Transcript

morning. So welcome to this meeting of the cabinet being held today the 25th of June 2024. This meeting has been webcast with the exception of any business the cabinet resolves to exclude the press and public because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the local government act 1972. This meeting has been held as a hybrid meeting with cabinet members attending in person at the council chamber, county hall, or remotely via video conference. For transparency purposes, I will ask the monitoring officer to identify which cabinet members are in attendance, and whether they are attending in person or remotely. Gary, thank you. Thank you leader in the chamber as members of cabinet Councillor Jason McClellan leader of the council, together with cabinet members. Councillor is Thomas cancer emcee when Councilor Alan James Council rather than heating Council Barry Miller and Councillor Julie Matthews, also in attendance in the chamber, non cabinet members observing proceedings, and they are counselors era Williams, Dallas Jones Karen Edwards who Evans, Andrea Tomlin who held the Troberts Paul Kennedy, who Williams medevan party and Pauline Edwards, also attending remotely observing the meeting counselors le Chad, James may Bobby fee Lee Terry Mendes, Brian Jones, and Hugh Irving. Thank you, Gary, and those attending remotely are kindly asked to mute their microphones unless they are specifically asked to talk. Cabinet members are also asked to have their videos switched on throughout the meeting unless I specifically request for you to turn your video off to improve the quality of the audio link when speaking, you will be expected to restart your video once you're finished speaking. Please also refrain from using the chat facility as messages sense wall or visible on the webcast those present in the chamber asked to make sure that they speak directly into to the microphone to improve the quality of sound for those attending remotely to a transparency, all of the meetings business must be conducted through the chair. I'll hand back to Gary us to the declarations of interest to apologies. Sorry, we'll do apologies first. I've had apologies from counselor Jill German and counselor Gwyneth Ellis. Thank you, Mr. leader, members will be aware of the agreements and the council councils code of conduct to declare any personal traditional interest in respect of any business to be considered as days meeting, such interest should be declared now, or as soon as the council affected comes aware that they have a personal or a judicial a judicial interest in today's business. All members declaring an interest are required to state clearly what the interest is, and to advise whether it is a personal interest or a personal and a judicial interest as defined in the code of conduct. Any member declaring a judicial interest is required to leave the meeting for the duration of the business being discussed and going to take no part in the proceedings. Members with a personal interest only may take part in the debate and any votes. Any other personal or personal judicial interested declared today that has not previously been disclosed and recorded the counselor concern required to complete and sign the declaration of interest form, which is either available from committee support staff in attendance here today, or online. The next agenda item, urgent items and clearly it's appropriate for me to address the issue the urgent issue that we're facing in relation to the implementation of the new new waste model, and the rollout. I'd like to start as I have before, by issuing an apology on behalf of the council to all of those residents who've been affected by the rollout for all the residents who have had delays in their waist collected. I'd like to wish an apology to the members as I know you've all been working very very hard, dealing with the residents, and I want to thank you for that hard work in saying that, of course, I fully appreciate that apologies do not collect rubbish they do not collect the backlog. And that's why that I have been in regular frequent daily contact with the chief exec corporate director, and the lead member about this situation. And whilst we are seeing improvements in collection rates in many areas in some areas that that is not happening, and we're making it clear. I've made it clear there needs to be a massive increase in the pace of improvement on the clearance of this backlog. I want to make sure that arrangements are in place for members to be able to report back to the teams regarding those missed collections, and I'm regularly a daily on top of speaking to the office is concerned to make sure those areas are prioritize. And I want to thank the members who have been in attendance and been to those meetings and taken part. And I'd like to thank the members for relaying the information about the areas in their ward. And again, I would like to thank residents for their efforts in the recycling that and their, their patients. I would also like to again apologize but say that apologies do not collect the waste but we are working very, very hard to make sure that that backlog is cleared. I can show everyone that we're working absolutely night and day. And we will have a full and proper scrutiny and inquiry into the events around this rollout. I've spoken to Gary, and that will take place, almost immediately. Timing wise, we are in an election period, and that will mean there'll be a slight delay. However, the next available date is Monday the eighth of July, there will be a, they will be a special meeting with the chairs and vice chairs to look at a detailed, detailed plan as to how that truth scrutiny should take place. It will be in the hands of members to how they want to do that. It will be entirely member driven, and it will be in the glare of public scrutiny as well. It will be a transparent process that process will commence as soon as possible and as I say, the first available date for that process to commence is the first Monday after the election, which is Monday, the eighth of July, I wish to assure that myself and the lead member are providing vigorous challenge to the officers to ensure that these problems experienced by our residents are dealt with, and that this system gets up and running and operating properly. We are challenging the offices on that. We are pushing we are discussing we are addressing the problems. I at this stage, I will hand over to lead member, Barry. Thank you. Thank you leader. And again, I'd like to follow on Jason by apologizing to not only the members, but also to our residents. I do want to make a couple of points. You know, this rollout was brought forward by the last cabinet. Don't all me. Listen to me please. It was brought forward by the last cabinet. But we as a cabinet. Leave it was the correct thing to do. And that's why we've carried on with that. I must stress. This is an operational problem. And I'm sure it will be ironed out in the long run. As the lead member, I'm in regular contact with the corporate director, head of service, and the waste recycling manager and their teams. I too am pushing the officers to drive an increase in the pace of the improvement to the collection rates. I was out in the wagons this weekend, along with the CEO and the corporate director, and this has given me a first and knowledge of the difficulties. Residents are facing as well as the hard work being put in by our crews who are doing extra shifts to ensure that we get as many homes as we can during this implementation. The hard work that I witnessed directly gives me confidence that we are getting on top of this issue and that the system will be successfully embedded. It will not be as quickly as we initially envisaged, but we'll