcomes than perhaps have been able to achieve in the past? In section 12, there's a really interesting approach where you'll see a map of clusters within the moorlands, which kind of links with saying parish councils don't have to be on their own for this kind of work. It's possible to group together geographically, and that section 12 identifies those six clusters around the district that we've talked about before. Sometimes joining up for activities can achieve more than trying to do it on your own. We're very interested in the possibility of setting up a regeneration fund for small projects. Now, we're not claiming that that's an original idea. It's piggybacking on something that High Peak are doing with some success already, and we think there might be some mileage in that here, depending on what town parish councillors and parish assembly tell us that they want to do. Communications is always another thing. We've got the capacity now to do digital newsletters and bringing those together would bring about better communications between towns and parishes and the district. Again, if that's one of the outcomes. And there could be a lot more. There could be many things that come out of this that currently I don't know, but could be really valuable for us as we work together to move it forward. So tonight I'm really commending the report to you. I'm very interested to hear what members have got to say on this. I hope that'll lead to us confirming the recommendations, but there may well be ideas that members are putting forward tonight which can easily be added to this report and give us some pointers for the future. So I do commend it to you, and I'm very interested to hear what members think of the approach that we're thinking of taking. Thanks, Chair. Do we have any questions? Any thoughts? Oh, Councillor Mullyan. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for this report. It's quite refreshing. It's a breath of fresh air, really, that you're sending that message out to the parish and town councils, because they've got a lot of valuable information and a lot of good thoughts that could take the district forward. I don't know what sort of these speakers tonight would be quite strange. It's like you're talking down a tunnel. No, I really welcome this, and I'm sure that Councillor Lynn Swindler will take it to the parish assembly, as is in the report, and it will be hopefully all the parishes and towns will attend so that they can contribute to this, because it's got miles of actual things that we can do and do together to make the district really proud. There's so much in this that can be achieved, and I hope that everyone will embrace it, really, because it's a step in the right direction. And for the parishes and towns to be listened to, I think they'll all give a cheer if that actually happens, because they don't think they're listened to at the minute. So this is a really good step forward. Thank you. Councillor Haynes. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Lena. I think this is a really, really good step forward and a really good approach, and specifically really through it, I do really support the town centre partnership approach. I think the previous way of doing things was sort of top-down regeneration plans have failed to meet needs and desires, specifically of cheetah residents. Plans that have cost tens of thousands of pounds, unfortunately, have resulted in little regeneration, and one, it's not obviously good value for me, but two, it's obviously not meeting what people need or what the community needs. When they've gone to consultation as well, they have been unpopular in some cases, so clearly we're not thinking or working with the community to come forward with proposals that they want. I think the other alternative, a completely community and town-led proposal, is also doomed to fail. I think that where you've got a lack of information and support and understanding how various projects could happen or would lead to benefit the community or lead to economic growth in the town, you really need that information and support from the data to be able to put forward a feasibility of it, because anybody can, a town council can come up with some ideas, and quite often in towns and communities there are a lot of ideas, but not all of them are going to work, and it can really benefit, I think, having that partnership between the district council and the town councils in a working group to come forward with various options. For example, for town centre regeneration, the working group would obviously benefit with support from SMDC, and the town and the community would be able to feed back and be able to really feed into that so that it is something that is good for the community. The small regeneration projects fund I think also warrants serious consideration, because I think two projects off the top of my head in Cheadle would benefit from such funding, a community newsletter that we saw a few people trying to get together, and also town centre digital display notice boards as well. So there are just a couple of things that I know people are working on that would really use some of that funding if it was in place, so I wholeheartedly support this, and I think that we should definitely go forward with the recommendations in it, thanks. Councillor Giroux. It seems to be working this time. I'm really, really pleased, Councillor Gledhill, that one of the things you pointed out was communication. I think that's going to be absolutely key going forward. Not just communication between the councils, but communication between the councils and the public as well. I think engagement is something that can be really pushed at all levels of council. I wonder perhaps if it would be within the scope of this council to look at a small framework project to how best that communication would look, and if we could put something together as a suggestion and encourage the parishes and the towns to adopt that, then we wouldn't be relying on them putting their own individual things in place. If something more formal could be put in place, more ideal, that could be adopted widely, I wonder if that is