Transcript

Thanks Alison. Right we'll start with agenda item number one which is the election of the Swansea Bay City Region Joint Committee Chair. Do we have any nominations please? Excuse me. Happy to move Council Rob Stewart. Yeah I'm happy to second that. Thank you. Any other nominations? Okay, thank you. Can we vote then please on nomination of Councillor Rob Stewart for the Chair for a two-year period? Thank you. Got the three votes? Yeah. Yes, thank you. That one is dealt with and we have now to deal with the Chair pro tem, Councillor Stewart is absent today so I think it's been agreed that Councillor Darren Price will take the Chair for today's meeting. Everyone happy with that? Okay, thank you. Wonderful, thank you Debbie. Thanks for that. Yeah, so good morning to you all and welcome to this joint committee meeting this morning. As Debbie's mentioned, we have received apologies from Councillor Rob Stewart and Clea David Hopkins is here in his place. We've also received apologies from Councillor John Harvey and Paul Millers here. Welcome Paul. And we've also got apologies from Professor Paul Boyle of Swansea University and Will Bramble, Chief Executive of Pembrokeshire. So if members are happy to accept those we can move ahead. Everyone happy? Yeah. So the next item on the agenda is item three. Item three, so declarations of interest. Are there any declarations that need to be made? It doesn't look like it, so if that's the case we will move on then to item four. Sorry Chair, I think Wendy Walters has apologised as well has she? Apologies Chris. I can't see it on the screen. I think he's in another meeting. Yeah, apologies. So we'll add Wendy to the list. Thanks for that. Yeah, so apologies from Wendy Walters in Command Chair as well. So with that then we will move to item four as I said. So in terms of approving the minutes of the joint committee held on the length of April, I'm happy to move those as a correct record. There aren't any actions for the PMO or myself as Chair. So our members happy just to agree those as a correct record if they are please show. Yeah, great. Thank you very much. We will move now then to item five is announcements of Chair. There are no announcements this morning so we'll move on to item six which are public questions. Again, that I've done this morning, so we can move on swiftly to item seven, which is seeking our approval in terms of the joint committee co-opted membership in terms of Howarthaar University Health Board. And I will ask Debbie Smith to present this report, please. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you, Chair. Yes, the report is really straightforward. There's a need to replace Judith Hardesty as the Howarthaar University Health Board co-opted member. The report sets out the details, the legal implications of what a co-opted member will need to do in terms of signing up to all the relevant protocols and codes. It's been proposed that Dr Neil Wooding is the replacement co-optee, so I would need somebody to please move and second the report and then we can proceed to a vote. Thank you, Debbie. So it's pretty straightforward. I'm happy to move that. Can I ask for a second, please? More than happy to second. Yeah, great. Thanks, David. And can I ask them for a vote for those in favour of that change? Yeah, three voting members are in agreement, so that's that's approved. Thank you very much. So we will move just on that, then, obviously, to be fair. Neil isn't here today, but he will be attending from the 30th of July onwards, is my understanding. So we look forward to welcoming Neil formally at the next meeting. And so with that, then we will move forward to item eight, which is the Audit Whales Assurance and Risk Assessment. I understand that Gareth Jones from Audit Whales is here to present the findings. And then after Gareth has presented the report, I will ask John Burns then just to provide an update in terms of the the action plan and the mitigations that have been identified. So, Gareth, over to you, Josh. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everybody. The Chair has outlined the purpose of this. There's two parts to the item. Firstly, myself to present the Audit Whales finalised and agreed report, and then I'll hand over to Jonathan to present the action plan in response to the report. And we'll be happy to take any questions at the end. Firstly, just wanted to say thank you to all members of the Joint Committee and those that we interviewed during the review. We started it in October 2023. We held interviews and focus groups early in 2024 with the report drafting in March and then subsequent clearance with the Joint Committee. In response to the report, the programme board recently met and discussed and approved the draft action plan that's in front of you on pages 26 to 28 of your report pack. And I think it would be useful just before I give you a brief overview of the findings, just to explain the scope of our work and why we decided it was an important area for us to look at. The Auditor General has a duty under the Public Audit Whales Act 2004 to assure himself each year that audited bodies, including the Swansea Bay City Deal Regional Joint Committee, the Joint Committee, that they have put in place proper arrangements to secure value for money in the use of their resources. And in this review, which was our first piece of performance audit work around the City Deal, we focus on the effectiveness of the City Deal's existing programme, and we're going to use the word brackets here, portfolio, management arrangements in supporting the effective and efficient delivery of the City Deal programme going forwards. And I'd like to just highlight Appendix 1 on pages 13 to 16 of our report or 21 to 24 in your report pack, which sets out the questions that we were seeking to answer and also the audit criteria that we used to assess your arrangements. We based those on the National Audit Office framework to review programmes and in effect, those criteria set out what effective programme management arrangements could look like. The assessment informs our assessment of risks and assurances to inform our work programme for future performance audit work with the City Deal Joint Committee in future years. And you will have seen the report in your pack. Our review sought to answer the question, do the programme portfolio management arrangements support the effective and efficient delivery of the City Deal programme? Overall, we concluded that the City Deal's current programme portfolio management arrangements support clear insight into the portfolio's progress. There is now an opportunity for the City Deal Joint Committee to formally review those arrangements to ensure that they are