get there. And I would like to thank the residents for the patience and assure them that we will do all we can to achieve the benefits that the new system will bring as quickly as possible. This is a rough draft. I'm getting back to you. I put it forward last night. But I can assure you, if you were to look at that weigh station and look at the hard work that's going on there, everybody are pulling the socks out. But as I said, I'm confident we will get there, and it's the right thing to do. Thanks very much. Thanks. Thank you, Barry. I'm sure there are many questions to be asked, and I can see hands have gone up, and we will take questions. But can I also say that we have arranged at the earliest possible date, being the 8th of July, the first Monday after the election, an emergency meeting of chairs and vice chairs to put back in the hands of members how they wish to deal with the scrutiny, how they wish to make an inquiry. And that will be the process in place for those important questions to be answered. Today is a cabinet meeting that's been in the diary for many, many months, and the governance of Council and the business of Council must go on. There are agenda items that we need to deal with today, so the deep dive will occur as soon as possible. But I am conscious that today there will be some questions. I've seen a couple of hands up, and it's only right that we take those questions. But what we can't do today, because of time, and because we have a process in place already to answer those detailed questions, we can't have a full morning discussing this, we will in just a couple of weeks. Okay. I saw you did you have your hand up. I will speak on behalf of the independent group really, but I want to put on record the thanks to the staff on the ground who are pulling out all the stops in very, very difficult circumstances. I was picked up in the in the briefing, not last week, the week before when I called it a shambles, when I'm on a point now where I'm calling it a disaster, because we're two weeks further on. And we're a lot, you know, there's people who haven't had their collections since May. And I think, Barry, to mention the last cabinet, I'm going to put it on record and put it straight. The last cabinet voted on a concept, not the implementation, and the implementation. And at that time was 9 million pounds cost. This rollout was on your watch on 22 million. And that's what's gone wrong so I think you've got to take full accountability for that. What I am now in a situation is my group and individuals, we have been compromised as counselors in this situation, because we are speaking, getting information from officers saying the collections will happen, and they are not. And then we are getting the flack because they're not delivered. And that's the biggest, you know, the biggest risk to us is that because we don't know. You know, for example, those collections that on Saturday in written I didn't know we're going to be done great that they were done, but I didn't know about it until somebody told me so more information is for arms for world. I've got residents, you know, I've got a flat in six communal flat in written we've had another food waste collection for since May, and these are elderly, and there's real concerns on this, and I think it is madness, and that we've rolled out a system, which we haven't got the mapping right. You've got brand new estates that haven't been out on a, on a paper map, and they'd be missed. And that, you know, is a real real floor in the system. We've also got a foot of failing call center where residents can get in touch the council it's not just about waste is about other key services. We're also in a situation where we're actually taking away key members of staff from other departments to prop up this service. And that is a huge concern to me, you know, health care or education, it could be anywhere, but we you know it's a real worry. But the end of the day, lead member I think you know for me is it's, there's no clear plan to date it has failed. I don't think we can take a huge success we've seen some good figures in the north of the county lot, not last week the week before, but the rural elements of the county is really suffering. The date has failed. You know, we're already in an overspend in the year. What is the overspend going to be over the last three weeks, whatever proposed 500,000 saving which was the reason it was going to brought in along with when it's gone out the window. The situation needs sorting and not waiting for next week's collection is the answer, all the time or leave your bins out. The owners are tired of hearing that they need clear instructions, when they're going to be collected, so they know what they're doing. And my question to Barry is, I don't want any more apologies. Action is what what I need now. And to please tell me what is going to be done different, because at the moment all I'm hearing is the same, the same, and it's failing. Thank you, Hugh. As you know, Hugh, we've spoke about this before, and I am no different to you, Hugh. I am dealing with angry residents at residents who are quite rightly angry. All those issues that you've raised. I spoke about working and cooperating, but I'm challenging as well. Barry is challenging as well, pushing the office for those answers. I am in the same boat as you in terms of the residents and I will take the opportunity again to thank everyone for dealing with their residents in this difficult time. Hugh, I opened my submissions this morning by saying an apology, but I also said apologies don't collect rubbish and I'm sticking by that. And I am having daily and frequent meetings with Tony and the team to get the resources to clear this backlog. We're getting there, and I want to address another issue as well, which I've been conscious of from the beginning, and that is that I'm fully aware that the rural areas of Danvershire, the collection rates are not as good as the north. There's many areas in the north where we're having 100% every day and it's working. I'm conscious that's not happening in the rural areas, and I can assure you resources are being thrown at that as well. So, there is a plan. We are looking, as you know, we're looking at wagons, we're looking at agencies, we're looking at drivers, we're looking at going out Saturday, Sunday, these things are happening. I can assure you they are happening, and we are going to get on top of this. We are determined that we are going to clear this backlog. I think the chief exec wants to come in. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you, leader. Thanks to members. Yeah, I think I was on record as saying in 30 plus years in local government, which is probably the most difficult period that I've faced, it is really difficult. It's unacceptable to have people whose waists have not been collected for over two weeks. That is an unacceptable position. That is clear. There is no excuse to say anything else that that just needs to be cleared. That's what needs to happen. We need to look at all options around how to do that so we can catch up. All options are on the table. I know I've got a meeting again later on the depot today with not only the senior managers but some of the more operational staff there to get a clear understanding and RAP will be there as well to get a clear understanding of the actions that we are taking to readdress what is an unacceptable position regarding those people have not had their recycling and food waste collected for over two weeks. I did go out on Saturday. That was allowed me to understand exactly the position on the ground I didn't go through the whole the county I was in written. I could see the extent of the issues in the town. The areas that haven't been