within the scope of this council to look at. Thank you. Councillor Johnson. Thank you. I too welcome this remarkably well presented paper. I spent a lot of time moaning about the quality of papers that sometimes come before us, and this, I think, is quite exceptional. It goes beyond the usual platitudes we hear on this subject. Don't laugh too much, Councillor Gledhill. I would like to congratulate and think it's all your work, but I detect the hands, I'm sure, of the inestimable Lyndon Vernon and his team of democratic services. Point of information, Chair. Councillor Johnson would be pleased to know I had no hand in writing this report whatsoever. I'm not taking any plaudits for it. I might be taking the odd plaudit for the approach if members like it, but the writing report, we've got a very professional team here, they've done a great job on it. I think that was what I was suggesting in a polite way. But whatever. It is a really deeply well researched report which aims to go beyond the platitudes which is typically dominated this subject for a long, long time. I won't go into too much detail, but I've got a suggestion and question. The suggestion is relatively simple. The parish assembly, we all know it's not working as it ought to. It hasn't done for a long time. Maybe it never did ever. I don't know. But I think it's, you know, the attendance is patchy. It's sometimes dominated by particular interests, et cetera, and it often seems it's got some of the members have got an ax to grind rather than, as it were, working towards a positive relationship how you can actually develop a more integrated role for parishes. But anyway, I think it's telling that the minutes you can't, if you actually try to find a record and you're not in the structure of a parish council, you can't actually find the minutes of them as a member of the public. I mean, I did a cursory Google search, and the last one is 2014. Now, that does not -- that to me is -- well, that's just not really how it should operate, and I think Lyndon and his team would possibly welcome such -- and the fact that they actually became public. The transparency is always the best. That's my minor suggestion. My question is this working group as to how -- and I don't think anyone will have a fully firmed answer to this, so it's kind of an open question. How will this working group work? We're talking about quite a disparate group of people. We're talking about people from towns. We're talking about counselors from rather organized parishes that aren't towns. I'm thinking Enden, very ambitious, tried to even increase its precept recently, got knocked back a bit, but Hipstones, Checkley, these are the more organized ones, then the ones that are less organized. I can just -- I'm not being a skeptic at all. I'm just wondering how have you thought that you can get to some -- get all these people together and get to some meaningful conclusion. I'm not sure who wants to answer that question. Is that you, Councillor? I'm just writing me a list to come back to. Councillor, Councillor. Thank you, yeah. I mean, I hold hardly to support this paper as well as document. Myself as well as many other Councillors, I mean, without the parish Councillors and working with the parish Council, a lot of the work which is done would be quite difficult. Definitely, the parish Councillors are the interface with the community. When I go along to parish Council's meetings, suggest certain ideas, I certainly use them as a sounding board. In many ways, I really welcome the closer working relationship with the parish Councils and parish Councillors. My only minor comment, but I do note lower down that it is, I think, addressed, is on page 13 where it talks about other potential issues for consideration. It talks about town centre partnerships and regeneration. It was really just a flag up there to say it's not just the towns which need regenerating. Many of the villages, you know, over years, we've witnessed how there's been a reduction in various facilities and services within villages and there's definitely a need for regeneration in many of those. But then also, lower down, I read about the small regeneration project grants which take place within the high peak and I just think that would be such a great idea. And I already know from meeting with parish Councils that requests for money in these kind of areas already are not requests, but discussions where they can apply for grants for this kind of, which this grant is looking to cover, you know, it's just, it would be really welcomed, I think. So thank you. Councillor Ward. Yeah, thank you, Chair. I certainly, obviously, I welcome the support. I think it's a great initiative. It's something that we've many, many times asked both in this chamber and the county about the importance and the significance of our parishes and our parish councils. They really are the eyes and ears of all the authorities, really. And it's really important that they are the voice as well. And that they, I think that it's important that as part of this process, not only is it not talking down to you, but it almost needs to be driven by the parish councils up to us. And I think there's a circle to be closed there with the county council as well. I think that there's a whole area of communication that we've all got our areas of responsibility, but they've very quickly deteriorated to silos. And it's about breaking those silos down, understanding what we're all responsible for, but still working together on things that don't necessarily fit in our immediate sort of remit, if you like. The parishes, again, for me, we can learn from the parishes. One thing that absolutely struck me, and again, I spoke here and at the county about the COVID response was that whilst the county and the district were still getting their boots on trying to sort out some support for COVID, within two or three days of the shutdowns, the lockdowns occurring, all four of my parishes had street volunteers, red and green card systems in place to support their local community and to help people. And, you know, we can learn sometimes to be more fleet of foot, I think, that parishes can be that. I think another really important thing is that it's not directly mentioned here. I think it's implicit, but parish councils tend to have that connection, one with the local individuals. So, for example, Beat the Coal, they've got a better understanding of where these actual people are in communicating with them. But also with the voluntary groups that are within each of our parishes. There's almost a fourth tier now, authorities, and that's the voluntary sector. And the parish councils have a much better relationship with the voluntary groups within their communities that, again, we could learn from. And a lot of it is not just about passing information up and down from county to district to parish, but it's circulating that level of expertise and brilliance that we see in our parishes to all the parishes that may not necessarily

