Transcript

Welcome everyone to this meeting of cabinet and welcome to those in the room and those joining virtually today and also to those member of the public watching the live webcast. Firstly, I'd like to welcome Lee Whitehouse, our chief executive, to his first cabinet meeting and welcome on board Lee. I'd also like to welcome Mike Sarraz, the interim director of finance and support services. Welcome Mike. And I'd also like to pay a congratulations both to Sabrina Cohen-Hatton as well as Emily King and as well as Mary Nye on the awards of honours in the King's birthday honours. Now I've had apologies for this cabinet meeting from Deborah Urquhart, the deputy leader, from Councillor Paul Linehan, chairman of Children and Young People Services Scrutiny Committee, also from Councillor David Britton, chairman of the Communities, Highways and Environment Scrutiny Committee and Kirsty Lord, leader of the Liberal Democratic Group. Members joining virtually today are Gary Wall, chairman of Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee, Councillor John De Bell, vice chairman of Children and Young People Services Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Pete Bradbury, chairman of the Performance and Finance Scrutiny Committee and Councillor Chris Oxlade, leader of the Labour Group. And joining us in person today is Councillor Kevin Borum, chairman of the Foreign Rescue Services Scrutiny Committee and just welcome to you all. So I'll go straight into the agenda item now. So I've got agenda item number one, declarations of interest. Are there any declarations of interest? No, I have none. Thank you. Then go to item number two, minutes of the previous meeting, which it is pages three to six. Can I ask are the minutes of the meeting of the 12th of March set out on pages three to six of the papers agreed, please? Thank you. Can I also then go to agenda item three and ask, are there any items under urgent matters? Thank you. So I have none. Then we'll go to agenda item four, which is performance and resources report quarter four, and that's for 2023 and 2024. And this is this this is in your pack on pages seven to 168. This report describes the council's performance against its corporate priorities in the council plan and the budget position up to the end of December. And it provides an update on the capital programme and how the council is managing the main risks to its business. It also provides us with oversight of how our workforce is doing. So I'd like to invite Councillor Jeremy and cabinet member for finance and property to introduce the report. And after that, I'd like to invite Mike Suez for any additional comment over to you, Councillor. Thank you very much, leader. The first section of the twenty twenty three twenty four quarter for performance and resources report contains the recommendations before you today, which are set out on pages seven and eight. This section also very briefly summarises some of the key details, including both performance and finance behind those recommendations turning to the report itself, which begins on page 17. I'd first of all like to draw your attention to the performance summary starting on that page. As I'm sure you're all aware, our budget is all about enabling and supporting the work that goes on in order to underpin our four key priorities as set out in our council plan. This section sets out just a snapshot of some of the excellent key services that we have provided over the year in order to support our residents. And I'm sure my cabinet colleagues will be making references to some of that excellent work shortly. We then move on to the finance summary, which begins on page twenty one, starting with a section setting out the headline details. In table two, we set out the out-term variation by portfolio with further explanations set out in the services portfolio summaries beginning on page thirty five. As you can see in table two, the net overall out-term position was a net overspend of just over six point three million pounds. This is obviously a disappointing increase from the end of quarter three when the year end out-term was predicted to be just under two point eight million. Also in table two, you can see that the total portfolio overspend was just under thirty four point seven million. However, after applying the contingency budgets plus some additional financing adjustments, mainly interest we received, additional interest we received due to higher than expected interest rates, this left the net overspend at six point three one five. As set out in par 27, in order to balance the twenty three twenty four budget, we are proposing to draw six point three one five million from our budget budget management reserve. Of course, in line with our policy of maintaining our reserves at a prudent level, this does mean that we will need to replenish the budget management reserve to the tune of that six point three million in the coming years. Returning to the portfolio overspends, I just want to set out some of the detail. First of all, adult social care overspending increased by four point three million since quarter three, rising to just over ten million at the year end. However, the worrying figure is that the gross overspend was around thirty two million as set out in power thirty six, which after mitigations of twenty two million fell to that net figure of just over ten. Full details of the pressures and mitigations are set out in the finance summary table in the portfolio section on page thirty nine. As I have referenced on previous occasions, with just over seventeen million of the mitigations made up from grant funding, we have to be aware that this grant funding might not be available going forward. So we need to do everything possible to ensure that we find mitigations to offset any overspend or better still, keep within budget. I'm sure that the Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee will be keenly monitoring this position. Unfortunately, in the children and young people learning and skills portfolio, we didn't have a similar level of in-year grant funding to offset the overspend, which stands at twenty five point seven million, a small increase of one point six million over the quarter. Again, further details around these pressures are set out in your papers, with a table setting out the cost pressures and mitigations on page fifty seven. The largest pressure by far continues to be the rising cost of placements, including the increasing complexity of those placements. Also, the overspend in the cost of home to school transport, just standing at just over five million is another increasing pressure which we need to tackle. Then, of course, we have the growing special educational needs deficit, which at the year end stood at just over 70 million pounds, an in-year increase of just under twenty eight million. Whilst this is currently held off balance sheet under a statutory instrument, it does create an unusable reserve. In effect, this money is not available for us to internally borrow towards the capital programme, nor is it available for us to invest in the short term, meaning that in twenty twenty three, twenty three, twenty four, we had lost income of potentially lost income of two point seven million pounds. Again, I know that the Children and Young People's Scrutiny Committee are keeping a keen watch on all these issues and will be regularly monitoring them going forward in order to satisfy themselves that everything possible is being done to address these pressures. As far as the other portfolio areas are concerned, as you can see in table two, there were some relatively small overspends in both the environment and the finance portfolios, and some welcome underspends in highways, the leaders portfolio and support services. And just before anyone queries the underspend in highways, I want to make it quite clear this is not an underspend on maintaining our roads. It is mainly from an underspend on energy costs for our street lighting and a reduced uptake of national concessionary fares. Whilst referencing highways, I just want to underline that as set out in Paris twenty nine and forty nine, in twenty three, twenty four, we invested an additional four and a half million of revenue funding into highways to fund increased volumes of reactive road repairs, as well as high priority drainage works. This additional revenue funding is being repeated again in twenty four, twenty five, and comes in addition to the increased capital funding of twenty million spread over the same two years. Going forward, it is clear that the pressures on social care budgets, currently representing over sixty six percent of the net revenue spend across our portfolios, appears to be growing exponentially. We are by no means an outlier here. This is a national problem, and unless the next government steps up and addresses these pressures, I'm concerned that the system will eventually collapse. Even well run and managed local authorities, like West Sussex, will simply not have the necessary financial resources to fund the ever growing demands on social care, and that's both from adults and from children. On page twenty five, you will see the carry forward requests that have been processed as part of the year end accounting. Then in the following paragraphs, we set up various other financial details. Moving on to savings, a summary of the twenty three, twenty four savings have been set out in table four on page twenty seven. As you can see, out of a consolidated total of twenty six point seven six seven million savings, only around sixteen and a half were delivered. This means that ten point two million of savings went undelivered with an overspend of six point three million. It is not rocket science to work out that had we achieved those ten point two million of savings, we would not have had to use reserves to balance the budget. Also, we would have had a surplus of just under four million, showing us an underspend in our contingency budget. This just drives home the importance of portfolios achieving the savings that are part of their budget with an ever growing funding gap. Achieving these savings will become ever more critical. And as I did at performance of finance scrutiny last week, I once again repeat my request to the scrutiny chairman here today to make achieving those savings a key area of their focus as we go through the year. From pages twenty nine, there is a summary of the capital programme with a capital monitor send out set out in appendix four on page one hundred and forty nine. Overall, the capital programme has come in at one hundred and nineteen point three million against a profiled spend of one hundred and twenty two million. With the challenges around any capital programme, I believe this variation is well within accepted limits. In table seven on page 30, we have set out a list of capital projects with a red rag status. All capital projects have their challenges. It is the nature of the business. And many of these challenges can be seen in the narrative in this table. And I just want to reference the fact from this table it looks as if projects within the children and young people learning and skills portfolio are suffering a disproportionate level of delay delays with eight projects listed red. However, the capital spend across the portfolio is accepting highways by far the biggest investment we make. It also has by far the largest number of projects running at any one time. Currently, the total number of projects within this portfolio are set out in the portfolio section is fifty eight different projects, thirty seven of which are all green. Lastly, I just want to reference the corporate risk register in table eight on page thirty five, thirty one, you will find a summary of changes to the register since the quarter three report with the full register set out in appendix five. And last but not least, there is a summary of the workforce report on page thirty two with the full report set out in appendix six. And I'm sure my colleague, Councillor Waite, might want to comment on that report in due course. And just finally, finally, leader, I just want to thank the performance finance scrutiny for their deep, long look at this this report last week and their subsequent support of the quarter four upturn report. Thank you, leader. Thank you, Councillor. Mike, would you like to add any further comments? Thank you, leader. Just to add that, as Councillor pointed out, this report did go to performance and finance scrutiny committee and in context on the 7th of June, the accounts were both signed and published, not matter for this cabinet, but the unaudited accounts for twenty three, twenty four. And of course, the pension fund accounts to report was published, too. So for context for cabinet. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. I'd now like to invite the scrutiny chairman to provide any comments arising from their consideration of the report in their recent scrutiny meetings. And just to remind you, you have three minutes to make those observations. Could I please go to Councillor Pete Bradbury? Yes, thank you, leader. Both Councillor Hunt and Mr Suarez have referenced the recent PNF meeting, and I won't repeat any of the comments they made on that, other than to support what they said. And just to reassure that the identified savings in future years will be a subject for close scrutiny by all of the committees. Just a couple of other comments in relation to specific things, if I may, leader. There's considerable interest in the committee on the delivery of the Oracle Fusion project, which you see in the new the new year, and which is seen as a critical project for the for the council. In continuing to monitor every meeting the the Oracle Fusion project, we've actually said that we need to monitor both the risk and risks around the implementation of the project, and also to make sure that the delivery of the benefits are there. So I thought that was that was a very useful discussion. Leader, there are a number of questions raised around the economy, and a request will be made to include points in the report to be presented to the September meeting of the committee to cover growth deals, digital futures, visitor economy, and the impact of the removal of the LEP that obviously you're very involved in. And then just finally, and I think this just to finish on a very positive note. The committee recognized and welcomed the positive results from the workforce statistics in terms of recruitment and the ongoing work which is being done in terms of sickness absence, which the committee will continue to look forward to reviewing in due course. I hope that's helpful, Leader. Okay, thank you, Councillor Bradbury, and I just forgot to mention that you are the chairman of the Performance and Finance Scrutiny Committee. Can I please now go to Councillor Kevin Borum, Chairman of the Fire and Rescue Services Scrutiny Committee. Over to you, Councillor Borum. Thank you very much, Leader, and good afternoon, Cabinet. Financially, the Fire and Rescue Service completed the 23-24 financial year with a 0.2 underspent after setting off some various overspends on the filing, radio service, and fleet maintenance with savings in managing resources and development of organization and trading budget. So that's very, very good that they've met their budget in very, very demanding circumstances, particularly with some of the inflation we are seeing on certain elements. In respect of performance, the service met all four of its corporate performance measures, and particular attention should be given to the number of safe and well visited this year of 5,335, which compared with last year of 3,828, and indeed our original budget was 4,000. And this was primarily due to the successful implementation of not reacting to false fire alarms, which gave significant resources available to the safe and well visits. We did look at the policy of not attending false fire alarms, and we're satisfied that there's no unacceptable risk there arising from the community in respect to that policy, so that's a very important thing we'll keep looking at. We also look at a detailed list of some 30 KPIs underpinning this service, and I'm delighted to report that of those, 26 are green at the year end, 2 amber, and 2 red. And this really demonstrates the strong performance demonstrated by this service, and this is going to be a challenge to maintain, I'm sure, as we go forwards. Finally reviewed the risks of the service, and these really haven't not materially changed as part of that review. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Could I please now go to Councillor John de Bell, the Vice Chairman of Children and Young People Services Scrutity Committee. Over to you, Councillor de Bell. Thank you, Leader. I'm standing in for, obviously, Councillor Paul Linehan, who had to give his apologies today, so please forgive me if I make any errors or whatever. I want to make sure that I report as he would have done. The focus of our most recent meeting was on the SEND improvement plan. The committee is closely monitoring the improvement, including the key performance indicator, 56% of EHCPs completed within 20 weeks, as monitored in the PRR. The committee will also receive updates on the broader SEND improvement KPIs. On the PRR, note the overspend in the portfolio, and that this is principally down to the pressure on the cost of residential placements to children. And we'll continue to monitor this and the actions in place to address it. Obviously, this is extremely necessary for our young people, and it's one of those things that I'm sure the cabinet member is working very, very hard to make sure it doesn't run away, but is covering off all of the necessary things. Highlighted the current performance on the attainment gap of disadvantaged pupils, KPI 29, and are seeking detail on work being done on this to reduce the gap. Recognised the pressure on the home to school transport, which is a big one, budget expanding a little and trying to bring it under control by getting more people to take their children to school, which is obviously a principal thing. Harder the work being done to look at this, it was suggested that parental mileage should be promoted where possible, and this is exactly what everybody's doing to increase the numbers using this method. Thank you very much, Lida. Thank you, Councillor de Velland. I think you gave a good account there for your first attendance at this meeting, so thank you. Thank you, sir. Please go to Councillor Gary Wall, Chairman of Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee. Over to you, Mr. Councillor Wall. Good afternoon, Lida. Good afternoon, cabinet. A fairly light agenda at the recent Haas meeting allowed members more time than usual over two hours to dive into the quarter four PRR, the last report of 23/24. But, Lida, I will cover just some of those key points. With regard to the public health portfolio, members voiced concerns around sexual health issues and mental health in particular, but also recognised the work being done in both those areas. The committee looked forward to updates from the mental health programme and requested updates on sexual health around screening, signposting and increased availability. The committee also very much welcomed the success of the smoking cessation work carried out by West Sussex County Council, but noted that further work was still needed to encourage people to quit. I turn to the adult services portfolio, which again began by thanking Julie Phillips and her team for providing excellent support in the absence of Alan Sinclair. It's already been mentioned, Chairman, that the year demands and services have only gone one way up and increased complexity of need, demands on the workforce and the core sector in general have impacted on the budget. Every metric shows that those demands and costs are only likely to increase going forward. The budget overspend of just 10 million, notwithstanding the mitigations already referred to by Councillor Hunt, was of course an area of discussion. Although in real terms, this was only an overspend of 4% in net expenditure. However, Lida, it was understood and supported that the overspend was a result of key services being delivered to the most vulnerable in our communities. The committee recognised that further budget management was key throughout 24/25, as was exploring further efficiencies, both directly and indirectly, and ensuring that work to deliver important savings, already profiled and identified, continued. Corporate risk 58, as noted, the movement is downwards and that is noted and welcomed. I'll stop there, Lida, but I think you'll agree, HASC had the opportunity to have a robust and thorough dive into the out-term report, and I can confirm to Councillor Hunt, the cabinet member, for finance that HASC will continue to monitor the budget closely. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Wall, and whilst you were saying you had given this item a robust scrutiny session, Councillor Mandichuk was nodding her head in the audience, which you can't see. OK, so I'm going to open this up for cabinet for comments, but before doing so, can I just sort of remind that the budget is really designed to deliver on our council plan and our council priorities. And those priorities are around keeping people safe from vulnerable situations. It's around a sustainable and prosperous economy. It's helping people and communities fulfil their potential. And it's about making the best use of our resources and all of this whilst we underpin to protect the environment. And I would encourage members of the public, those listening, to look at pages 18 to pages 21, and you'll see that under each of those headings, we've highlighted some of the activities that we've been doing to promote those priorities that we sort of have. I think the other key point is, again, on page 22, which is really the financial risk and updates, you'll see that we've got table two, which is the out-turn variation by portfolio. And the two most pressing areas that are challenging our budget for last year was adult services and children and young people in particular. I think the children and young people, we saw those pressures quite significantly in the first two quarters, quite significantly. And the last two quarters, whilst they've gone over budget not to any significant level, we think the evidence of the family safeguarding hub and the preventative work is beginning to have a better impact on those families and those children and young people who need our help when they need it. And it's really important by focusing on the preventive areas, you get better outcomes, which is there, and less costly interventions, but more importantly, you get better outcomes for families. I think the challenge, of course, is around adults, which we've seen over the last two quarters materialise. And again, on page 22, at section 31, we discussed some of the key areas under that. For children and young people, we are seeing an increase in the demand for those services, and not just an increase in the numbers of young people and children wanting those services. But the complexity, and of course, and it's not just around complexity, it's also about buying those services, which are becoming increasingly expensive. We've seen that reflected in adult services, you know, more recently, whilst the numbers are not significantly growing, as in children's and young people's portfolio, we are seeing, again, that what's being presented to us are very complex needs and are very expensive services. When we go to those providers, the cost of delivering those services are increasing quite significantly. And as I just referred to, you know, so overall, the challenge for us is around demand and complex of needs, it's the cost of adult lifelong services provision, we're seeing that increase. There's a growing need for external cost placements, and we are seeing the rising number of children requiring higher education needs. And, of course, there's pressures in inflation, and particularly on goods and services. When this Council, as all Councils budget, you know, we recognise that both adults and children are a reactive service. There isn't a finite forecasting model that you can say this is what's going to happen. We very much rely on what the demand looks like, where we expect that demand to be, and we'll deliver and plan our services around that area. But I think over the last number of years, we've seen some significant demands on services, and it's becoming a very reactive process and makes it very challenging in terms of our budget. But I just wanted to reiterate that the budget is about delivering our Council plan, and those four priorities underpinned with protecting our environment are absolutely key, and we will always focus on those four areas. On that basis, I've been given an indication that all cabinet members want to speak on this, so I will go to Councillor Jackie Russell first. Over to you, Councillor Russell. Thank you, Leader. So, first of all, my thanks to Councillor Hunt and his team for the report that summarises the year-end position for this authority. But to summarise the performance in children's services, as we look to close the year '23/'24, I think the key things to note with respect to children's social care are that the early help service continues to go from strength to strength, with average wait times for families continuing to reduce, and we continue to prioritise overall practice improvement in children's social care. This is backed up by the D of E review undertaken late last year, which confirmed that the service remains fully focused and committed to the pace of improvement required. In other areas, the service has seen a significant increase in fostering activity, and social worker caseloads remain overall at manageable levels. Our family safeguarding model underwent a review undertaken by the University of Bedfordshire, which took place between September '23 and March '24. The model was first implemented here in February 2022, and whilst it's taken a while to assemble the full complement of specialist workers, the last of which was onboarded in November 2023, there's clear evidence within the data that indicates we are now beginning to see the signs of the model working, highlighted by a week-on-week continuing reduction of the number of children on child protection plans, which is now at its lowest level, certainly in the five years that I've been in this position. This should, in time, see a subsequent reduction in the numbers of children under 12 in care. On the workforce front, we currently have one of the lowest uncovered vacancy rates in the region, at 3.45 per cent as of March '24, with the recruitment and retention of qualified social workers a continuing priority throughout '24/'25. Our reliance on agency staff continues to reduce. The provision of placements for children with the most complex of needs remains a constant challenge and is the primary reason for the significant pressure on the budget. That has seen a year-end overspend total of 25.6 million, of which 23.1 million is directly related to the placement costs for children without disabilities. This is in the main due to an increase in the number of agency residential placements, which equate to around 16.1 per cent of our children. We have a target to reduce this figure to 13.5 per cent by March '25, but on a more positive note, the number of unregistered placements that reached a peak of 14 last summer continues to fall and currently sits at eight. This is a significant achievement in what is a volatile market with very limited options for our children with the most complex of needs. In terms of learning and skills, the key areas to note are in relation to children with special educational needs and disabilities, where we continue to implement improvements as outlined in our improvement plan and which incorporates our response to improve the timeliness of the completion of education, health and care plans where there are early signs of positive impact. The backlog of assessments has stabilised and there are indications that whilst demand continues to come in at a higher rate than last year, it is overall at a slower pace compared to previous years. And I must stress that as we continue to reduce the backlog and increase our timeliness, the increase in the numbers of education, health and care plans will continue to impact both the dedicated schools grant deficit, currently at 70.5 million, and the area of home to school transport, which as Councillor Hunt has already mentioned, is overspent by just over 5 million, predominantly in the area of children with special educational needs and disabilities, where approximately 30 per cent of our children are eligible. Work continues in this realm of home to school transport to try to mitigate this pressure in the most effective way. And as part of our ongoing work with the Department for Education via the Delivering Better Value project, there is a clear focus on increasing the percentage of children with an EHCP into mainstream schools, where the service is exploring a new local inclusion solutions model designed to provide support for schools. In terms of performance in our maintained schools, the year ends with 94.2 per cent of West Sussex children in schools rated either good or outstanding, which is an increase of 4.2 per cent above target, and with respect to our adults community learning service, this was inspected by Ofsted last year and remains good. Just turning to the capital programme briefly, as Councillor Hunt has already alluded to, the number of projects that are currently online and in progress. One particular project I'd like to mention is that of Woodlands Mead School, to say that I am very pleased to report that handover of the building from the contractor to the authority has now taken place, and whilst there are a few outstanding snagging issues currently being dealt with, the school are now able to move into the facility and I believe they are planning their move to coincide with the start of the new school year. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Councillor Russell. Could I please go to Councillor Duncan Crowe? Thank you very much, lead. I will talk to the community support fire and rescue portfolio. I would say it has been definitely a strong quarter for how the portfolio has performed. I will just highlight a few events that have happened during this quarter. We were very pleased during February to take delivery of the new fire and rescue welfare unit, which is a facility that enables dignity and privacy for firefighters that are taking part during a protracted incident. It's just a further example of how we are looking after our people within the service. I was also very pleased that the high sheriff gave our targeted education team a special recognition award for the good work that they do with young people to help them to be safer in relation to both fire and indeed road safety as well. We do several courses as well as visit schools. Within the community support element of the portfolio, I was very pleased that our library service have been shortlisted, not yet awards, but been shortlisted for two prestigious awards from the library sector, one around digital skills training for our workforce, which is giving our staff greater skills to be able to help meet the needs of our customers, and a second one, which was about providing one-to-one support for adults who are learning to read. We also saw progress during this quarter for the creation of our new coroner's court at Horsham. I'm very pleased that it has subsequently opened and indeed was used, has held its first inquest. We've also had some good work from Mark Trading Standard Service who have completed all of their visits, their planned visits to high-risk petroleum stores and also stores that have explosives and high-risk animal feed. And they also have done several visits and had successes for those premises that are selling illegal vapes or cigarette tobacco or indeed underage sales. Welcome to the seventh performance measures across the portfolios. This is from page 83 to 85. I'm pleased to say that they continue to be green, and from memory they have been green for the entire financial year. And they finished the year green, and as Councillor Bourne pointed out earlier on, the safe and well visits, that target was actually increased for this year as well, and we have managed to exceed it. And I would argue that very much feeds into the - I'm very pleased to say we had no fire deaths over the last year as well, and that is definitely - as well as fire injuries, and that's definitely contributing towards that. In terms of the financial narrative, which is on page 86, we end the financial year with an underspend of around a third of a million, which is roughly split between the two parts of the portfolio, being community support and fire and rescue. I'm pleased to see that we did receive extra income from the registration service, $165,000, due to demand for ceremonies, and we've also generated a bit of extra income, $28,000 from functions at Eve's House as well. The savings delivery, I'm pleased to say that all three of those are blue and are delivered. And finally, just on the capital programme, pleased to say that that is all green and delivered as well. Thank you, Leader. Thank you, Councillor Clouro. Can I please go to Councillor