collected. So not only we've got to split more resources into this and all all options are on the table on a temporary period to get us back on balance, but we also need to look at the rounds that we've created, particularly those rounds in rural areas where a high percentage of the collections, haven't been made, or a percentage of the collections haven't been made. So there's a number of issues, we've got to do I don't know if Tony wants to come in just to give you a little bit more flesh on the bones if you like of some of that detail because that's what you want to hear and understand you want to hear the detail, not just we are doing everything we can. So, a bit of the detail of what when we say everything we can what that actually means, Tony, please thank you. Thank you, Graham, borrowed our power. Yeah, I'd echo what Graham said about this being, you know, the most difficult thing that's happened. You know, in my career as well. I've been in charge of emergency planning for the last was eight years in Dan Fisher, and we've had many many major flood events in the county. But this, this is particularly difficult. Even in comparison with some of those events. I'm just going back to what we're doing, you know, because, as Councillor Hilditch Robert said, this is about what we're doing what actions are we taking and what are we doing differently so I'll just focus briefly on that. As, as Graham, you know, I got a really good frontline understanding of the situation on Saturday by going out that's why we did it. So that we could see it for ourselves and experience, what the, what it's like out there in our communities. So, we've, we've been back in the, in the depot on Monday morning with the head of service Paul Jackson, and with the managers they're putting in a new plan in place for this week. And essentially, what that means, in a nutshell, is more people driving more vehicles for more hours to deal with the backlog, because that's the issue here that we've, we've created a backlog of waste that hasn't been collected because some of those rounds have consistently not been completed. What that means, it might sound obvious but what it means is when those, when those crews go back to those places they're seeing a lot more waste than they would normally have to deal with. So that's taking them longer to pick it up. And it's meaning that the vehicles are filling up more quickly and having to tip more often. So is the backlog is the main issue that we need to resolve here. So as I say it's more people in more vehicles for more hours. We're looking at a shift system so that our fleets can be we can maximize the hours that our fleet is on the road, during the week, but we're also looking to get a full fleet out on Saturday we had we had a number of vehicles out last Saturday. And, but I want to see our entire fleet on the road on Saturday, so that we can clear the backlog. And once we clear the backlog. Then we can really see where we are in terms of making the tweaks that we need to make to any of the routes. Some of the routes are not quite right. But at the moment that's really difficult because everything is being skewed by the backlog that we're seeing. So, I don't know if that's okay for now. Just add to that if I can, Tony thanks. So, I mean, we are using our own staff and that's not just staff obviously in the waste service that's already been referred to but in an emergency situation that's what you do. Clearly we're not taking people off mission critical work in terms of domiciliary care or social services. We want to be clear around that. So we are moving staff around in order to make sure we're maximizing the resources that we've got. So it's not just when we talk about extra rounds. It's not just the crews themselves. We're looking to boast of the crews with other people coming in to help from elsewhere within the council. Of course, agency staff. We're looking at recruiting some agency staff in the short term, particularly drivers. We might need to look at commissioning waste companies in order to help us catch up for a temporary basis. When I'm saying everything's on the table, these are the sort of issues that we're talking about. We're even contacting our local neighboring authorities to see if there's any capacity or what they can do in order to provide us with a bit of assistance. So this extra capacity is the key to it and it's not just the capacity within the crews themselves. We're looking at all options and give you a flavor there of what some of those options are. Okay, thank you, leader. Thank you. Yeah, I can't stress enough that since the beginning of this, myself and Barry have been pushing for these resources to be implemented, put forward to clear this backlog. People don't want to hear excuses. In the first week, there were some technical issues. There were issues with the wagons that will come out in the scrutiny and I fully accept people don't want to hear excuses. I've been putting pressure on WRAP as well that they need to have an understanding of the system as well. All stops have been made to get this backlog cleared. Now, as I keep saying, we've got the eighth of July to start the process of scrutiny, when many, many questions will be asked. We have a meeting today to get on with. It's been in the diary for some time. There was another hand up early on. Errol, did you wish to speak? Thank you. Yeah, my hands up as well, leader, virtually. Yeah, Brian, I've got you, I can see on the screen. For four years, I've been a counselor, and I have never, ever seen such a horrendous situation and complaints that I've had. I've been a cabinet member, and when the education came along, I found it really, really hard and big, big decisions. But this is something completely out of this world. Four weeks, people in my wars and the ruling wars have not been corrected, the food waste has not been corrected, the green wagons haven't been corrected, and they pay for that. They pay for that. They're asking, are we going to have money back on them? Many of them are asking how we're going to get our money back for it. So, I raised the issue before the rollout. I said to Lester, saying that many of my wars, lorries would not go up. I would urgently suggest that you get some form of, like the minivans that were collecting the bags before, going around all the rural roads, picking up boxes, leaving a box, and bringing them to a central point, because these wagons will not be able to go all over the holding. And that's the problem. Going up all the way to somewhere to fill us for one place, it takes a long, long time. And we do it in a school in education. Little miniverses go around, pick all the children, and drop them off an essential plus for a big bus to pick up. The same method could be done with this bridge, and it would clear many of the rural areas, because if it is, the rural areas will have suffered dramatically in this one. It sounds to have us well, I quite understand, but the rural areas have suffered, and you need to do that immediately. You need to do it immediately. As soon as possible, you can go out and create these that have not been done, and then they get it, because it's going to be two, three months that can guarantee you before you can get a level. So you need to do something to stop the lorries, going for miles and miles and miles, just to pick up one thought. That's ridiculous. A waste of time and motion for people. I remember the first time we had the bins introduced. I remember bringing the wheelie bin into the council when we went on wheelie bins for the first time, and it was a full council. It's a really, really shame that we've got to the situation, and the staff have been exceptionally good. And also, you know, I don't take blame on the