• there's a lot of - I don't think we should formalise them or make them all the same, but there's a lot of lessons that all the parishes can give to one another. So I think I really welcome this, but I just think it's so important that it's driven up by the parish councils and they almost own this process and tell us as a district council what we should be doing and where we should be going. So thank you. Councillor Baswick. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to what Councillor Ward said. I mean, it's definitely an important thing to be bringing forward to this committee and I'm pleased to see this time that we are going to be consulting with the parish councils. I mean, I'm very encouraged by that. On a note on that, I would just say obviously the parish assembly is a great resource for consulting with parish councils, but obviously, as it says in the report, we've got 360 parish councils and maybe 25 come to the parish assembly. So I'd perhaps suggest that rather than just focusing on consultation through the parish assembly, maybe sending out a, not a report, but a consultation to each parish council and then that gives them an opportunity to discuss amongst themselves at their own meeting perhaps and put it as an agenda item and then that may allow more people to be involved in that consultation process and they can feed back through the parish assembly or through written responses which can maybe go to the working group. That would be perhaps my suggestion. I suppose on another thing, on points where perhaps this work can sort of improve the relationship, I suppose one of the main bits where parishes interface with the district council is through the planning service and sometimes I think parishes feel that they're a bit forgotten by the planning. They don't always feel their responses are taken into full account, so I wonder if perhaps we can improve that. I mean, obviously, parishes, well parish councils, if they're new, they don't always have that much experience of planning before, so maybe we can offer some training in the same way we do for district councils maybe, I don't know, through the democratic services team and perhaps as well maybe a guide to planning reasons which would perhaps then give their comments more weight when they're considered in the planning balance. That would be perhaps another suggestion. I don't know what the leader thinks, but thank you, thank you. Could I just ask something as well? Obviously within this document, obviously before we used to have school councils, school forums, district forums, things, is there going to be an element of where young people can feed into this as well, putting their opinions about their towns and that, so it's just another thing about the younger people coming through. Councillor Taylor. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, like everybody else, I really welcome this report. I think it's excellent, particularly like the idea of town centre partnerships, they're much needed and really quite exciting prospects. 41, is it 41 parishes we've got? Something like that. I'm just wondering about whether particularly we need to be ambitious with this, apply that notion of being ambitious to this idea. I noticed that High Peaks grant budget is £15,000. I'm assuming that we can be more ambitious than that. Then also, I think equally important, ambitious in the extent to which we learn to judge good bids and understand what works so that we can make sure that that money is well spent and then we can all have confidence that we could actually start to invest in our communities, knowing that we're doing good work as opposed to simply creating a pot of money that people claim from, so yeah. Councillor Swindley. Yeah, thank you. That fed very nicely considering I didn't know what you were going to say. Obviously, it's an incredibly well written paper and I've read quite a lot on parish assemblies, as you can imagine, so it's very up to date and it's expertly written, obviously. One of the key elements, and it does mention it somewhere in the paper, suggests that, the very recent research suggests that a key first step is to ensure that there's a narrative that informs our communities of what councils actually do. Any of us that read Facebook will know they haven't got a clue, they don't know who's responsible for this. So that's quite a useful first step and also what residents get for their money and those two are interlinked. And then most importantly, I think, is it demonstrates that we've got joint priorities. If they can actually see that we're engaging with each other and with them, then that gives people, residents, I think, a confidence to know that we've got joint priorities that they can understand, so that's quite important. I think a little bit around what Councillor Johnson was saying, the theory, and it's referred to in the paper, is about having point people, and they're people that, not point, but actually liaise with each other but are responsible for liaising between the authorities and the community. So you've actually got named individuals. I'm not saying we'll do this, it's just one of the case studies and I would really suggest that people read some of the case studies from other authorities really carefully because there's some really good work there that would