Transcript

Good afternoon, everybody. Can I welcome you to the June meeting of the cabinet of the Shakespeare and Moreland District Council. My name is Mike Leadhill. I'm the leader of the council and I'm in the chair for this meeting. We'd like to welcome other councillors who are here with us today. Thank you for coming. And the press, of course, you are always welcome. And we'll kick off with the agenda, please. So do we have any apologies? Oh, no, I have to do my script first, don't I? I will do my script. I would like to inform everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live to the internet and will be capable of repeated viewing. The images and sound recording may be used for training purposes within the council. I, the chair, have the discretion to terminate or suspend filming if it is in my opinion that continuing to do so will prejudice the proceedings of the meeting. If you are seated in a 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 do not necessarily reflect the views of Staffordshire and Moreland District Council. Please can members be aware that the webcast will continue to be streamed live 20 seconds after the close of the meeting. This is due to a time delay in transmitting live. Thank you. So item one is apologies. Yes, thank you, chairs. I've received apologies from Councillor Atkins and Councillor Wood today. Thank you. Item two is minutes of the last meeting. Do I have a proposer and a seconder for those, please? Councillor Proudlove proposing, Councillor Yates seconding. Okay. We're all happy with that. Can we move on? Thank you. Item three, urgent items of business and there are none. Item four, declarations of interest. We'll start with just closable pecuniary interest. Do we have any? There are none. Other interests? None. In that case, we move on. Do we have item five, any matters referred to us by any scrutiny panel, if any? We have none. Item six, any items requested by cabinet or non-cabinet members in accordance with cabinet procedure rules 8.5, if any? None. Item seven, we have reports of the monitoring officer and chief finance officer, if any? And there are none in which case, we move seamlessly to item eight, which is the leader. And I have the forward plan to present to you there, which details all the items that we're handling today and a number of items that we're handling in August. Do we have any additional items that anybody wants to raise? Councillor Proudlove? Thank you. Yes, we've discussed the housing delivery vehicle paper in previous meetings. Can we add that to the forward plan, please? Okay, so we'll be able to put something on for the August 6th meeting on that. Do we have any other items to add? Thank you then. So we'll move on to Item 8.2, which is the corporate peer challenge update. So we finally arrived at the end of that journey, or is it the end of the first part of the journey? Because we now follow it up with how we're going to react to the corporate peer challenge. And I think the first thing to say is that the findings of the peer challenge people have gone through all relevant meetings of the council up to date, and we've received a very positive response from members, and we feel that we have a real way forward for the future. I would draw people's attention, first of all, to Section 3.5, where the standout quote is from the peer challenges, that the alliance, ourselves and High Peak, is impressive and continues to be effective. It says that both councils can be seen to have been well-managed organisations over many years. There is sound financial management, and attention is paid to maintaining good governance and to managing risk. Both are performance-focused and can demonstrate the delivery of services that are high-performing and low-cost, with a value-for-money focus. And that's a really good starting point for where we move forward. If you look at Section 8.5, you'll see a whole list of strengths of the council that are mentioned, and I think that's very gratifying for the work that's been done, both by this administration, previous administrations, all members of council, and particularly the staff of the council, who I think have done a great job in bringing this to this point now. And I'm sure the chief exec will carry that forward to staff in anything that he says in addition, and I know he's already said a great deal to the staff about it. So we're in a good position. The recommendations, there are eight recommendations, they're listed in 8.6, and they're all recommendations that this administration is comfortable with. As an ex-teacher, I've been through Ofsted inspections where you sometimes get recommendations that you're not comfortable with for all sorts of reasons, but I think we can genuinely say that the peer-challenged people from the LGA have looked at this council, seen many, many things that we can do well, seen a number of things that they think they want us to be more ambitious about and move forward and speed up delivery in places, which again is no bad thing, but most of all that we've got the capacity to do exactly that. And I think that's a great platform for us to have now, and I do thank everybody who's brought us to this position, both in this administration, the staff, and previous administrations, we have a really good platform on which we can build. So I'm commending the report to you today, and I thought I might bring Andrew in just to talk a little bit about the next steps of where we go from here, if that's okay, Andrew. No problem, leader, yes. So as you said, it's for noting today, and I'd echo all those comments that you've made around the process. It certainly was a thorough and slightly enjoyable process to be fair. It sometimes had some challenging moments. I think one of the big highlights for me was one of the key