call centres. It's not nice in your call centre when somebody hasn't had their wage broken, and you don't know what you're going to say to them. So I appreciate they have done exceptionally good work, and they have tried to do their best, but the best is not good enough. Please, please, please, get it sorted. The rural areas are dying and carrying out. And also, can somebody answer the question? If they paid for their waste, the green bins? Because I thought the green bins and the food bins, nothing changed. Only the day changes have changed. So why all these food bins and the green bins went? What happened to change for that, not to carry on as it was? Because they were putting the green bins out, they were putting the food bins out before. So you don't have to do that. So can somebody answer that one? Okay, Errol, thank you. As I've said in my opening submission, and I've said in all the meetings as well, it's been quite clear to me from very early on that there are bigger problems in the south of the county, and I have stressed that that needs to be the priority. The issue of the small vans, that's happening. We're doing that. That is happening now. I'll pass over to Tony. Thanks, Jason. On the issue of the green waste specifically, because that was the question that was asked, I will need to go back and check with the team where we are currently with the green waste. I've heard reports that we have had some issues with it, although I'm not told that they are widespread. However, if we have been missing collections in some areas for green waste and it's a service that people pay for, then we will clearly need to look at that. I'm happy to go away and give members an update on that situation following this meeting, Jason, if that's okay. Thanks, Tony. And food waste, Tony, do you want to? Well, we are, we're doing two things. As I said, one thing we're doing, we're putting steps in place to generally deal with the backlog of everything that's been created. But the second thing we're doing, we are prioritizing the areas that haven't had a collection for a long time. So we are creating specific routes for additional crews to go out with smaller vehicles to collect from areas that we know haven't been collected for a number of weeks. I would still urge members, if there are any areas that you're aware of that you think we might not be to report those through that email address, that information is all being collated with the information we've got and we are creating maps on a daily basis for crews to go out to prioritize those areas. So that's, that's the answer for that, Jason. Sorry. The question. Oh, the change on the food waste. Well, the food waste is now collected with the recycling. So that's what's changed with the food waste the food used to be collected separately with a separate vehicle. Previously, but now the food pods are within the main recycling vehicles. So that's why we've seen some issues with the food waste because we've been seeing issues with the recycling. Because it's one on the same thing now, which is why we've been sending out some specific vehicles separately over the last over the last week, but we're going to be doing need to do more of that to to clear any areas of food waste that hasn't been collected for a while, because it's all part of the backlog. But we, we, the plan is not just to leave it until until we can get there on a normal route if there's food waste hasn't been collected. We are looking to go and get that separately, because, as I experienced on Saturday. And Graham experience on Saturday. It's not pleasant when you've got food waste hasn't been collected. Thanks, Errol. I mean, Monday is the start of the process for these deep dive questions to be asked, but you're right to ask it today. And again, I keep saying this that Tony's given the answers to that the food waste is part and parcel of the same collection, but again, stress that we're prioritizing the food waste and separate crews are going out, picking up the backlog, clearing the backlog. There's no consolation to those residents who've waited too long and it's not acceptable for the fully fully accept that I'm saying that today, but the start of the pro public process of these questions will start a week on Monday. There are a couple more hands up, come in, and we'll send those will take those, but if you want to make those. As I say that these, these questions will be dealt with I'll bring Gary in about that process as well in a minute. Graham, and then yeah, Bobby, no just just to add to what Tony said the reason is the most challenging issue I faced in 30 years because it's not in one part of the county there's 43,000 households. I don't know why there are particular problems in the rural areas and I'm not underestimating that but of course one person who hasn't had a collection for three weeks in interactive, this is important to them as it is the one person who has another collection in front Ferris so absolutely understand that the issue is across the county which makes the prioritization really difficult around trying to get the right resource in the right place. So clearly we want to make sure that the rounds are working. So we've got to make sure that the designated rounds are working. A number of them are a number of demands. We've got to make sure we prioritize those properties that have not the collection for probably over two weeks. Some of those are going into three or four weeks. That is unacceptable. We have to prioritize those. And also I think most people would agree that food is the biggest issue in terms of whether you've got a food bin outside your house that hasn't been collected for three weeks, or the trolley box with its plastic etc. While none of it is acceptable it's been there for three weeks. Clearly the priority is food. So the challenge is to make sure that we are prioritizing those areas, and we're putting those resources that we have got into those priority areas so thank members for the questions everything you're saying we understand the job is across the county from the north to the south from the rural to the towns to get it right, so nobody is experiencing collections that aren't being done for weeks on end because that position is simply not acceptable. Thank you. Thank you, Graham. Okay, I've had Brian, Bobby, and Hugh, and then I'll bring Gary in to put some time. Right. Okay. Yeah, thanks, Jason. Well done, Bobby Meller for bringing it in the public domain, blaming the previous cabinet for where we are today with the waste. Massive example of weakness, poor performance, and I know what Bobby Meller, the lead member said this morning, reflects most of what the cabinet think blame the previous administration. So yeah, it's a sign of weakness, and it's a sign that you really haven't got a clue what you're doing to resolve the waste matters. Please don't make any more apologies because it's making us all look stupid in the eyes of residents. You've made the point, they don't want to hear apologies. The biggest failing in all of this, the absolute biggest failing, and I know this because I've been out this morning talking to waste crews. You haven't listened to the people on the job doing the job. You haven't listened to them. You didn't listen to them before the rollout because if you had done, you wouldn't be in the mess that you're in today. You haven't listened to the people on the ground doing the job, and you're still not doing it now. You're firefighting, trying to catch back. You've touched on it briefly, told me, Graham, that you're looking forward and you've mentioned resource. The rounds are too big. I know they're too big because I spoke to the right people. You'll never catch it back. You'll be catching back the week after week