easily be reflected in what we do. And just a little bit for Councillor Beswick that planning and some of the other things are already on the agenda going forward, as Sally and I put together. So yeah, that's all I'd like to say, thanks. Councillor Prowell. Yes, thank you, Chair. Just picking up on points that Councillor Kempster and various others have made regarding town centre partnerships and whatnot, particularly Councillor Kempster's comment regarding rural areas. One of the bits of work that's underpinning the new growth strategy is the idea around strategies led by town councils rather than imposed upon by us and the same sort of principle would apply to rural areas which are in need of the regeneration that you refer to and where there's an appetite to do it. Because clearly there may be situations where there isn't the appetite to do it. But obviously that sort of thing is very much in the forefront of the thought that's underpinning that work. Thanks. Councillor Cawley. Yes, an excellent report, whoever wants to claim the authorship of it. Yes, I've been listening to some of the comments made and I think the notion of parish councils having their ideas, the 42 Flowers Boom Bloom, if you like, approach. And one area that came to mind when Councillor Pezzu was talking was the way in which, for example, the Council Initiative Fund worked. And I know the project that he put in, which was an exercise project, I think, or some description, yes. I think it was, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, exactly. So that's a good example where the use of the Community Initiative Fund, for example, working Councillors working with their parishes, and I think Councillor Porter has also used it for that purpose as well in terms of working with the parish council. So yeah, I've got a reasonably good memory about these things. So yes, and a more recent example with Councillor Kempster is the project that we're working around, social isolation and loneliness, is an example of a project that we work with very closely with the community in Longna. So yes, I think it's an excellent report and offers parish councils, town councils, abilities to use initiatives and work closely with SMDZ. Yeah, I'm just going to come back on a few things before the leader did. So in terms, I suppose the question that Councillor Johnson points to is the most complex thing. I mean, we start the report very beginning with the different scales for the parish councils that range from a town council with almost a million pound budget to a rural council with 400 quid, that just keeps the notice board going. So it's how do you actually make it equal, because those issues in the rural areas are different, but that's important. So we've got to use a bit of skill, and I think the membership of that working group is going to be really important. And I think, I don't know who made the point about the engagements, Councillor Beswick made the point about getting people who aren't necessarily engaged in assembly now reaching out further than to that. I think one of the other things I think that isn't lost on us really is the 30/90/56 a year of parish councillors, actually, to be honest. So we've got a fair representation. I think some of you are even more parish members, more than one parish council, I think, yeah, there's a few people over there. So again, we need to use the members of the committee and the councillors in that role, if you like, to contribute to the better good of it, to sort of recognise that difference, because it's going to be really tricky. There are some examples, I know in the Hope Valley and High Peak, there's a sort of cluster or collective there that were very proactive, particularly during COVID. It was quite interesting because they spanned not just High Peak, they spanned into Derbyshire Dales as well. So we were having meetings that involved Derbyshire Dales. And I think there are ways of overcoming that. I think just the other thing I just wanted to add to that as well is that in the report we talk about the council's community leadership scheme, which includes the initiative fund that Councillor Corley's referred to. And there's a commitment, again, through the corporate plan to sort of reinvigorate that. Prior to COVID, we had some of the councillors, before we had a sort of ward approach where we had senior officers supporting members in that sort of ward, work, et cetera. So I think part of this would be to include the parish councils and whether that comes back or not. So I think that's a thought that we might work up to try to bring you to a live a little bit. The other point, one point I just wanted to make as well is the regeneration fund is not the only thing we're talking about. So I think if you look at section 10 that Councillor Gladio referred to, there are some quite large initiatives that have gone on, not just in towns. I mean, I'm working on a project in Brook, for example, where the district council are putting six figures into that project, to be honest. So there are other things, and I think it's fairly necessary of the new administration to carry on that work. There's lots of examples in section 10 where there's been significant money invested, so it's not just that 15,000. I think that's more looking at the smaller sort of initiatives that have been mentioned, particularly around rural areas. I hope that's helpful. Councillor Swindley. Yes, I just wanted to make a point as well that there's something that happened last year, which we haven't done before, is that we've included town clerks and staff into the parish assembly, which has worked incredibly well, because some of them are phenomenally skilled and a great deal of knowledge, and a lot of the work that we're talking about will be their responsibility. So that's already taking place, but we need to encourage that as well. So anybody that's town councillors, if you can encourage them to come whenever they want to, that would be great. Councillor Yeats, and then I'll finish off with both of them. Councillor Porter, please. Thank you very much, Chair. Yeah, it's just actually what Councillor Swindley was just alluding to, the