strengths that's identified in the paper, which was that collectively, that's all members, the relationship between members and officers was really, it was observed to have been really strong, the relationship between members of all political parties and executive and non-executive members seemed to be really strong, and the relationships in the workforce were seen to be strong, which is you couldn't have a better position in terms of the focus on delivering important outcomes for our communities and the Staffordshire moorings and hand-high peak, for that matter. So I think that was really pleasing. I think the next steps, we've almost completed, actually, it'll be with the leader in the cabinet for consideration and approval, an action plan, which sets out the actions that we're going to take in the short and medium term to actually implement the recommendations. I think a number of them are in progress anyway, to be honest, so we'll be capturing that progress. And then this final thing we perhaps need to touch on is the CPC team, the Corporate Peer Challenge team will gather together again in about six months' time towards the end of this calendar year and come back and review how far we've got with the recommendations. It'll be a shorter form if you like the time they spent with us last time, but it'll just be sort of charting progress. The report will be published on the LGA website and our website. We haven't done any proactive publicity because of the circumstances, as you can understand, with a general election, but we'll certainly do some of that publicity after the elections finish. Thanks, Andrew. And a final comment from me. I think one of the good things about this report is what, for example, I'm going to call the three Cs, and that is that our Alliance, this Council, has the commitment, the capacity and the culture to keep moving forward, and I think those things are really important and I'm sure we can build on that. Occasionally roads get rocky, occasionally there are things that come along that we want to do better, and I'm sure that will continue to be the case, but I think the most important thing is we've got the culture to actually achieve that. So I do thank everybody. You're asked to note the report, so I don't need to ask for a proposal in a second. I presume it's noted. Thank you. So we move on to the next item, which is 8.3, which is the Staffordshire Leaders' Board. Just for the benefit of those who may not know this, the Staffordshire Leaders' Board is a coming together of the leaders of the County Council and all the district councils in Staffordshire, and it works on a collaborative basis to pursue the things that we've got in common, which are many, and for the leaders of the district to be able to talk to the Tier 1 authority about things that we want to move forward with them, and all that is good. In 2022, the leader of the County Council, Alan White, proposed that at some time in the future it would be appropriate for Stoke-on-Trent Council, which previously had not been part of the county structure, to join the board, and receive general encouragement for that to happen. And that has happened in 2023. Stoke-on-Trent Council, their leader Jane Ashworth, is now a participating member in the board, as are all the district leaders since the district elections last May. So we have a Change Leaders' Board, and that means a change to the terms of reference, and that's what's before you today, to agree those terms of reference. So it's come about cross-party, both at district level and at county level. It's a real engine for how we can do things collaboratively across the councils, and especially with future possibilities over devolution and other such things, which we await the incoming government of whatever shade that might be to tell us about. With all that on the board, it's really important that leaders are meeting regularly, sharing priorities, developing work streams, all of which should benefit the residents of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. Should you wish to read the full constitution of the Staffordshire Leaders' Board, it's there on the county website, and it will be on our website as well. You can find out all the details of that. So today, you simply asked, again, to note that report and to agree those terms of reference. Are you happy that we should do that? Can I have a proposer and a seconder, please? Thank you. Propose, Councillor Swindler. Seconded, Councillor Yates. Thank you. So we move on to Item 9, which is Climate Change and Environment, and I'm very gratified to say this is not me. And it moves over to Councillor Yates to speak specifically to the item about mowing regimes and wider biodiversity projects. It's on pages 57 to 64 of your pack. Councillor Yates. Yes, thank you, Leader. And I'm pleased to say that this particular policy went through services scrutiny last week and was universally accepted. What it does, it's really the final stage in the process which started off with the Plan for Nature, which inferred our commitment to 30% of all land in the Staffordshire Moorlands managed with nature in mind by year 2030, which follows on from a national policy guideline. The second stage of enacting that Plan for Nature policy from Staffordshire Moorland's point of view was the green spaces policy, which is the Staffordshire Moorlands district council's land specific response to the Plan for Nature document. And what the mowing and wider biodiversity projects policy does is this effectively produces the framework for the working specifications, which the actual operators on the ground will follow to make sure that we are meeting our requirements, both in terms of the green spaces policy and the wider Plan for Nature. I did have a short PowerPoint presentation, but I