after week, and what you need is a powerful plan with extra capacity. Different rocket science, more vehicles, more hours, more people. I mean, I believe you're using 40 agency staff at the minute. You know, you need to get them on permanent because that's costing an absolute bomb. So all the comments that have been made, I agree with from the members. I think that Councillor Hilditch-Roberts put Councillor Mellor right on this whole circus that it's become. What we need is action by who and when, and it needs to happen quickly because you're going to have strikes on your hands. We need some of the fly-tipping around real last night in Princess Street. Not a couple of bags. It must be 50 bags that have been dumped in a cul-de-sac as a protest by residents, and now it's out in the public domain, the lead member blaming the previous cabinet. That's lit the blue torch paper. I've declined public interviews so far. After this morning, what I've heard, Barry Mellor, the lead member say, I'll be on it straightaway. Thanks. Brian, I am going to go on record here and say, and take full accountability that the rollout happened on my watch. I'm not blaming anyone in the previous cabinet for the circumstances of the rollout. Let's be clear about that. My efforts now are concentrating on, and have been for the last three weeks, I've been concentrating on challenging the operational issues around capacity. So you're right to raise that. I have been pushing that we get the drivers in, the agency staff. You've heard from Graham and Tony as to hiring other firms as well. That's been my effort to get the maximised capacity and clear that backlog. That is what we are doing. I want to reiterate that the rollout happened on my watch, and I'm not blaming the previous cabinet. The system itself, I think the one thing we can agree on, the system itself was put through by the previous cabinet and taken up by this cabinet. We all believe that it's the right thing to do once it's up and running. We're clearing this backlog. We're working really hard. Thank you. If I can come back on that, clearing the backlog, you need as much emphasis on what are you going to do going forward. Clearing the backlog is not the answer. You need the robust plan. Right. We're looking at the routes. We're reviewing the routes. You're right to raise them. That's all being done. And as I say, a week on Monday, we can start the process of looking into this. We're constantly resolving this issue now, working hard on it, looking at the routes, maximising capacity, getting the backlog done, and making sure that there's no reoccurrence of the backlog as we take this forward. Well, my final word on it, my advice to you is do what I've done, get out there on the front line, speak to the guys doing the job, put a pair of scruffy jeans on and a scruffy t-shirt, and then you'll get the picture with all due respect to the officers. You need it off the ground, off the front line. They're the guys that know what's going on. There's people in there 20-odd years. They'll give you the answers. I can see all the cabinets shaking their heads, but that's the way to sort it out. If you don't do that, you'll be forever and a day trying to catch back and not get anywhere. Brian, I've said enough. Cheers. I have done that, Brian, and that has been done. We've been on the front line. Okay, I'm going to bring in Bobbie and Hugh. Okay. Thanks, Leader. Yes, as Barry said, this was first mooted in 2018, and that is six years ago now, nearly, so it is quite a long time to get it right. My main concern here is for our residents. I do feel somewhat mortified and embarrassed at what has happened. I know it's happening all over Dembershire, but like Errol Williams said, I've represented Rithin for over 30 years and never known anything like this. I'd also echo what Hugh Fielditch said in that the people who are the operatives trying to get this rolled out have tried really hard and my heart goes out to them because they've obviously had a very difficult time. Whilst doing so, I'd also like to thank Graham and Tony, who did, as Brian said, roll up their sleeves and come into Rithin emptying food waste on Saturday for most of the day. So they too have been getting their hands dirty, as it were. But the residents, you know, some have been waiting four weeks. There's uncollected food waste, people worrying about pest infestation, clinical and nappy waste, leaving people stressed, uncollected. It just seems to be a lack of knowledge about where there has and hasn't been done and what has been collected. Many people are saying to me, what was wrong with Dembershire's waste system? It was always so good and efficient and that is what makes it even more heartbreaking because it was so bad. I know you're going to have an inquiry, but you know, I feel it's right to let us have our say. The new waste rollout with all the best will in the world has been a spectacular failure. I can't put it any other way. And what have you learned? Why did it go wrong? I don't want excuses. I just want the bold truth. And I'm sure that's what most people would want. So I won't take any more of your time. Leader, I know you've got other things to do, but we're all very distressed about this. OK, thanks, Bobby. Thank you for those points. OK, I'm going to bring Hugh in. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I don't want to repeat the ground that's been covered. We've all got our own issues in our own areas. Those are the quoting lengths of time in local government. I won my first election in 1974, so I've got 50 years experience. It would seem to me that we've had a good explanation this morning from the chief executive and the corporate director. I would have liked to have heard from the head of service, who I haven't seen a lot of in all this, because he's there. I would believe in the management structure to the actual operatives that are trying to deliver the service. And I would like to have heard his experiences on the front line. If he's been on the front line, I certainly would hope he has, because it would be his duty to have been on the front line. So I think that's an omission, and I shall look forward to hearing that in the scrutiny process. On the time of scrutiny, as the chairman of chairs and vice chairs, I was in discussions with officers yesterday, and I said immediately, I thought that the July the 8th was too long a time away. But apparently I was told that the election period precluded anything happening at all. So that would stop anything happening before July the 8th, but I hope that we'll get the scrutiny process well underway then. And as far as soon as possible, get everybody concerned, answering the questions, and it needs to be operatives, foremen, head of service, everybody. It's not a witch hunt, but we need to know. That's what I have to say. Thank you, Hugh. And that's a good note to end on, which is looking forward to that scrutiny process. And thank you, as the chair of the chairs and vice chairs group, thanks for those comments and those assurances that there will be a very, very deep dive into those issues. So thanks for that. Regarding the head of service, clearly he has been on the frontline day in, day out, getting to the depot at six o'clock every morning. He was also on the members briefings that we had. And of course, there's absolutely no doubt that he'd be made available for the scrutiny process, which you're overseeing, so to give you those assurances. So on the point of that process, I'm going to bring Gary in briefly, and you are right Hugh, that we do have to wait for the election, you know, there's pre-election protocols and the like. So a week on Monday, it will start, that's the earliest date. So I'll bring Gary in for a little bit