role of parish clerks. They're absolutely crucial, and quite often their role actually isn't very well defined, because I serve on Brown Edge Parish Council and Endon and Stanley Parish Council, and we've got two very different clerks who operate in different ways. And the thing that most of us in the room will find is the clerks actually support a lot of us with casework and getting stuff done on the ground, so the role they play is absolutely crucial. So I think we need to consider that more in the report and going forwards, because I think their role is quite open-ended, it's not very well defined at times. I think we've just got to make sure we remember that. Excuse me, I've actually got to go to a parish council meeting myself in Brown Edge, so I'm going to have to leave the meeting early. Thank you. Did you want to comment, Andrew? Yeah, just on that, so there is a point in the paper that it's one of the wishes of cabinet that we engage with clerks. Now, Mr Vernon's just organising something to start that process, to be fair, so we're going to get a gathering together of a few clerks and talk that through, if you like. And I think having that network would improve things as well. Thanks, chair. Well, thanks for the debate, colleagues. I think we've got an awful lot of good ideas there to go into this. I won't go through every single one that people have mentioned. If I don't mention yours in particular, that doesn't mean I don't think they're important and they haven't gotten written down, but just for brevity now, I'll just highlight a few things. We've talked about communications. Mrs Gee, I get into real trouble when I say comms for communications. She hates it. She thinks I'm disappearing into the war room or something to say that, but I do think that communications are really, really important. And picking up that point about people coming to the parish assembly with a stick to beat us with, that's probably because we didn't know about it, you know, and that's part of that communication. Things like that come out of frustrations, don't they? And if communications are better, we can overcome that. Councillor Johnson said, how do working groups work? I have a simple answer. Working groups work when you have the right people on the working group for the right reasons. Yeah. I do commend, in terms of moving that forward, I do commend that cluster map on section 12 where the opportunity is for people to, you know, gather in kind of mini bits of the Staffordshire Mall and move forward from there. I think that's really good. Yes to village regeneration, I think that would, because there are so many funds that towns can get into, maybe that fund will be, you know, a priority might be for some of that money to go that way, recognising that villages haven't got the, you know, often can't bid to other things because of, you know, size or whatever. I think that's a good point. I did like the point about voluntary groups as well as volunteers. We've talked about it earlier tonight. When we talked about biddulph working together and you got that list of voluntary groups who could all mesh together through Covid, I'm sure that was happening in parishes as well. It didn't need a big chart to do it because, of course, everybody knows everybody else. But I think that's really important. The bottom up principle was mentioned, I think that's crucial to this. If it becomes something that we direct, it won't work. So that's going to be really important. I did like the point about the consultation with the 360, not the 25 that comes to the parish assembly. I do think there is always an element in work like this where, you know, what was it, 39 of us are town parish councillors. You probably know the right people to point in the direction of this group and I think that would be really important. I think I'll pass on planning for now. If nobody minds that, we'll come back to that. But it is important. Kate mentioned, the chair mentioned about young people. I think that's great. I think it's probably beyond the initial scope of this, but you don't spend 40 years in teaching without wanting to value the views of young people and whenever we can do that, in whatever way we can do it, I think that's a win. Yes, you're probably right, Councillor Taylor, the 15K is just used as the example from High Peak. I think available funds will be a subject of discussion and we'll see where we get to on that. Again, this thing about joint priorities, when we had the meeting, different subject, but when we had the meeting of the Growth Board here with the Staffordshire County Growth Board people, it was really fascinating to say that basically 90% of what we were talking about was a common agenda with the county. I think we'll find that what we do here. And then it's about prioritising the things that we think are really worth us getting stuck into. So that role of the importance of joint priorities there. I think the clerks are pretty crucial to all this. I think the more we can do with clerks, I think the better. We've got some very, very experienced clerks, we've got some ones that have come new. I don't know the age profile, but I guess we've got some quite younger clerks coming through. Went to a meeting in Cheadle where I think the lady's the assistant town clerk, but really ambitious, really a go getter. And I'm sure we've got others like that. And I'm not being age reliant there. Some people who've done it for a long time can be equally ambitious. It's about getting that right blend. So thanks for your comments everybody. I think the general consensus is it's a good move forward. We will have to make it work. We've had the talking shop tonight, we've got the report, we've got the basis from which to work. In a sense, I would have loved to start it not here, but I think it's important that we did start here, because you're the people who can tell us if we're going down the wrong track before we start. And I think what you've done tonight is to give us the encouragement to say, we've got a decent way forward here, let's get on with the work. Thanks chair. Then that's the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]