Bob Lender? Thank you, Leader. So I'm speaking to the public health and wellbeing portfolio, which starts on page 129. And in the period we're talking about, the last quarter of the last financial year, we engaged in a community health and wellbeing survey, which I'm pleased to say has generated around 7,000 responses, many of those bespoke face-to-face or manual form, but some online as well. But it's a useful response with which to inform our needs assessment and ultimately our joint local health and wellbeing strategy, which we also have under development. Reflecting on comments we heard earlier from Councillor Gary Ward, the chairman of the Health and Adult Social Care Security Committee, we are engaged in also carrying out an all-age public mental health needs assessment, reflecting the increasing prevalence of reported mental health. And this will also contribute to our West Sussex Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. Just some items, not necessarily on this report, but in the period we're talking about, we've maintained our support for the smoke-free generation proposals, the tobacco and vapes bill. And I do express the hope that with the new parliament that legislation re-emerges and is seriously considered. We've also been making progress on our strategy for the re-procurement of our largest contract, which is the Healthy Child Programme. As Councillor Wall said, we do have a robust discussion and thorough discussion at the Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee, and it's available for viewing on the web. I won't repeat my rather lengthy introduction at that forum because it can be seen still. But I just mentioned a couple of indicators, though, on healthy life expectancy, which on a national basis have shown a decline for both men and women. It was already plateauing before the pandemic, but it's gone down. And while there's a lot we can do in terms of advertising the best way to sustain healthy life expectancy for men and women, there's a lot of personal responsibility involved as well in terms of understanding what can cause earlier unhealthy life. So smoking, diet, alcohol and lack of exercise and perhaps stress as well. So it's just it's just worth bearing in mind. So going to the financial just to comment, we take on board the comments from the Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee regarding the rejuvenation of the sexual health services and bringing up their utilisation, increasing their utilisation as well, and also how we can secure even more smoking quits, because, again, on a national basis, we're not on target to achieve the 5 per cent measure of smoking prevalence by the year 2030. On the financial position, the portfolio delivered a balanced budget. It's forecast to deliver a balanced budget again. We don't have a capital programme, but as noted in previous meetings, we use public health grant extensively into another five county council portfolios to support them in activities which have a public health emphasis. In terms of previous years, where we built up a public health reserve, in part because of the pandemic, we couldn't spend everything. We now have budgeted to a position where we will be spending all of that built up reserve, and we will reach a position where it's down to a minimal level, which I think is the right thing to be doing. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Lanza. Could I please go to Councillor Mandurja? Thank you, Leader. At risk of repeating comments made earlier by colleagues, the backdrop to this quarter four report on adult social care is a continuing high demand for services, particularly for those with complex needs, as well as inflation and the rise in care costs. The overspend of 10 million has seen an increase of 4 million since the end of December, driven by demand growth and higher costs where, in common with the rest of the southeast, workforce and market-related factors continue to put pressure on local authorities. However, in the overall context of the 2023 adult social care net budget, as already been mentioned, of 242 million, the overspend represents 4.2%. Compared to March 2023, the number of older people with a care package increased by 291, which was a higher level of growth than had been budgeted for. We support 1.2% of the adult population, of which 59% of over 850 residents are older people. Since 2011, the over 65 age group has increased by 20.8%, and these figures are projected to rise by 29% by 2035, and will therefore, obviously, impact on future adult social care budgets. Work has continued on the two-year improvement programme with a strong focus on designing models of care and support for those we help, in particular developing the strength-based approach with prevention and independent living, which are two of the main aims of our adult social care strategy. The self-assessment report that was undertaken in preparation for the upcoming Care Quality Commission visit is continually under review and updated quarterly, and shows where we are doing well and where we can improve. This aligns with our improvement programme, and although there has not been much change in the key performance indicators this quarter, there are a number of them which are also included in the improvement programme, and we are focused on improving these outcomes. Along with East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council, we have been awarded 1.2 million from the Accelerating Reform Fund, which will be used to help carers increase their use of technology, as well as expand alternative accommodation models for working-age adults. Thank you, Lida. Thank you, Councillor Chapp. Could I please go to Councillor Steve Waite? Yes, thank you, Lida. Support services and economic development portfolio starts on page 135, and there's a performance summary for the quarter shown there. But I want to bring to cabinet's attention three other areas, as this is an out-turn report of significant pieces of work that have happened within the last 12 months, the first of which was mentioned by Councillor Bradbury in his introduction around the reset of Oracle Fusion. Members will know this has been a very complex project and required a reset in order to make sure that we would be able to both implement and deliver the benefits, and the bulk of that work was carried out in the last financial year. The second one was the completion of the return of the support services contract, the outsourcing contract, which saw in its final phase over 300 members of staff return to a county council and change from a centralised system of support to one that was dispersed and integrated within West Sussex County Council's current setup. And the third one is around smarter working, or hybrid working as we sometimes refer to it. And this work has continued to enable our staff to work in a hybrid manner and actually change the way that we provide our facilities in our buildings to ensure that we support that way of working more effectively than perhaps we were able to do originally. Turning the page to the KPIs, and you will see that all of the KPIs bar one are green, there's one red, which relates to the percentage of customer service sent to telephone calls that could have been resolved through digital channels. Whenever we transfer over a system from what would be a phone-based system to one that can be arranged through the internet, what we find is it takes a while for people to fully make the changeover, sometimes because they don't appreciate that they can use a digital form, and sometimes it's just simply the fact that they've just been so used to doing it by telephone that they continue to do so. So to see this type of increase is something that we were expecting. But as time goes by, people will find it more convenient to just log online to book a visit to their local recycling centre, and we're confident that that's what they will do, and that will come back within the green span of the KPI. Turning the page to page 138, and you can see the portfolio in-year pressures and mitigations. And I'm pleased to be able to report to Councillor on my right that there was an underspend of £1.476 million in the year, which has assisted to cover some of the overspend by some of the other portfolios. On page 139, the Servings Delivery Update, which is the savings that we said we would make, are all listed as blue and delivered, and they come to some £1.308 million, so that's in addition to the £1.476 that I quoted. It's also worth at this stage, I understand that there are severe pressures across the County Council, but making savings in the current environment is extremely difficult to do, and needs some really concise management attention to all of the areas within the portfolio, and it's really pleasing to see that there's been a range of savings and mitigations made by the teams operating in both support services and in economic development to deliver those type of results. Turning the page and we go on to the Capital Programme, and there's a whole range of projects there. From the Growth Programme, there's one in Arran, the Bognor Regis Esplanade, which has worked up last year and will be delivered this year, Littlehampton Terminus Road has been delivered in the last year, Southwick Square delivered in the last year, Portland Place in Worthing delivered in the last year, Railway Approach being delivered at the moment. You can't read them all out, but you get the gist of how much work is going on in the Capital Programme. And in fact, the Capital Programme is a very substantial Capital Programme for the Council, with significant amounts of work going on all the time. Councillor Hunt also made reference to me talking about the workforce, which I will do. I've spoken before, as you know, leader, about the fact that the challenges in the workforce in terms of retention and recruitment is probably one of the most significant challenges that the County Council faces. So it's worth pointing out that within the last quarter and across the year, the employed full-time equivalent has actually increased. And there would be a temptation, I think, for some to say, well, that's a bad thing because staff cost money, and if we're increasing our workforce, that's an increased cost. But it really needs to be set aside, both the spending that we make on agency staff, and Councillor Russell referred to this around social workers, where we know agency staff on social work is more expensive than employing a social worker. So it's good to see that although the headcount has gone up, the total spend with matrix, our agency, has gone down from 5.713 million to 5.391 million over the quarter. So a saving of some £300,000 to offset that increase in the number of people who are now working full-time. But there's another important point about this, and that is when we have, and you referred to it in your opening, leader, about having a budget to support service delivery, that service delivery is primarily coming from staff. And if we don't have enough staff, what we're doing is putting additional pressure on those that we do have to cover those people that we don't have. So having a full workforce is really quite crucial to us in terms of people actually being able to deliver the productivity that they should be, and not being under the additional stress of having to basically cover for staff who aren't there. So there's been a lot of work going on in that, and there's also a lot of work going on around sickness and absence, and I know that the Scrutiny Committee have been very keen to look at that. So overall, leader, I think for both the areas within my portfolio support services and the economic development, this has been a really challenging but also a very successful year for both of those parts of the portfolio. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Wayton. I think it's fair to say that where councils have to use agencies, they can cost between two or three times more than a permanent employee. So it's a very healthy situation to have with a permanent super workforce. Could I please go to Councillor Joy Dennis? Thank you. I could say last, but hopefully not least. And hopefully I'll keep this as short as I can, but in what has been a very challenging year for the service, I think it's appropriate to highlight a number of the items from the report which are worthy of comment. The report pages one, one, three, two, one, two, two. And what I want to do really is to ensure residents that we are resourcing the issues we face the best of what is of limited resourcing. And can I thank Councillor Hunt on the team for the report and thank you for the words you said you. I don't want to repeat the words you've already made, but you've explained very much the underspend that it wasn't due to the fact we weren't spending. It was due to other factors. So I think that's important to note as well. And also the additional funds, both revenue and capital, but I'll mention that a little bit more. I think firstly, I just think when we look at the savings, for example, I think it's important to note that that is mostly about income generation and none of it is about cuts to the service itself. And I think that's important for residents to understand as well. I think in order to, you know, just put some context, we have over 4000 kilometres of road to maintain and it's one of the highest for any shower county given its size. And I think that's an important point to make. And I want to highlight that actually the service is not just about the roads in terms of repairing potholes, because I think that's often a focus. But it's also about and I'm just going to give some examples here for those particularly those listening line signs, winter readiness, grass cutting, weeds, community TROs and CHS's bridge maintenance, road safety teams. And then others such as supporting the bus services, including the concessionary fare grants, patrol crossing staff and tree maintenance. I think begin to get just some of the idea of how the breadth of the service that the staff are managing. So going back to the year, it was a significant spike as described in the papers. I think that's a polite way of putting exceptional or extraordinary weather conditions. After we saw from the previous winter, which were exceptional, rainfall was actually the figures. The rainfall figures were beaten again in terms of the worst rainfall we'd seen, particularly in some of the months ever since since, in fact, records began. And as we were it actually last year, the weather, actually the rainfall, just round about that sort of early March time, which meant it started to dry up quicker, which meant that we could get back on top of particularly the road, the potholes themselves. That didn't happen this year as we've seen it. It felt like it was unabated until the beginning of May. And actually, if you look at the figures for April, you'll see it was pretty well unabated. And in fact, April ended up being 50 percent higher than records as well. So in 2022, to catch up. So we've had record numbers of potholes, as noted. And I think it's important to note that was the potholes quoted were those that actually are maintained, that are repaired by our main contractor. And in fact, not only did we have the main contractor on potholes and actually fixing those safety repairs, but with the additional spend, we are able to actually have another velocity jet pack, which we have now three out there, which removes an additional twenty three thousand safety defects. So when you add that to the existing pothole numbers, you can see the levels of potholes that were being created. Very difficult as well to repair in incredibly wet weather. And that also had an impact on the gullies with about 140,000 gullies across the county. We actually managed to proactively gully cleanse about 90,000 of them, which was quite substantial during that period of time. And the reason I put some background there so you can understand some of the KPIs we have. And if you look that those are on page, sorry, on page one hundred and now I've got the page number, but I'll get back to it. And we look at the KPIs now, particularly if we look at the first one, which is around cycle infrastructure. I think you'll notice that's green, that we are meeting that target. And we've actually got a new active travel policy, which would go to scrutiny committee later this year. But I think the ones that most people be interested in will be around 18 A and B, which is around the A roads and the B roads and the condition of them. Both of them, amber and looking downwards. That was the 2022. Obviously, the impact of the increased capital investment that's gone into the road improvements of annual works programs has not obviously been taken into account there. But it will be no surprise given the weather where the roads are particularly heading. And obviously it is a concern, but there is a limited amount of finances. We do what we can. We put additional monies in as I guess again, as I say that, as alluded to by Councillor Hunt as well. If we look at the defects, the defects that we're seeing at the moment and it doesn't look disappointing, but there's two reasons for this. And one will be the fact that we did move to a cut and so on fixed first time. So we did cut and saws take longer and is more difficult in the wet weather, but they last considerably longer. And also we have just alluded to had incredibly wet weather in the first the last quarter of this year, which made it particularly difficult to get out and repair them in an effective fashion. And actually, more were being produced by that rainfall, which was having extremely negative impact on the roads themselves. That I can say obviously we've been catching up during the summer and the catch up is happening, so we will see that figure improving tremendously over the next quarter. Next to court first two quarters of this year. And then if I lastly on the deaths, we have seen this moving. It's sort of sort of stayed a bit steady state at this moment in time. And, you know, we have to sort of say that, you know, this is not just ourselves. This is a number of agencies were involved in this particular issue, including the police. It's something that obviously nobody everybody would like to reduce. And there's an awful lot of activities you can see from the report that we undertake ourselves. I'm pleased to say at this time to date this year in comparison terms and the numbers of deaths and serious injuries all are down quite considerably. But I don't want to tempt obviously fate at this moment in time. So on that notice, I just want to quickly go to the capital side and just say that I think the one that most people were looking at is the road annual works. Again, increased programs and there's nearly 20 million extra than we had last year. Not this year. The year we're referring to, we have six hundred and sixty nine individual projects, which with four hundred and thirty were on the road and foot ways. One hundred and twenty one on highways improvements. But there were others as well, such as the forty four around bridges and drainage. And of course, those are the ones that actually seem to be hidden. But they're also very important, too. So I'd like to say thank you to the staff for all their hard work during these exceptional times. And just to say that we are planning for this type of weather again this winter. We didn't know whether it was a one off last time. We thought there might be some more rain. We put some more money in. But this time we are planning that actually we will have difficult weather circumstances again. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dennis for that. And it's fair to say for twenty four, twenty five, we've got some of the highest revenue capital spend in highways than we've had in many years. One thing I'd just like to because we've we've spoken about pressures. So before I hand back to Councillor, we've spoken about pressures in the portfolios. And I just wanted to remind that we're talking about a twenty three, twenty four budget and the twenty four. The twenty three. So the twenty four, twenty five budget is very much I just want to remind that we increased our portfolio. The service pressures alone were fifty four million, which we added into this budget, which we are now in. In addition to that, we added just under twenty eight million of pay and inflation pressures. And that meant giving an 18 percent increase to adult social care contracts to help these providers pay a better sort of sort of pay for their workers. And we built also in our budgets, but we put it in a contingency of twenty five million. And these are significant increases that were increases on the year before that we're discussing the budget we've just been talking around. So it's quite significant. And just to give an idea, so on adults, we built an additional 18 million in the budget. This year we're talking around and we built an additional 30 million on children, young people, learning and skills. And the contingency budget that I spoke around. Just wanted to pause because we're getting a bit of a whistling, but the contingency budget of twenty five million that I spoke around. Thirteen point four million of that was to support any excess spending we get over and above the budget on on social care. So we are in a very reactive situation and we are building lots of, you know, sort of demand pressures that are coming through. And I just wanted to raise that point. But, Councillor, I'll go back to you just to sum up any points you want to make before I go to the recommendations. Thank you. Thank you, leader. I don't think I've got an awful lot to say. I just thank my fellow cabinet members for their support and for the for the work they're doing. I appreciate how it nagged them an awful lot about their savings and their portfolio spends. But it is it is what it is and they do respond. So thank them for their hard work. I just want to come back to the social care thing. I think we've it might sound rather dramatic when I suggested earlier that the future of social care is looking pretty bleak. But but in reality, it is. And I think this is something that that my colleague, Councillor Jupp, and also Councillor Russell, alluded to the increasing numbers and complexity and costs of