of flesh on the bones around that process. Thank you leader. Just to be clear about the 8th of July, I'm grateful to Councillor Irving for agreeing to a special meeting of chairs and vice chairs on the 8th of July. The reason the 8th of July, yes, pre-election period, but also the staff who support scrutiny are full time working on the election at the moment, so we've got to get that dealt with by the 4th of July, count on the 5th. So Monday is the first day that we can do it. What I'll be doing is bringing a proposal to scrutiny for chairs and vice chairs of scrutiny as to options that they may want to adopt in order to have a scrutiny inquiry. So looking very much at the process that we used in respect of the wildfires, we'd be looking for guidance from the chairs and vice chairs of scrutiny in forming a task and finish or working group of members from across the council geographically. We would want a meeting with all members first to frame the terms of reference for that group and agree what the membership should be. For that group then to work on those terms of reference and prepare a report for a full day probably of scrutiny in the public domain. And I know that members have asked whether or not they would be, if you like, independent or outside input into that. And clearly that's a matter for scrutiny, but if scrutiny wish to do that, then they could commission independent advisors to come in and assist the working group in looking at the issues that need to be dealt with. So that's the outline proposal. Clearly it's for chairs and vice chairs. There'll be more flesh in the report, but it'd be for chairs and vice chairs to determine whether that's an appropriate way forward or whether they want to tweak it in any way. But it's only right the chairs and vice chairs drive the process because it needs to be owned by scrutiny. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Gary. Okay. Thank you everyone for the contributions today. As I said, the business of council still has to go on. So we will move on to the next agenda item, which is the minutes of the last meeting. So that was on the 21st of May. This is pages 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the pack. Okay. Any issues around the accuracy of those, anything in those minutes? No. Okay. Any matters arising? No. Okay. Can we, can I have a proposal, a true and accurate reflection proposed by Barry, seconded by Julie. Okay. Thank you. Right. We're onto the next agenda item, which is the climate change and the nature strategy, the year three review and refresh. So it's Barry and Hallard leading on this. Thank you, Barry. Yeah. Okay. Thanks leader. Good morning everyone. I'm pleased to present to the cabinet today, the refresh strategy for the council to continue tackling the impact of climate change on our county and our local nature. This is the first of a three year yearly strategy review that took place during 2023. And the first part of 2024 involving engagement from public and partners, which has resulted in the refresh strategy document being presented to you today. With the recommendation for cabinet to recommend that the adoption to the council on the 9th of July. As you know, demos county council declared the climate change and ecological emergency in July, 2019, which committed the council to become a net carbon zero by 2030 at the latest and improve biodiversity across the county. The original strategy was adopted in February, 21, which committed the council to become a net carbon zero and ecological positive council by 2030. In addition to reducing carbon emissions from the goods and services bought by the council support supply chain by 35% by 2030. The county council's constitution was also changed in October, 2020, to make sure all decisions must now have regard to tackling climate and ecological change. Since the adoption of the original strategy in 2021, we've made good progress in key areas, including biodiversity, reducing fleet and public transport carbon emissions, and knowing emissions from our council building estates. The most recent figures from 2223 show the council has reduced emissions by just over 8% to contribute to the 55% carbon reduction target for 2030, and increased absorption absorption by 30% since 2019, as all local authorities in Wales and across the UK. We're facing challenging budget pressures, and whilst our progress is a positive one against the climate actions, we are aware that the pace of change now is not currently at the level we need to meet for our 2030 targets. While we recognize it will not be easy to meet our 2030 goals, the goals in this iteration of the strategy remain the same as we go into the next three years of our strategy. I'm proud to say that we are retaining this ambition. Work being carried out for the climate and action and nature recovery agenda has wide benefits for us as an organization and the residents of Denvershire. Actions to lower carbon emissions often also help reduce costs for the council, and increasing biodiversity for nature also creates important spaces for health and wellbeing, education, leisure, and for our local communities. All organizations, but especially the council in our role as community leaders, must do their part in tackling climate change and the nature decline to be good ancestors, avoid the risks and impacts our younger generation will inherit, and indeed already being felt today, particularly by those most vulnerable in our society. We're highly committed to go as far as we can, as fast as we can, with the resources we have to continue making a contribution to tackling climate change and delivering nature's recovery for the well being and protection of our current communities, staff, partners, and for the future generations to come. I'll now pass over to Gary, the climate and ecological change programme senior responsible owner, the CET lead to take you through a little bit more detail. Thank you. Thank you, Barry. I'd just like to start by thanking Barry for his leadership and support through this process, and to all the officers who've been involved and members from the cross party political climate change and ecological emergency working group for all of their hard work and effort in completing this this is the first review of the strategy scheduled to take place every three years. As I said, a lot of important work from across the organization but in particular by Liz Wilcock Jones who can't be here today. But also pass my thanks to Liz for that. The document that's appended has been developed with services through workshops with each service. We've had ideas collated from the public, we've had a public engagement event, then the town hall. The strategy has been reviewed by SLT by the greener Denver should board. And as I said, the cross party working group. I won't go over the document length it's in the packs but I think just need to highlight some of the key changes to the document compared to the strategy that was adopted in 2021. First of all, the recommendation that we change the name of the document. Following feedback from the public in the engagement exercise, and it's got a shorter snappier title of climate and nature strategy. There are three new sections in the document, which acknowledge the wider influence that the council can bring about change in this area across the geographical area of the county and not just from the council's own operations. They include reducing emissions and increasing carbon absorption across Denver share, increasing our climate risk resilience across the county and nature recovery across Denver share. It also includes an update on the financial appraisal of the action that needs to be taken. There's a new technical appendix which is a place where we can include