thought I'd leave that aside at this moment in time. I think those from last week are still recovering from it. What I would like to do is to thank Gareth Napper for the work and effort which is put into doing this, because this is, like I say, the third document of three. So there's been an awful lot of work over the past 12 months ago to get to this position. And I would also say that as a consequence of this, there will be significant changes to our mowing policies, which will require a degree of differences in working practices and changes to the machinery and equipment which is used to manage those spaces. And I am very much aware that perhaps with the dogfowling and bin collections, the maintenance of our green spaces and mowing policy is something which every resident notices on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. So we need to get this right, and we need, importantly, to get the communications right. So embedded in this is that any changes which we do will also include a proper communications plan, which includes the use of communications boards on the sites which we actually enact any of the changes. So people are continually informed of both the policy and, more importantly, the need for that policy. So on that basis, I would like to submit this report for approval by cabinet. Thank you, Councillor Yates. Does anyone wish to comment on that? Councillor Malle. Yeah, I'd just like my comment. It did go through our services scrutiny last week, and I'll just correct Councillor Yates. His presentation was very good. I think it was well worthwhile. I know we joke and say Councillor Yates speaks a lot, but he does do a lot of work and good work. So this report is absolutely excellent. Whoever's written it is very good, and it will bring some positive changes. It might be a bit expensive at first, bringing in the new equipment, but after that it'll pay dividends, especially for the wildlife, et cetera. So we all welcome that. So thank you, Councillor Yates. Thanks, Councillor Malle. Anybody else like to comment? Now, again, from me, Councillor Cawley. Just a thought. A couple of years ago, I was in Grindon, going for a walk down to Thor's Cave in Grindon. Grindon Parish Council obviously had thought very long and hard about a NOMO policy in the village. The thought just occurred to me in terms of our relationship, which is outlined with parish councils and community. I mean, in terms of putting policies around improving biodiversity, just a sort of general inquiry about how we would -- is this an area that we could work very closely, I think, with parish councils? Councillor Yates. Yes, and again, that was fully explored at the services oversight and scrutiny meeting. What we would really encourage is that parish councils actually take the lead in producing their specifications. They fully understand what the overarching policy is and what the overarching aims of that policy are, but they will be able to know the finer detail about sensitive sites on what needs to be maintained under the current regime of, you know, a two-week mowing cycle, and whereby biodiversity can be enhanced by reducing the mowing. So, you know, in consultation with Councillor Swinderhurst with his portfolio of leisure and tourism, empowering the parishes is at the centre of all these policies. There's absolutely no doubt about that. Thank you for that, and I'm sure that's a comment that town and parish councils will pick up and will want to be proactive on, and that's a good thing for us all. As we know, we've got a number of other things coming through in the pipeline that are to do with how we work with town and parish councils, and there will be more about that at the parish assembly, so a plug for that, which is on the 28th of June, I think, unless somebody can correct me. I think I'm right. It might be the 27th. 27th, thank you for that. Right, okay, so we're following that approach, we're recommending it. Do we need a proposal and a segment for that? Yes, please. Councillor Yeates proposing, Councillor Proudle of Seconding. All in favour? Thank you very much. We'll move on. Now, we're coming to the exclusion of press and public. Just to say to the public out there, this meeting of cabinet, as is usual, is predominantly a sign-off meeting for projects, decisions and other matters which have gone through the whole system of scrutiny at the council and reached this point today. So I'm grateful to everybody who's contributed at this, at this relevant scrutiny meeting, sometimes it's working groups as well, that brings us to the point today where we can actually approve something because everybody's had their say on it and we've got an outcome. And that's where we are today with that, so I do thank everybody for that. I now have to read my little spiel about the exclusion of the press and public. This is to do with handling commercially sensitive matters that are in progress but final decisions have not been made. As I've just said in relation to items that have gone before where decisions are made, these decisions come back to the relevant scrutiny committees and to cabinet for formal sign-off. But we'll hear a couple of updates today that are commercially sensitive, so I have to read this spiel before I go on to those things. So the chair moves that pursuant to section 10, sorry, I'll start again, pursuant to section 100A and section 2 and 4 of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings whereby it is likely that confidential information as defined in the Act would be disclosed to the public in breach of the obligation of confidence or exempt information as again defined in the Act and that these will be disclosed to the public by virtue of the paragraphs indicated, so hence our exclusion of press and public. We'll now wait for that.