social care is rising at an alarming rate. And as the leaders just said, we've we've put in approaching 90 million additional funds to cover these pressures, including inflation in the budget this year, which is a huge, huge amount. And it's not something we can continue doing year in, year out. And I reference the DSG deficit, dedicated schools grant deficit, which stands at 70 million. I mean, we've done some modeling and that could increase by the end of this year to one hundred and fifty million. And even two hundred and fifty million by March 26, when the current statutory instrument comes to an end. And that, in theory, that amount has to come back on our balance sheet. And we have to find that somewhere from our reserves. But that's bigger than our reserves are currently anyway. Total reserves, as we know, most of those half a big chunk of those are not used. Well, they're usable, but they're committed reserves anyway. So I should be interested to see what any future government doesn't matter what color or shape it is, but they're all going to have to face this problem going forward. And I look forward to them coming up with some solutions that we can all work with, because I don't think they appreciate the huge amount of work that our teams, not just West Sussex, but all local authorities do in supporting the local people, local economy and in social care. They talk a lot about the NHS, which comes under their remit, I quite agree. But I don't think they really get the full picture of the huge amount of effort done right across the country by local authorities in supporting those people who, for whatever reasons, need our support. So I look forward, I can't say with a huge amount of optimism, but I look forward to seeing what a future government might do to help us. We're happy to work with them, but somebody needs to look at this social care aspect quite seriously in the coming months, years before it does cause us all a great amount of distress. But I'll end on that, Chairman, Leader. On a cheery note, we've balanced the budget and we move forward, hopefully in a sense of optimism of what's going to come in this following year. Thank you very much, Leader. Okay, thank you, Councillor Hanton, I agree with you. I think in very challenging circumstances, but as Steve Waight indicated when we spoke about workforce, we've got an extremely committed workforce that are delivering really good quality services to our residents and businesses, particularly in the social care area, that's quite demanding, but it's demanding right across the board, whether it's in fire services, whether it's in highways, or whether it's in environmental, to name but a few. What I will do, I'm going to read the recommendations out, recommendations one and two we've undertaken already, so I'm going to read recommendations out three to four and ask if cabinet agree this. Number three, approve the overall revenue and capital financial out-term position within the performance and resources report, including A, agree the overall revenue out-term overspend position of $6.315 million, which is made up of the following items, overspending on service portfolio budgets of $34.692 million, two, additional financing income received of $7.534 million, three, a mix of additional funding and unspent budgets within the non-portfolio budgets of $20.843 million, and this includes $13.008 million of contingency which remained unallocated in the year. Note the required drawdown of $6.315 million from the budget management reserves, and C, agree the overall capital out-term position of $119.273 million, I'll read that again, agree the overall capital out-term position of $119.273 million, compared to the revised capital programme forecast of $122.040 million. And then, the last two recommendations, approve a new fee and charge for biodiversity net gain as detailed in paragraphs 1.24 to 1.26, from the 1st of April 24, and approve the proposed changes to the key performance indicator measure KPI 22 and KPI 62 as detailed in paragraphs 1.5. Can I ask all the recommendations agreed, please? Thank you. If I can now turn to agenda item number five, which is the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service Statement of Assurance for 2023-24, and that's for pages 169 to 212 in the report backpack. Please invite Councillor Duncan to introduce the item, and then we'll go to Sabrina Cohen-Hatton. Thank you. Thank you very much, leader. I am going to be quite cheerful, and I'm very pleased to be introducing our annual statement of assurance, which is for the council year that ended at the end of March this year, 2024. It is a statutory requirement for fire authorities to provide assurance on financial governance and operational matters, and also how we've had regard to what is set out in our community risk management plan, which we are halfway through. It's important as a fire authority that we are accountable for our performance, and that we can be open to evaluation from our communities, and that our annual statement is presented in such a way that it is easy to understand. It is meant as a public document for the public to understand. This is effectively our annual report of the fire service, and it provides progress of how much progress we've made for our five strategic priorities that are set out within our community risk management plan. Probably a good page to take you to is page 2, or page 174. It's page 2 of the actual document, which sets out the contents, and you can see that the contents of the report is set out in such a way that it is very logical and easy to read, and that indeed is intentional as a public document. I'm going to talk particularly to the five strategic priorities and how we have made progress against them that is set out in this report. So, for example, our strategic priority one is about preventing fires and emergencies from happening, and we've already heard during this meeting on our previous item about the increased number of safe and well visits that we have made, indeed exceeding our increased target. We've also done things like home safety interventions as well, and we've fitted 3,926 smoke detectors and 1,914 carbon monoxide detectors as well. They are fitted primarily, although we recommend everybody has a smoke detector, they are going to be targeted at those more vulnerable communities. So there's an example there of progress for our first strategic priority. You'll also see on page 16 how we've continued with our targeted education program, which we have also just previously referenced, and you'll see that we've completed 168 school visits and our targeted courses. We've had 10 courses throughout the year. 15 children and young people were able to take part. Our second strategic priority is around protecting people, firefighters and property by making buildings as safe and fire as they can be. So this is essentially the protection part of our service, and you'll see on page 19 that we've provided enhanced training for our whole-time incident commanders to better investigate the causes of accidental fires, and indeed it also helps when operational incidents are taking place. And you'll also see at the bottom of the page that this has been the first year that we've had our not attending false alarms, a policy that's come into effect that's in our community response plan, and that has seen a two-thirds reduction in unwanted fire signals, which obviously creates more opportunities for our frontline crew to be doing other work in the community, which helps with, particularly of course, with prevention. You'll see strategic priority three on page 20, which is responding to fires and emergency quickly and efficiently, and I'm pleased to say that our response times have remained good and on target throughout the year, and obviously we have a wide number of different types of incidents that we do attend, but two just to highlight have been the very unfortunate fire that harvested a restaurant in Little Hampton in August of last year, which required a significant response, and also in October of last year as well, the electricity substation in Bognor Regis that was a multi-agency incident where we were thankfully very able to stop a major power outage affecting a lot of people in Bognor Regis. It's also been the first year that we changed to what we call our day crewed seven, so you can see that is on page 22, and so by having day crewing at ARP stations in the east of the county where there was that gap seven days a week as opposed to five days a week, that has enabled response times in those areas to be reduced by 45 seconds. Then we move on to strategic priority four, which is about having a safe and valued workforce, and you can see in the report here how we continue to make progress on our people service plan and about having a safe and valued workforce, and we've also developed our cultural values and behaviour, ensuring that we do have an environment of psychological safety, ensuring that our service is a great place to work for everybody who does work for us, and also that we provided high quality training and development opportunities to meet the needs of our staff. But then turn to page 30, which is our final strategic priority of making best use of our resources. I couldn't mention this report or talk to this report without mentioning the opening of Platinum House that we've had over the last year, our fantastic new state of the art fire station and training centre that has live fire technology that is very much at the forefront in the sector, and also we have of course been successful in securing 3.15 billion for our estates improvement programme, which is now starting to be rolled out, which is around reducing the risk of contaminants at our fire stations and also providing dignity as well in terms of separation for, so it's just like separately being quarters open, changing facilities, et cetera. You'll also see at the top of page 32 that we've been working on our review of our specialist capability and assets, which is around the sort of the high tech and special incident types of equipment that we have as a service, and that will be completing in the next few months. If I can then finally take you to page 36, which you will see, and Councillor Bournes referenced this earlier, our performance and assurance framework, you will see in the report that we have three years' worth of data for our 30 measures, and that has already been mentioned. We currently, for the year just gone, we have 26 green, two amber and two red, but you will see the direction of travel from the year 2021/22 and how that has moved to this place where we are now. This has been an incredibly strong year of performance for the fire service, and it's important to note that we set realistic targets, and I remember being very pleased when we actually achieved half of them being green, so we have been improving over time. So the targets are challenging and stretching, and we have made significant progress to take us where we are today. So it has been a really strong year of performance within the fire service, and I congratulate and thank everybody who works for the service for the strong work that they have done and the effort they've put in to bring us to where we are today that creates a very, very pleasing report to read for our Annual Statement of Assurance, and I'm very pleased to recommend this to cabinet. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Crowe. Before I bring Sabrina Cohen at it in, could I ask, is there anyone who could open a couple of these doors on the side of the building? It's getting quite stuffy here, so if anyone could help just to get a little bit of airflow. Okay, thank you. Sabrina, sorry for that interruption, but over to you. That's okay. I'm grateful for the gentle breeze. Thank you. It actually brings me great pride to be able to share this statement of assurance with you today. I appreciate that it's talking about our last year's worth of performance, but I think what this demonstrates is a journey that the service has been on over the last five years. The Councillor touched on the work that we've done around performance, and actually with the performance that we have, the performance insurance framework that's scrutinized on a quarterly basis by our Scrutiny Committee isn't just intended to show what the service has done over the last few months, but it's intended to reflect the activities in our Community Risk Management Plan. This is a reflection of the promises that we've made to the public, and how well and whether or not we've been able to meet those promises. And when I look back at the performance several years ago and I compare it to today, I'm absolutely delighted with the way that the service has responded. And much of that improvement is as a result of the very targeted support that members have given the service and the investment that members have made in the service as well. And I hope that you'll join me in thanking all of the staff within the service who've worked so hard to be able to deliver this. In addition, the strategic priorities that you as members have set us, I think have significantly improved the productivity of the service too. You'll no doubt have noted that since introducing the changes that we've made to responding to unwanted fire signals, we've had a 66% reduction in the amount of call-outs that we have that are two unwanted fire signals. Those are false alarms. As a result of that, we're spending significantly more time in the community, spending hours doing community safety activity, making communities safer. Four of our indicators you'll recognise from the paper that we just bought as KPIs that are reflected in the council plan. Within those, we've been able to increase the activity that we do, not least the amount of safe and well visits that we do in the community, particularly to high-risk individuals. We were able to increase that number by 25% as a result of some of the changes that we've made with the unwanted fire signals and also the increase in fire cover that we've provided through the changes to our day crewed stations. So thank you, members, for your continued support of the service, and I hope that you're as proud as I am over the performance that we've been able to demonstrate. Thank you. Lovely. Thank you, Sabrina, and certainly myself and Cabinet do absolutely join you in just recognising all the efforts by all the teams within the fire service and rescue for what they do. And also, it was interesting, at the weekend, I happened to attend a fete. There was an appliance with some of your colleagues there, and I took the opportunity to ask them about Platinum House and the training, and it was absolutely given the thumbs up, and it was there, so it was extremely good news. And I think the community risk management plan that we've got here in the report that talks about is around that transparency and shows how we meet the needs of our communities and businesses out there and what we've achieved and what are our priorities going forward, and firmly embedded under the Council Plan has already been highlighted. Could I ask, are there any other Cabinet members who would like to speak on this matter? I've got Councillor Jackie Russell. Thank you. Thank you very much. I've just been reminded that I do need to invite Councillor Kevin Brougham, who's the Chair of the Scrutiny Committee for the Fire and Rescue Service, and I do apologise. I was getting carried away, Councillor Brougham. Over to you. Thank you very much, Leader, and the purpose of the Scrutiny Committee, really, is to play a part under the West Sussex County governance framework and to ensure that the reports that we produce are accurate and that they are supported by evidence of the successes in those reports, and we had a very detailed review of this report on our Scrutiny Committee meeting on the 17th of June. We also review the development and delivery of the CRMP every six months as well, so this is really the second time this year we've looked at that, and I'm delighted to report that we have received evidence that the report is accurate and that great performance and progress has been made by this service. Councillor Crowe and the Chief Fire Officer have set out the key deliverables on that, but one that I think is also important, and I know is very important to the Chief Fire Officer, is that we continue to work to deliver the improvements recommended by His Majesty's Inspector of Conceptual Fire and Rescue, particularly in respect of values and culture, and I think this is really very important and underpins the service values that we are delivering, so fantastic news on that. Leader, after careful consideration, the Scrutiny Committee endorses the insurance report and recommends that the Cabinet approves the report for signature by Councillor Crowe. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Brougham. Could I please go to Councillor Jackie Russell, then I'll go to Councillor Steve White afterwards. Over to you, Councillor Russell. Thank you, Leader. I just wanted to say a few words of congratulations to Councillor Crowe and to Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, and the whole service, particularly in the realms of the work they're doing with children, with our children and young people in terms of their fire safety education, and Councillor Crowe's already mentioned the numerous school visits and youth engagement courses, and I think the important thing for our children today is to really build in resilience to our children and young people because it's a tough world out there, to encourage teamwork and overall in terms of fire safety to increase fire safety awareness. I was particularly impressed by the early intervention work that they're doing in terms of children who are identifying fire setting behaviours through their Firewise programme, and I think it has to be mentioned, which I don't think my colleague did mention, but that the service actually were recognised by the National Fire Chiefs Council and received a national award for their work in this area, and also received a high sheriff's award this year, too, so I just think that's absolutely amazing stuff, very positive and well done to everybody involved in that. Just one comment from me, really. I looked at the Learning Zone. I thought that was a really, really useful piece of information for children, young people and their families in terms from an education perspective, and if we could maybe publicise that a little bit more widely as opposed to it being tucked away in our website, I think that that would be really productive and helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Russell, and I'm sure we'll look at that recommendation. Could I please go to Councillor Steve Way? Yes, thank you, Leda. I've always liked the set-up of this new report. It's very readable, and it doesn't matter how good your performance is, if when you read it you can't understand it, then it's not much help. But this has always been a really user-friendly document since it was introduced by the chief fire officer in its current form. The three areas that I really wanted to talk about were on page 12, and this is around the prevention part, the number of safe and well visits, because, frankly, the best fire is the one that you prevent from happening, and it's really good to see that the target has been exceeded by over 300, actually, so a really strong performance there. The second area I really wanted to just mention was around when I speak to people about the fire and rescue service, what they tell me almost to a man, boy and woman and dog is the most important thing is when you phone them that they come, which seems a bit obvious, but clearly people don't take for granted that that's the case. And when we look at the percentage of critical fires where the first appliance in attendance meets our emergency response standard, we see we actually exceed the target, and the target is quite a tough target as well. The second one is around the critical special services incidents where the first appliance in attendance meets our emergency response standard, and it's pleasing to see that the overperformance there is even greater. So I think from both those areas, I think that would be very creditable in itself. But where I really think we can see the strength in depth is on page 24, and the values and cultures has been mentioned before. And I can vividly remember when the scrutiny committee was first set up just over four years ago, which I chaired. It was the first time I really came up against the chief fire officer and her senior team. And I can remember even from those very early days that the chief fire officer was talking to me about values and culture. And I remember thinking at the time, gosh, you know, that is a really tough nut to crack. You know, I've been in this situation where I've seen this before. And, you know, you've really got your work cut out if you're going to try and change the culture of an organisation like the Fire and Rescue Service. But here we are just over four years later, and I see in the report that a dogged determination is still there. I see that on page 24 that they thought, what have they been up to? The National Fire Chief's Council core code of ethics and the West Sussex County Council values. Our core priority in the last 12 months has been really focused in bringing these values to life. Every level of the organisation on an individual and a team basis to ensure we continue to develop the right culture in West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. And I can tell you, Lee, that when I actually meet firefighters, I can tell that this is actually happening in practice. You know, you can tell from the conversations that this is actually going on. So I would say well done all round, well done to the chief fire officer, the support from the cabinet member, but also from the senior team and the council. I mean, the chief fire officer mentioned all of those. She left herself out. But frankly, you don't get this without strong performance from the very top. So I think the chief fire officer deserves a medal. On that note, she's already had one honours award given to her. On that note, I'll hand back to Councillor Duncan Crowe. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lee. I thank the chair of the scrutiny committee and indeed my two colleagues who spoke very well to the report. And yes, Councillor Russell, I did omit one of the awards. But sometimes when you're getting overrun with awards, it's easy to miss one out. But I did previously highlight at full council the award from the national fire chief's council for our targeted education award. That was a few months ago. And thank Councillor Waite for his comments as well. And he is right. It is very much a team effort from throughout the entire service. And also the wider county councils support that we give and the support we give as members as well. And it's been a really strong year for the fire rescue service. And obviously, we're very determined that that will that performance and will continue. And I too pick up anecdotally from conversations with people who work for the service about the change in the values and cultures. And that is not something that changes overnight. That does take time. And I'm convinced that we have made progress on that. And I very much look forward to seeing later in this year the findings from his Magister's Inspectorate, which obviously has a key section around people and values and culture and see what their feedback is as well. Thank you very much, leader. Thank you, Councillor Croyne. Thank you, everybody, for your comments. Could I please go to the recommendation and ask the cabinet endorses the following recommendations are set out in pages on page one hundred and sixty nine. Cabinet is requested to approve the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service Annual Statement of Assurance 2023 2024. Is that recommendation agreed? Thank you. If I now go to agenda item number six, which is the West Sussex Economy Board Governance and Appointments, and that's on pages two, one, three to two hundred and sixteen. And I'll introduce this this item here. As you'll be aware, the government have determined that the LEP no longer has a function in delivering public projects in the economic area. That role has been designated to the upper tier authorities, the County Council. What that will entail is the formation of an economic board, which is primarily led. It will have local authority engagement, but it will be broadly led by industry as well as not just industry, but also around those skills providers. So namely further education and higher education, as well as some of those organisations who support SME businesses. What we are in the process of doing, we set up what is called an interim board. And the interim board is really around just coming up with a terms of reference and around what the what the permanent economic board should look like and where that mix should be. So currently the interim board is made up of myself as the leader. We've got representatives from Sussex Chamber of Commerce, we have representatives of the University of Chichester, as well as Gatwick Airport and the Chichester College Group, as well as GB Electronics UK Limited and Mid Sussex District Council, who are representing all the district and borough councils. We have one final meeting where we will sort of finalise what the economic board looks like. And it's also been agreed that we will be looking for an independent chair of that economic board with a small allowance that will be made. And that's in the report. Just to be clear, West Sussex is accountable to government for the core function of ensuring that there's a strong business representation on the board. And that's precise. So the figure is probably looking more around 16, of which 10 will reflect businesses. There'll be other stakeholders, as well as some representation from district boroughs and then representation from sort of county. The aim then will be to develop a 10-year economic strategy. We've already undertaken significant work around our opportunities within our economies and our opportunities around skills, our opportunities around infrastructure and our opportunities around investment. And we've undertaken good evidence-based through our Metro Dynamics. We've had extensive workshops that have been done throughout there. All of this provides good learning around what that board looks like. And I'm pleased to report that our most recent update on the economic snapshot that we report on a monthly basis, there was updated gross value added figures that showed that the West Sussex economy had grown by over 11%. And when you compared that to the southeast, that was 9.4. So a very good sort of set of indication. But there's a big opportunity for us to support our businesses and to provide good quality employment and provide skills right across there to enable that to happen. And this is where we see that board sort of taking leadership. So what I'd like to do is, you know, obviously open it up, but I'd like to hand over to Lee Harris for any additional comments. And then I'll go to Councillor Pete Bradbury, who is the chairman of the Performance and Finance Scrutiny Committee. Over to you, Lee, for any additional comments. Thank you, Leader. Lee Harris, Director of Place Services. I think you've covered pretty much all that I wanted to say. The only thing I would add is that the report's coming to cabinet at this time to establish essentially the formalities of the economic board as an outside body and to put in place the delegation for you to agree with the formalities, including the membership of the board and the independent chair. But I think you've given a very good, very thorough introduction on what we've been doing under your leadership to move the whole agenda forward since the LEP has stood down by government. Thank you. Thank you, Lee. Could I go to Councillor Pete Bradbury, please? Yeah, thank you, Leader, and thank you for your very helpful introduction. I think we all know this is an incredibly important piece of work that we're undertaking now. And, Leader, you'll be aware that Performance and Finance Scrutiny Committee members were given the opportunity to provide informal input to your decision in relation to the transition arrangements from the LEP in March earlier this year. That was, of course, before I became chairman of Performance and Finance. But comments received, I know, were provided to officers ahead of the decision being taken. The September, as I think I indicated earlier, Leader, the September meeting of Performance and Finance at the moment looks to include an item in relation to the economy transition arrangements and the new economic strategy. And we look forward to, you know, to giving that some robust scrutiny then. But I would say that at the moment, I personally like the look of this. I think, you know, this incredibly important area for the County Council, I do just feel that this is a good way forward. Anyway, we look forward to providing further input in due course, Leader. I hope that's helpful. Thank you, Councillor Bradbury. Yes, it was. Thank you very much. Does any other cabinet member want to speak on this matter? I've got Councillor Bob Lanza. Thank you, Leader. Well, I welcome this report. I would just comment as well, as I think you touched on, that we do, as a County Council, have an economic plan, apparently, of course, running from 2020 to 2024. It was originally called an economy reset plan because it was formed during the pandemic in November 2020 and carried by the cabinet that that particular month. So, of course, in developing this 10 year economic strategy, we got a good base to draw on to build a much wider strategy, given that we're taking on the functions of the local economy partnership. Local economic enterprise partnership. Sorry. It is a very important piece of work, and it's notable that the guidance for the Economic Board, the West Sussex Economy Board, carries forward the principles of the local enterprise partnership in terms of business representation. That is, there should be a private sector majority on the board, which I welcome. I think there are some linkages with my own portfolio in public health well-being. It's noteworthy that we have quite a high proportion of the population nationally, and I'm sure that's replicated locally that are economically inactive. And simultaneously, we have an increased prevalence of mental health issues, and I do think it important to see the linkages that exist here. And an economic strategy needs to recognize the powerful contribution that employment can make to personal health overall. Similarly, on the flip side of that, a healthy workforce is more likely to be an economically active workforce and boost the West Sussex economy overall. So I think it's great that we're preparing this 10 year strategy. I look forward to the County Council taking leadership role along and work with all our partners. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Lanza. What I'd like to do now is go to the recommendations of this item, and I will read this out. Firstly, that the West Sussex Economy Board be established in accordance with the arrangements set out in the report and the board be designated as an outside body for the purpose of making appointments to it. And secondly, that the authority to confirm the appointments to the board, including the independent chair of the board, be delegated to the leader of the council. Are these recommendations agreed? Thank you. And now I'd like to go to agenda item number seven, which is appointments to outside bodies. And this is on pages 217 to 220. And I'd like just to see if Tony Kershaw wants to add any further comments to the papers there. Thank you, leader. Hopefully the report is self-explanatory. It asks for cabinet to endorse five member appointments to outside bodies. The only additional comment I need to make is that in relation to all of those appointments, they will be until May 2025, with the exception of the appointment to the police and crime panel, which will be until June 2025. No other comments. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Tony. Any comments from cabinets on this item? No. Okay, well, I go straight for the recommendations and cabinet is asked to approve one, the appointment of Councillor Simon Oakley to the Southern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee until May 2025. Two, the appointment of Councillor Deborah Clark to the Sussex Inchill Fisheries and Conservation Authority Committee until May 2025. Number three, the appointment of Councillor Zach Allee to the police and crime panel until June 2025. Number four, the appointment of Councillor Steve Waight to the Gatwick Noise Management Board in place of Councillor Katie Nagel until May 2025. And finally, the appointment of Councillor Noah Atkins to the Littlehampton Harbour Board until May 2025. Can I ask cabinet, are the recommendations agreed, please? Thank you. If I can go to agenda item number eight and ask if there are any emerging issues. None, then I'll go to item number nine, which is the date of the next meeting and confirm the next meeting of cabinet will be held on the 23rd of July. And can I thank everybody for their attendance and for those listening and I'll close the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]