the right fit for future needs and reflect any changes in the operating environment. We reached this conclusion because we found against the four questions that we asked around. Well, the first question was around whether or not partners ensure that the City Deal has the resources required to support efficient and effective programme management. We found that across the board, when we spoke to partners, there was a shared, cleared understanding of the purpose and intended benefits. But there was a clear recognition of the current challenges in delivering the intended outcomes. We then focused the question around whether or not the partners ensure that the City Deal has the resources required to support efficient and effective. We found that the partners across the City Deal have provided sufficient resources to support effective programme portfolio management to date, but that the Joint Committee has yet to formally review those resources in light of wider funding pressures and an undecided approach to future regional structures. We asked the question around the effectiveness of the current governance arrangements, and we found that those are currently thorough. The last question that we asked was around whether or not the City Deal is implementing its programme portfolio management arrangements effectively. We found that those arrangements are consistently and effectively applied, and that the Joint Committee needs to assure itself that those arrangements are efficient and maximise the shared learning across all projects. We didn't develop any specific recommendations as a result of our findings, but what we have done in the report is set out a series of areas which, at the time of our field work and our evidence gathering earlier in 2024, they were areas where the Joint Committee had yet to resolve fully and their approach. Those areas represent where, at the time that we did the work, the arrangements didn't fully reflect the audit criteria. We note that the Joint Committee has in front of it an action plan to respond to each of those areas that we identified, and those are presented in the action plan. We are satisfied, as we are required to be under our code of audit practice, that the Joint Committee has properly considered those areas as outlined in the action plan. While some of the areas have yet to be actioned, the action plan does clearly set out the proposed actions to address the areas and the time scales by which the City Dealers intends to have completed those actions. It is also clear who is responsible for the actions. As part of all of our audit work, we will now come back and follow up on the progress that the City Dealers are making in addressing those areas for resolution in our future audit programmes for '23, '24 and future audit years. Finally, I would like to highlight to members the link between the action plan presented at pages 26 to 28 of your pack and the later report at agenda item 12 that presents the draft evaluation framework. At the time that we did our evidence gathering, that framework was still under development, but clearly the action plan refers to the development of the framework as part of the response to a number of the areas that we identified. A number of the actions in the action plan are linked. For example, action areas 1, 8 and 9 focus very much around the alignment of the City Deal and wider strategies, including the Corporate Joint Committee. That ends my presentation. Kadev. Thank you very much for that, Gavin. The leaders, chief execs and officers from across the region have played a part in those discussions over previous months, of course, and it's great to hear that the findings were generally positive. It's satisfying from a joint committee perspective to know that those governance arrangements are robust. So Dior and you thank you very much for the presentation. I'll ask Jonathan just to take us through the action plan that Gareth mentioned there and that is set out in the pack for members. John. Thanks, chair. And thanks, Gareth. So I'll build on what Gareth has said in terms of the action plan. So this is effectively the initial management response to the audit. The action plan covers what we call 16 areas of resolution. And as Gareth pointed out, they include actions, timescales, who's leading on the action, the status, whether there's dependencies. And then what we'll do from a portfolio office is report that through City Deal governance on a quarterly basis just to show progress made. Gareth already indicated some are already in progress or eight are currently in progress. The remaining eight are yet to be actioned, but we will proceed with action those in due course. So just to summarize, and again, it kind of encapsulate what Gareth has already highlighted, but things like alignment to CJC, benefits realization and evaluation, phase of delivery of the portfolio, portfolio management arrangements, the purpose of our Economic Strategy Board, role of regional scrutiny, how we're learning lessons from regional working and City Deal, and then what wider regional opportunities are there that we could capitalize on around City Deal. And all of those are encapsulated in those 18 actions. And chair, I won't go through each area of resolution and action. They're there for all members to see. But we will report on, as I said, the progress on each of those as they come through. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, John. The work has already started, of course, in addressing some of those issues and they're clearly set out there in the table, in the pack. And clearly it's something that we will be focusing on and keeping an eye on over the next few months to ensure that we hit those those dates and targets. So are there any queries? Are there any questions from members? Or are you quite content? There seems to be a level of content out there. So with that, then I'll ask for a proposal and a seconder that we accept the findings of the report and the action plan as set out in the pack. Can I have a proposal, please? I'm happy to move. Thank you, David. And can I have a seconder, please? Oh, thank you very much. And then can I ask for a show of hands and that we formally accept the recommendations as set out in the report? Great. Thank you very much. So that is approved. And with that, we will move on. Thank you, Gareth, for the presentation. And thank you, John, for responding as well. So with that, then we shall move on to Item 9 on the agenda, which is the internal audit report as set out in the pack. I shall ask Matt Holder to present the report formally before opening up for any questions. So thank you, Matt. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Morning, everyone. As we normally do annually, Chair, we carry out an internal audit on the arrangements within the Swansea Bay City deal, and then we report the findings back to both the programme board, the Joint Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee. As a bit of a background to the report, we agreed the terms of reference of the audit with this joint committee on the 16th of November, 2023. And what we try and do with that, Chair, is that we try and provide assurance that the arrangements within the Swansea Bay City deal are adequate and effective, so that what the aims and objectives are, the region, they can be delivered effectively. There were a number of areas that we included within the scope for 2023/24. I mean, the region itself is growing, there's more and more projects. So actually, we need to be a little bit more strategic in what we're looking at and why we're looking at it. So we put that in front of the joint committee, as I say, in November 2023, and we began to work early 2024. As an overarching review, we looked at a number of different documents and I'm really grateful to both Chris and his team and Jonathan and the team for the speed that they provided us with documents that we could actually go through, thoroughly look at what was happening to conclude the audit in a timely manner. The audit report determined an assurance rating is substantial. This means that there's a sound system of governance, internal control, financial management and risk management arrangements in place. And going back to what I said earlier, which means that those internal controls are operating effectively and are being consistently applied to make sure those objectives can be achieved. This is the fourth consecutive year now that the region's had a substantial audit. Just for clarity more than I think, we will never give full assurance because we do not test everything. Everything that we test is on a sample basis, so substantial is the highest that we can give. There are two recommendations, both of which have been accepted by management. There's nothing of any what I would consider great concern. These are more about fine-tuning those existing arrangements that are in place. So I just conclude here by saying it's a very, very good audit report. It's very pleasing to be able to come here and give it substantial again, given all of the continual evolvements that the region's having. So I'll leave it there. I'm happy to take any questions, if there are any. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks very much, Matt. Are there any further comments from officer level? No, nothing to add to what's already been said. If that is the case, then I shall open it up to Chris. Do you want to come in? Yeah, chair, I probably should say we did work on quite a few months with Matt and his team, and I should just thank Matt and his team for the work that they've put into the audit in terms of coming out with this output. So just like to register that. Thanks very much. Thank you, Chris. So yeah, so there are two recommendations that are set out there, some in terms of the timeliness of the drawdown of fundings and also around the quarterly reporting. Are there any questions from members? No, I think it's pretty straightforward and again, quite satisfying in terms of the assurance that's been provided. So if that is the case, then there aren't any questions from members. Could I ask for a proposal that we accept the recommendation as set out in the park, please? Well done. Thank you, Paul. And a seconder, please. Happy to say again. Thank you, David. And again, then if you can have a show of hands to approve formally, please. Thank you very much. That once again is accepted. And with that, we shall move on. Sorry, Twight, move on. Thank you, Matt. As Chris mentioned for the work you've carried out over the past few months, much appreciated. So with that, then we shall move on to item 10, which is an update in terms of the HAPS project, the Homes as Power Station project. And we've got Una Gavigan here, who is the lead officer. And as members will be aware, we've already had the PowerPoint presentation shared with us ahead of the meeting. But Una now will have a chance to take us through that and add some commentary as we go along before opening up for questions. So, Jochua Wells, thank you. Una, over to you, Joch. Una. Yeah, I'll just share my screen. One second. OK, can you see that OK? Yeah, that's great. Thanks. OK, so as Councillor Price said, I'm Una Gavigan. I manage the Homes as Power Stations project. So to give an update on some of the activities that we are delivering at the moment. It's a regional project as a summary led by Neath Port Alberts Council, covering the four local authorities in the Swansea Bay City deal. The main objective is to facilitate the adoption of homes with integrated energy efficient design and renewable technologies in both new builds and existing housing stock. So the investment objectives include future proofing at least 10,300 homes across the region, which means increasing the affordable warmth, reducing fuel poverty, improving health and wellbeing and supporting a regional supply chain of proven technologies. So we've got three funding elements at our disposal. So to give you an update on those, the first is the Financial Incentives Fund, 5.75 million. We launched this fund in the second quarter of 2023 to encourage and support the uptake of the HAPS approach, primarily aimed at local authorities and registered social landlords, but also private sector developers were able to attend to apply. So there was a significant amount of interest and following an application and scoring process, 16 projects across the four local authority areas were awarded funding of up to 300,000 per scheme. We allocated 3.7 million pounds on that initial phase, which would create 361 HAPS homes. So we'll be releasing the full list of the information on those schemes as soon as the legal agreements are fully in place. The second element of funding is the Technical Monitoring and Evaluation. So this was a contract that we put out to procurement and the aim of the contract is to do the monitoring before and after on retrofits to capture the impact of the technologies that have been installed. Sorry, I'm getting really bad feedback. You hear me okay? Yeah, that's fine. It was just Steve. Welcome Steve to the meeting. I think there was some feedback from Steve's link at this point now. I do apologise, Chair. Because I joined, it was automatically late, the mic was on, so I knocked it off straight away. No problem. Thanks, Steve. Carry on now. So the information that we gather from the monitoring the Cardiff University will be carried out will form part of a knowledge sharing hub. And the aim of that is to build confidence and to encourage a greater take up, particularly from the private sector. So the year one report from Cardiff University is available in your papers in Appendix 2. The third part of the funding is our supply chain development. So work is ongoing with the local authority business teams across the region gathering information and ensuring that we pitch that funding criteria correctly to maximise the impact. There's quite a lot of change that's happened with funding, particularly through what's been offered in through the shared prosperity funding, but also from Welsh Government funding available to businesses. So we need to just ensure that that scope of that funding is pitched correctly. So the benefits associated with the project. So the obviously the typo on this is rather small, so you may need to either scroll in or look at page 46 of your papers, but it demonstrates that there are 22 project objectives related to haps. And the next few slides just home in on some of the activity behind those aims. So first of all is to encourage behavioural change. So this is sharing lessons, increasing skills development and primarily sits under the people section. So to highlight and provide a greater understanding of haps technologies, a visit was arranged for the Swansea Bay City Deal Joint Scrutiny Committee to visit titarian development at Aberon Seafront. This is the type of activity that will continue to be a theme of haps where engaging with stakeholders to increase learning and understanding of how technologies can be used to create haps houses and reduce fuel poverty will continue to be a theme throughout the delivery of the project. Funding has been identified to create two haps demo houses where stakeholders, whether it's school children or local trades people will be able to visit. This is working in conjunction with titarian and the Welsh School of Architecture. Another aspect is the leveraging public and private funding. So we're constantly looking for opportunities to work with others to reach the objectives of the project. So I've just listed some of the activities that we've been successful on gaining to date. As I mentioned the 250,000 from Neath Potolbo Council to create the two demo houses. We've also secured from the micro generation certification scheme 75,000. So if you are installing any of the technologies, whether it's batteries, whether it's heat pumps or solar panels, you have to be MCS accredited. It's a kind of quality stamp of approval. So we worked with MCS, with Neath Potolbo College and Mobi to offer, Mobi is the Ministry of Building, Innovation and Education, to offer courses firstly to workshops to school children to increase their knowledge, but also to create content, learning content to be used in colleges. So that was available to all local authority schools across the region. So we're currently delivering that. Some of the other things, there's the five million pounds from the Engineer and Physical Sciences Research Council that's been secured. The Launchpad funding, which is 7.5 million from Innovate UK. The Arts and Humanities Council, we secured another 4.6 million. So there you just sort of highlighted some of the activities that sit behind the benefits. One last one just to mention, which is in your papers, is that we supported the launch of the Duracell domestic batteries. So that was held in November at the Botanical Gardens. And the aim of that was to bring some of the installers together, but to increase the number of people who were able to install and maintain the technologies that are associated with the project. So it was great to see that there was such a good interest and it was really well attended. I think that's it as far as the update. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, thank you. That's much appreciated. Are there any questions from members? Any comments from members? David? Yeah, I think to be honest, I think what I like with this is growing the local supply chain. I think it's very important that we develop that because it is so important that we keep that spend local as we possibly can. I think very impressed with the way we've leveraged in other money, so it's not just to maximise what we got. So the project's definitely worthwhile bringing a lot to the region. I think it's certainly one we need to keep an eye on. So well done, very impressed so far. I think that point around the supply chain, something that we've discussed previously, and obviously in the slide there, you identified the funding that goes along with that and also the ambition around creating a centre of excellence in terms of renewable technologies for housing. I think that's something we would all want to see develop over the next few years. Are you able to just give a bit more detail around that? You mentioned the work, the event you had in Atlanta a few months ago, but what else do we do in terms of really getting a grip through that supply chain end of things? I know that there have been recruitments and things over the past few months, so it would be useful to get an up-to-date position on that and how you see things developing over the next few months now then. Yeah, I think it's constantly looking for opportunities to work in collaboration. I think one of the recent events that isn't in the paper is the event that we held in conjunction with the Regional Learning and Skills Partnership at Parker Scarlett's, where there was a discussion around retrofit. It was both looking at opportunities for contractors within the region, but also to increase the skills that are needed to win the local contracts. As a result of that event, there will be a skills group set up where local, it'll bring conversations together, where local contracts are available, but also the local businesses will be able to have further support to be able to win some of these contracts. We know that there is more work to be done around the importance of people to be able to install the products, and that's not just from knowing what the technologies actually do, but it's having a workforce that are able to fix things when things do go wrong. And it's growing, it's constantly joining up those conversations. So the retrofit group, it's something that is going to be put in place in the coming weeks. It's a conversation that is happening and needs to be tightened up across the region to make sure that some of the funding opportunities are joined up with the contracts and, as you say, keeping the funding local to have the maximum benefit. Great, thank you. Martin, you've got your hand up? Yeah, thank you, chair. Thanks, Fiona. Yeah, our first question was going to be around the retrofit, which you've just answered, so thanks for that one. Look, it's a really positive project, really positive in terms of the skills engagement and the overlap there, which is crucial, so absolutely endorse that. And good to see, as you say, the work that's ongoing also on retrofit as well as the new build, which will probably catch the headlines a little bit more, don't they? One question, if I may, there's some really positive benefits that you've identified as you've gone through. And I know, to be fair, there was a little bit of a slow start, but it certainly seems to have picked up momentum significantly since the last update to joint committee. What's your current view in terms of where we are against overall deliverables for the program? I know it's still early days and it's a 15-year program, but are you happy that we are, you know, on target or at least heading in the right direction because there were some significant numbers associated with this project, weren't they? Particularly with the private sector leverage that we were looking for, but it's really positive to see some of the numbers you've shared today. Just wondering if you could give us a little bit more thought on that. Thank you. Yeah, I think personally, I'm very confident that we will reach the figures that are highlighted in the original business case. I think that we probably need to revisit the business case to make sure that we are capturing all of the information and the impacts that are being delivered. I think as far as the private sector, and I think, you know, there is work to be done, there are still houses being built within the region that don't have any technology. And that's, you know, some of that is further discussions to ensure that they build their confidence. And that's part of where the knowledge sharing comes in. But, you know, the figures that are in the original business case, I'm confident that we will, both in terms of numbers of houses, but also financially, that we will meet those targets. Great, thanks. Thanks. Are there any further questions or points? No, people seem quite content. OK, so I say it's a significant project. It's a regional project, one of the regional projects, and it's something that we've all got a keen interest in. And certainly we'll hopefully have an opportunity to revisit and provide further updates in due course as the project develops, because there's lots of opportunities there that we need to be maximizing. So thank you very much for the presentation and for taking the questions. It is there just for information. So there's no formal approval needed. So in that case, we shall move on to the next item, which is item 11 on the quarterly portfolio monitoring report. I'll ask John Burns then to provide an update before I open it up for any questions. Thank you, John. Thanks, Chair. So this is the quarter for 2324 quarterly monitoring report and all associated documents with that. It's probably worth noting at the start that the financial quarterly monitoring will come at an export meeting. But what you have in front of you in the pack are things like a dashboard, there's portfolio project and program updates, benefits register, gateway action plan, the internal audit plan, procurement pipeline and construction impact summary. So I'm just going to draw upon some of the key points to note for board. So if I start on the what we call the RAG status update, that's the red, amber, green, there's been no movements in the overall status for all the projects and programs. There's been a couple of movements within digital infrastructure and with a RAG status delivery, but there's no overall change. In terms of portfolio risks, we now have 25 risks, five of which are red risks. These were reported last quarter, so they are construction costs, the 10/15, in-year spend, slippage and delivery of benefits. Those are the red risks. We have mitigations for each of those or updates. In terms of four amber risks, they were closed since quarter three reporting. So those four risks were timeframe for the ending of EU funding, the unallocated £5.3 million within the portfolio, the operations of a PMO that has now moved to the issues log and the co-opted members not attended program board and joint committee. So those four risks have been closed and there's no red issues being reported in this quarter. Previously, we reported the campus' funding agreement, but those funding agreements are now resolved. So in terms of the quarterly reports, if I start with benefits, so jobs created have increased within the quarter from 567 to 597, so just shy of 600, and we had returns from Pentra, our campuses and the innovation metrics. We do know that those numbers are higher. They just have a lag in terms of reporting, so we will have those numbers increasing in this financial year. Total investment increased in the quarter from 272 million to 289 million, and some of that came from HAPS that Una just updated us on. The next report is the construction impact assessment, so there's no change to the risks that were identified in the report or the funding gap since the last report. Just to remind everyone, there's a 43 million pound funding gap assessment. That's an estimate across the whole portfolio, but we have mitigated against a lot of that gap and we now have a residual impact of 12.75 million. And just to remind board members, the key mitigations are around securing additional funding, revisiting the construction brief and opening dialogue with contractors. But what we're finding with some of those, and I'll go on to the procurement pipeline, but because of those issues and that gap, the funding gap, procurements are taking longer, you know, the design and builds are taking longer than what we planned. So if I move on to the procurement pipeline, does this reflect into that? So five projects are reported in this quarter that there is slippage, so around key procurement build or completion milestones, and they're all listed in the report. I'm not going to go through each one, but Waterfront, Oregon, digital infrastructure, campuses and supporting innovation or carbon growth are the five projects that are reporting slippage. Each one of those will go through or is subject to the change management process for the city deal, and we'll be reporting those accordingly when we get the detail around those. I'll pause there in case there's any questions before I go on to the project and programmes. Are there any queries or questions on the points that have been raised? Steve, do you want to come in at this point? Yeah, just very briefly, I'll start. When you mentioned slippage, Jonathan, and the gap in funding these projects, I just want the timescales with the developers or contractors, whoever, you know, we know the timescales, how things move, because the longer things go on, probably the more expensive they're going to get again, so there's going to be adding to already a significant gap. Is there a sort of break off point where you've got to change the model slightly to meet the financial requirements that you already have? Or what is the explanation of how we're going to deliver them as they're meant to have been delivered if and when the funding is just not going to happen? So that's what I want to ask. Chair, thank you. Yeah, and without going into each individual case by case, but I can give a holistic picture. We are experiencing inflationary pressures and we continue to experience those. So you're right in terms of the longer it takes, the chances are the more expensive things become. But it has plateaued a little bit. It hasn't gone up as much as it has done in previous months. So that's a good story to tell. What I think there's an expectation across every single business case that we had developed. They were all developed and approved around 2020, 2021. The last one was around that date. Everything is probably costing more in every project that we have than what it did when we wrote the business case. So that's why we got the funding gap. We know the funding gap will increase because not every project is reported. So we know there will be more of a gap. But the mitigations that were put in place and that is around what's the delivery solution. So you might find this a different location or different fabrication or different solution to what you're doing. It might be a different size, but anything that does change in scope will be reported and then it will reflect, does it affect the benefits or the jobs created, the inward investment, etc. So that change process exists and everybody should be going through that process. But it does come back to that slippage. You know, everything moving right. It takes longer to get these things through because sometimes you have to go through an approval process by local authority University Health Board because things may cost more than what you planned. So you may have to go through two iterations of approval because you've already had it approved in one sense. Now you've got to go back and check that you can increase those costs or change the delivery solution. So I don't think there's many infrastructure projects in the country that aren't experiencing what we're experiencing. But we're just making sure that we have sight of those and visibility and dealing with any of the risks or issues as soon as we can in that process. And it feels like that's all moving in the right direction. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. So if there are any further questions, I'll ask Jonathan to carry on with the presentation and Josh, thanks. Yeah. So I'm just going to pick out again a few highlights. There's a lot of information in the quarterly reports, particularly around the projects. I'm going to whistle-stop tour through a few of those. So starting at the portfolio level, we did the last Meet the City deal event with Neathby Talbot Council. So Neathby Talbot Council led that event in Margham Orangery. Over 100 people attended that event, and we're going to compile that with the other three events that we did in Pembrokeshire, Camargeshire and Swansea. And we'll feature that in our annual report, which will come out hopefully later in the year, which summarizes all those four events and what do we actually get from taking the city deal out into the localities across the region. Verbally, the feedback has been extremely positive, and it was a worthwhile event, but we'll formalize that in the annual report. Pembroke.Marine. So Pembroke.Marine has accelerated a lot of their delivery in terms of the infrastructure side of things. So the things like the slipway, the lay-down space, the HANR annexes, the pontoons, all of that is now being utilized, which is amazing to see. With the other elements of the project, there are other things happening like securing and leveraging funds. So if I added them all up, there's probably about three or four million pounds worth of additional funds to help support the Pembroke.Marine Zone, META and the MEACE projects. But they're also doing a lot of other deployment and testing of things like the Tidal Turbine and working with partners on things like the Tidal boom challenge, what they call flow max. So there's lots of activity. Again, all the detail is in the report. I'm not going to list each one and where they got the funding from and what it entails, but there's a lot of information to unpack in that one. From a campus's perspective, so led by Swansea University, all funding agreements are now, I'm pleased to say, are fully agreed and in place. The project re-profile is currently underway, but in the background, campuses were doing a lot of stuff in the background anyway while the funding agreements were being agreed. So that's an example of one of the ones I said earlier on where we will experience slippage because it did take quite a while to get those funding agreements put in place. It wouldn't be fair to me to update HAPS because I think Oona did an absolute stellar performance on that. So based on what Oona has provided you, that's a very current reflection of where HAPS is. In terms of support and innovation, low carbon growth led by Neathby Talbot Council, the Bay Technology Center is now just over 50% occupancy and there's an active pipeline of inquiries happening for that space. And the only other one I'll mention is the air quality monitoring sensors. So a report from an organization called Ricardo has been reviewed and we're waiting now for Vortex to provide comments for that so that it can go to the low carbon board within Neathby Talbot Council. Pentra Owl is progressing pace again from a delivery if anybody's driven down towards financially by McAnice. Lately, you can see visibly see the scale of that's just phase one. But within that, there's lots of things like over 2000 training activities for things like 31 apprentices. Gleeds have also been commissioned to update the business case and that will allow for reprofiling of all the economic, commercial and financial cases for Pentra Owl. But as I said, that's progressing really well. In terms of digital infrastructure, the first 5G investment fund was awarded to campuses. It was just over one and a half million. That's for what they call the 5G Living Lab and the completion is on track and the timescales have been agreed. They also concluded the dark fiber phase one procurement exercise and the supplier has been appointed for that. Waterfront, so the hotel development, a team have been appointed around marketing agents and commenced a new marketing campaign to attract a developer for the hotel adjacent to the arena. The King's Way is progressing really well. There's lots of prospective tenants discussions around the second, third and fourth floor. So I'm getting good feedback from the team on that and the innovation precinct, the project is progressing according to plan. So the opening lap should be fairly imminent for the innovation matrips. The last two, so the University of Wales, Trent and St David are currently drafting a change notification, looking at what delivery model Aragon phase two will be proposing. And then the final one is skills. So currently we have 19 pilot projects across the region. And in addition to that, there's two apprenticeship developments, which have already just been approved by the RRSP board and are currently now in delivery. So again, lots of activity around skills to help bolster all of the other eight projects. And without going through any more detail, that's a summary of the quarter four twenty three, twenty four report. Yeah, thanks Jonathan. Yeah, there's lots of lots of good work going on right across the region. And as I pick up on the point that Steve made really in terms of having to face some of the financial realities that we all face, both on the capital and revenue side. It's no different to any of the scheme that we're involved in. But certainly it's reassuring as we heard previously in the meeting that we've got that governance structure in place to help with the mitigation that we need to overcome them. So thank you, Jonathan, for that. Then are there any further queries or comments from members? It's quite a comprehensive report, and I think these are items that are brought to us on a pre-regular basis. So there aren't any surprises there from my perspective. So if there aren't any further questions and I can't see anybody, we will accept that. It's just for noting. So it's not for approval as such. It's for information. So thank you, Jonathan, for the update. And with that, we'll move on then to the next item on the agenda, which is item 12. And that's the Swansea Bay City Deal evaluation framework, which we referenced earlier on in the meeting. And I'll ask Ian Williams, if he's happy, to now present the report for approval. Dior Ian, thank you very much. More than happy. Thank you, Chair. This report is seeking joint committee approval for Swansea Bay City Deal evaluation framework, which details the evaluation arrangements for the portfolio and its constituent programs and projects. Just by way of context, establishment of evaluation arrangements are going to be crucial for demonstrating the impact of the City Deal over its lifetime. There's been several Gateway Assurance reviews, both at the portfolio and project level, that have emphasized the need to focus how the operational benefits of the City Deal will be realized and evidenced over time. In order to ensure that both a practical and a workable approach was produced, an evaluation task and finish group was formed to oversee the development of the framework. The group consisted of project and program leads and the PMO team members who met on a monthly basis from August to December last year to shape the development of the approach. And the full terms of reference of the group is detailed in the report. Now, the main output of the group is the draft evaluation framework that is attached at Appendix A. The framework incorporates the rationale, the principles, the roles and responsibilities and potential methodologies in the approach to evaluation of the City Deal portfolio. It's going to be important in demonstrating the progress and the impact being made by the City Deal and its projects as they deliver. I won't run through the whole of the framework, but at the core of it is an evaluation schedule for the portfolio and for its headline projects and programs, which includes their main component parts. So at a portfolio level, there's three evaluations proposed, two midterm evaluations and a final evaluation. So the first evaluation will cover years 1 to 7. The second will be years 8 to 12. And the third evaluation will cover years 13 to 15, which will be the final evaluation for the portfolio. Within the document is a schedule for the project and program evaluations as well. And that really details what will be evaluated and when for each of the main project elements within the nine headline projects. And this schedule is informed by evaluation profile submitted by each project, which gives more specific detail on how, when and what will be evaluated. The approach will result in progress being demonstrated as the portfolio is delivered and evidenced to stakeholders. This bit of the document, the schedules are the live bit. This information may change as projects continue to be developed and delivered. And if approved, the evaluation framework will be incorporated into a revised monitoring and evaluation plan for the portfolio. So it's before you today, chair, for approval, and I'm happy to take any questions on it. Thank you. Thanks Ian. Yeah, that's quite a comprehensive piece of work, to be fair. And thanks for the input of officers and yourself in drawing this up. One thing I suppose that speaks about in terms of the time tables that are set out quite clearly, are they linked to each of the projects and the different terms? One thing I didn't see in the report, I'm not sure, what engagement have you had with Welsh government, UK government in terms of the development of this? And are they content with what they see, be it that formally or informally? Yes, we've had discussions mainly informally with both governments as the framework's been developed. It's also passed through program board, which both governments sit on as well. They're more than happy with the approach that we're developing and can see that it's going to be a useful approach and document for us going forward. There were a couple of tweaks made as a result of program board, Martin, that you suggested. I've incorporated those into the document now as well. Very great. Thanks Ian. Are there any further questions from member Steve? Yeah, just briefly then, excellent piece of work Ian, and quite easily to read, so for me that's really helpful. Sometimes I get lost in a lot of the jargon, as Jonathan knows, I ask him all the time just to explain. Outposts, outcomes and impact. Can I just ask, obviously handing over long-term timeframes and scales of what goes on. Is funding wise? It's got to be self-sustainable then going forward. Whenever it's gone from our remit, it's finished, the project end, there's no further subsidy deal, input or financial assistance. It's sort of done our work and those that are there with the employment have set a crack on. Is that the understanding? Schools, I pick on schools and there's always problems potentially with buildings and etc. There's no miscellaneous held back funding or support mechanisms for the projects? I mean, you've given an example of the outcomes with like homes with energy efficient technologies, where we know they're far more expensive. And whilst government continue to sprinklers, for instance, everything is getting more expensive to deliver what we want to do. But I just wonder where that money is going to come from and who can afford it. So I hope you understand what I'm asking. It's sort of a roundabout way. You used to be anyway, Ian, from working in Ippetal, but I think you'll probably get me. Thanks, Ian. Ian, are you able to respond? I'm not sure, chair. I'll try. I think it harkens back to the business cases that are set up, Councillor Hunt, for each of the projects. And it is the long term ambition that those business cases are going to produce infrastructure that is self-sustaining over its lifetime, has a revenue income and is incorporated in the business as usual for each of the lead deliverers on the project. So that is certainly the intention from the business cases. What the evaluation framework will do is prove what benefits have come out of providing the infrastructure and operating those buildings within the timeframe of the city deal. I know those benefits are going to be impressive and very positive for not only localities, but the region as a whole as well. Not sure if I have covered it, Councillor Hunt. I'll ask Chris to come in as well and then bring Jonathan in. So Chris first then. Thanks. Yeah, thank you, chair. And yeah, thanks, Steve, for your question. Yeah. The blunt answer is that no, there isn't any further scope. The way the structure works is there was two hundred and forty one million invested originally. That was a capital spend meant to inject into the programme and actually deliver projects that actually either became self-sustaining or possibly in some cases were supported by the lead authority. That's part of the reason why the whole of the city deal was structured, where the lead authority has a responsibility. So ultimately, if you take any project, whether it's the Swansea project or the or the Pentra old project or something, that the responsibility in the build is laying back on the individual authority. So anything that veers off that, ultimately the risk comes there. So as far as the pot of money is concerned, the money is there is support in the development of projects. The business case should have been very clear in terms of how it becomes self-sustaining longer term. And yeah, you're 100 percent right, there's going to be variations in that because of, you know, circumstances. The environment from when we started on this to where we are now is totally different. Not least because of Covid, but there's a lot of other circumstances that actually have sort of influenced that, including some actions of what the UK government has done, you know, positive and negative sort of thing. But so, so that that money is used to pump prime that project and and then it's actually over to it either being self-sustaining from a business case, which will be something like the Milford Haven Port, Port work at Marina Work, sorry, or else there'll be a link in terms of the the link to the authority. The money is drifting in over the 15 year period, but the projects are very much defined to try and, well, they were originally intended to deal with over five years, but they've drifted again for other circumstances. So hopefully that captures really the the overall understanding and hopefully that gives you clarity over the position. So. So, yes, if you look at your schemes, any that you think are actually going to veer off, that may be an MPT problem, same as I'd be saying the same for a command and share problem. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Jonathan, do you want to add anything to what Ian and Chris have said? Yeah, just to build on what both of them said. So I guess to answer Councillor Hunt's direct question, there's three phases generally to what we will monitor and evaluate. One is the build and the lead up to that, then it's the operation of whatever we do, and then it's the wider impact. And I think it's probably what you're touching on there is a very good question because it's the wider impact side of things, because that will be used on the line of it being operated. But, you know, for me, we have to be sensible about this. There's no point in creating an entire industry of evaluation up to 2033. We have to make sure that as long as we build what we plan to build and when we can tick that box and prove that and show that, then it's about the operation. Is it intended for the purposes that we do in and then do an evaluation soon after the operation has been commenced? So maybe within a year or two, and that's in the evaluation framework. And if you pick on I can see it on the screen. If you take a Reagan phase one, there's an economic impact assessment being done on a Reagan. It's not gone through governance yet, but it has been done. But that shows what impact there is to Camardonshire as a borough. And then if they operate in that way, you can multiply that up by however many years in the future. But you may still want to do an evaluation sometime down the line for each of the buildings, Bay Technology Center, Pentra Owl, et cetera, just to check and balance that that has delivered what it set out to do. So that's the wider economic impact, which is a bit more complicated to assess. But there are methodologies that exist that can help an aid do that. The only one I would say is at a portfolio level, we should do a final evaluation that Ian referenced, two midterms and a final evaluation. Somebody in the region by 2033 should just do that final evaluation, accumulating all the projects and the worth to the economy across the period. Thanks, Jonathan. Thank you very much. And thank you, Chris and Ian as well, for contributing there. And are there any other questions from members? No, we're relatively content. OK, so the evaluation framework before this is for approval and I'd ask for a mover and a seconder, please. Happy to move. Thank you, David. Happy to second. I'm happy to second. I'm happy to second that. Great, we're going to propose Ian a seconder then. And could I ask then for members to show by raising their hands if they're happy to accept. Everyone happy? Wonderful. So that's approved. And that brings us to the end of the meeting. So thank you very much all for your contributions. And we look forward to seeing you very soon.

Transcript