a history of completed activities are more in depth information about our performance on climate and nature issues today. There was an online public consultation on the revised strategy, which ended in at the end of May, and 88% of people were in favor of us adopting the revised strategy. The document that's appended does incorporate the feedback that we've received. And there will be additional documents going to Council when it goes to Council for adoption, and that will be a youth version and a high level exec summary of the document. Helen Vaughan Evans is the head of service with responsibility for the climate change team, and Helen will be able to support with any questions about detail today. Before we go to questions I'd just like to confirm my support for what Barry said about retaining ambitious targets for 2030. This iteration of the strategy guides us for the next three years. It's important we maintain our focus and ambition. And whilst it will be easy to meet those goals. We need to keep it as a priority for the organization to deliver as much as we can, of the environmental the economic and the social well being benefits with the resources that we have available and you'll see that the document throughout consistent to the resources that we have available. So, conclude my comments there. I'm happy to take any questions, or should I say, Helen will be happy to take any questions as she's the expert. Thank you to Barry and Gary for presenting was a very comprehensive and thorough report. I think one of the key takeaways for me, for me in the report. And it's something that particularly struck me during the training we had as members last year was the amount of influence that councils have over the emissions in the local area. I mean, a third is a pretty substantial amount. It really does a good job at capturing just how that influence is used at a corporate organizational and operational level, but I wonder if more can be done at a community level in terms of education and awareness. You know, it's really great that the council is leading the way in create or striving towards a net zero future, no matter how ambitious and fortunately that increasingly is becoming. I think perhaps recent events have presented an opportunity, or even a need here to better campaign the urgency of this subject. And maybe you need to be a bit more vocal about the urgent need for such strategy and the measures that we take to tackle climate change. And I'm also glad to know that this is going to full council to be ratified, because this is such a hugely significant topic, and just like the budget needs the support and approval of all members so thanks Helen you answer in that. Thanks Helen I think that's a really kind of well made and insightful kind of contribution to make and thank you for for recognizing the, I do see this as a central pillar, alongside our corporate plan in terms of our strategies and directions of what we do as an organization as a community leader, working with partners. So, I absolutely it's incredible how much influence local authority can have and I think it just shows you kind of the fact that we are a multi service provider we we hold a range of powers from caregivers, Kara and stick in relation to this, and I think you're right to note that we need to mobilize people power in relation to this agenda so I'm really proud to say that we've, we've got a role that's looking at that in particular that person had to be doing other things for the last nine months but she can come back and start working on those particular actions from July. And that's all about leveraging that community power and people often call it behavior change and communication. It's very much the underpilling pinner underpilling sort of foundation of our work stream so we've got a work stream on buildings fleet waste land use but underneath all of that is behavior change and communication. So, there are actions within the strategy about particular things that we're wanting to do in that in that field and we have got a dedicated resource for it currently and so I think I hope that gives assurance to cabinet and yourself that that will be part of the mix of what's delivered over the next three years. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Helen. And, yes, it input it's important that we have community engagement and work with community groups environmental groups so that's that's good and good to hear from Gary on the, the public feedback on the consultation as well. Okay. Any more questions, please. Thank you very much Helen everybody who's been working so hard on this document. I'm extremely supportive of this document. And that's already been said, it's important that we do work towards the 2030 targets, even though that will be difficult. There's a note on page 16 I think 6.2, there's a little bit of difference between the page numbers in English and English, but it says, and 0.6.2 I would like to counsel it in a low carbon ecologically positive way, and to help the translator he's reading it out in English now. And there's a great deal in this document that I'm very supportive of which talks about low carbon and so on. I would like to get assurance that we're also working towards operating the Council in an ecologically positive way. There are references in this document page 27 has human activity. How exactly are we intending to increase the amount of habitat. This is maybe getting too technical for just discussing in cabinet but these may be a questions you can come back and answer outside this meeting. So page 27 the amount of habitats page 77, creating new spaces for nature. How exactly how, how are we going to go about that it's it's it's a wonderful phrase I'm very positive that we do that, but maybe in this document which is quite a long document maybe it is there somewhere, page, 83, I don't really understand this and maybe I could have an explanation of it outside the meeting it says, the Council percentage of owned and operated land in the lowest categories of species richness should be lower than the percentage of Council owned and operated land in the highest catch categories of species richness for the Council to achieve its ecologically positive value. Now, even with my background in biology, I really don't understand what we're trying to say there. I think maybe it was getting a bit late by the time I got to that part of quite a long document but maybe outside the meeting. I would have an explanation of that please because I do think that we talk a lot about reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that we produce, but I think the, the ecologically positive way of operating the Council also needs to be thought through that. Thank you. Thank you for that. I can see you've made notes of all of that. I can pass that on to you. Yeah. So I think, I think you're right that there has been a big focus on carbon and climate action but actually, nature recovery needs to be in the same breath. I definitely feel that there is more of a parity between those two goals and there perhaps was at the start in 2021. We've got excellent officers working on the nature recovery agenda and we need to retain them, and I'm proud to say that they, they enjoy working for us because of the organisational focus on it compared to other organisations. I'm absolutely happy to have a chat with you about that eco-positive target out of the meeting but essentially it's looking at the land we already have in our ownership and management and seeing where we can create pockets, which balance those needs between nature, leisure, health, wellbeing, and really trying to target more of those spaces to be wild flower or hay meadows, broadleaf woodland, away from what you tend to see, which is a lot of coniferous woodland or improved grassland and what improved grassland means is typically, you know, the mown, very green, single swaths of grass type areas. That's really what that target is talking about and it's absolutely integral because our ecosystem, the fabric that helps us grow food, that keeps our air clean, that keeps us cool, all of those we absolutely rely on to deliver how we live our lives. And I know Councillor Ellen referred to the carbon literacy training that all members attended last year and in previous years and I'm really pleased that you enjoyed that training. We're going to be delivering a similar training package for ecology and nature so eco-literacy so you're equipped with the knowledge on both sides so you can scrutinise both sides more readily so that should be coming on stream this financial year. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Helen, I'm impressed with your knowledge about that I thought you were actually going to start talking about semi-improved grassland or something at that point. The point I'm making is a serious one. I do think that there were protests in London over the weekend asking the government to do something about all the species, all the species that have declined in numbers during the past 10 to 20 years. And I hope that this will be able to be a way here in Denbyshire that we are able to increase the numbers of these scarce species and bring new wildlife back into Denbyshire. So thank you very much for the report. I can't see any more hands up nor on the screen. So it's good discussion around the refreshing strategy. I'm going to hand back to you for the recommendations. Yes, absolutely. Yes, the recommendations are 3.1 the cabinet recommend adoption to the council of Denbyshire County Councils climate and nature strategy 2021, 2022 to 2029 and 30 and 3.2 that the cabinet confirms that it is read, understood and take account of the wellbeing impact assessment of part of its consideration. Okay, that's carried. Thanks very much. Okay. Thanks, Helen. Thank you. And the team. Thank you. And the members of the Cross Party Committee as well for their input as well. Thank you. Okay. The long term plan for towns real. This is a short report to give an update as to where we are on the part of the leveling up agenda for the public government announcement back in March. So, Tony's here to assist with this one so as we know, there was an announcement by the Chancellor in March that will would be on the list of towns for leveling additional leveling up funding for the long term plan. I think we presented to cabinet previously, and the, the initial process was to appoint a chair, and to get the board up and running. And from then on, look at governance issues, terms of reference for the board move things forward. I'm happy to say that following the last council decision to delegate powers to myself and Tony, we've been through a rigorous, rigorous process in appointing a chair and working with the chair in terms of the membership of the board. You'll, you'll see in the appendix there, the, the details of that. There's now a process to take us through to November. So I think at that point I'll hand over to, to Tony, before we take questions. Thank you, Jason. Am I okay here by the way or do I should I move down. Okay, thank you, leader. So, as you rightly pointed out, we asked for delegated authority to make some decisions, because they were time critical in relation to a deadline for the UK government funding. So this report really is to report back to cabinet as I think we promised to do at the last meeting to report back about the decisions that were made, and the information that was submitted to UK government, but really to ask for formal endorsement from cabinet at the same time for the information that was submitted, and so you can see from the reports, particularly in Appendix A, which is the crucial part of this report, the information that was submitted. In essence, there are, there are a number of elements to this is the confirmation of the, the person that was selected to be the chair of the board, namely, Adam Roach, who came through that process that you described Jason, but also, it describes the, the plan and the makeup of the actual board for real, the real new real town board. There was also a need for us to confirm the geographical boundary for the long term plan for real. We did suggest making a couple of minor tweaks to the proposal that came through from UK government, essentially there are a couple of small areas, not included, which we would recognize as being the boundary of the town of real, so we asked for those areas to be included. So, those, those are really the main things. Today, the obviously there are a number of next steps and to follow on from here, there is another deadline of the first of November, which the board itself must complete a number of tasks, including crucially developing the 10 year vision and developing the three year delivery plan for that initial period. So the focus will now be on delivering those steps but the report today is simply to report back on what we submitted UK government to ask to ask for formal endorsement from cabinet for the decisions that that we made that were delegated to us Jason so I'll just leave the screen Joan you've got your hand up do you want to come in, Joan, please. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. I would have not put my camera on because I'm on my phone and I keep popping off and on. So do forgive me for not coming online, I'll just pop it on it's gone off again. Sorry, the camera on it seems to go off. Can you still hear me because I'm completely off my phone. Are you still getting voices a bit sounded a little bit your voice sounded a little bit better with. Sorry, can you. Are you hearing us. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying to. I'm, I'm going to go out and come back in and see Bobby. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Joan. Yeah, just a quickie. Jason, I know under risks that that you say there is a danger you may not reach deadlines. In, you know, for that we were given for the LUF projects, and I'm just noting that include West projects LUF projects, we have gained assurance that we can extend our deadlines and that nothing will change if there is a change of government. And I would assume your project manager will achieve the same assurances. I mean, absolutely. Yeah, they will. Bobby, and as you know I've been working with the stakeholders and in the Cluid West scheme here in rough thing. And, you know, as you know, we've been, as we've been working included was this is good news for the veil of clue a good news for, for real so yeah, we're working with, I can give those assurances. Okay. Joan, have you sorted your IT before I bring Brian in? I'm, I am hopeful that I have the lead. Thank you. And thank you for your patience. And I have a number of questions to ask procedural and questions, and how this has been, how this has happened. I would have asked these questions at Max yesterday when we had a Max meeting. But unfortunately, disappointment, or indeed the leveling wasn't addressed at the Max meeting. I have to say that it was addressed at the Max meeting on the 25th of April. And members were given a very brief outline of the nominees that have been in place for the chair of what I consider will be a very important board for the town of Hrill. And so I particularly interested in it, as you well know, I have, I have read the government documents on the leveling on the town board. I have looked very carefully, and as you well know, I have attended a seminar on given by government on town boards. So I have tried to gain as much information as I possibly could about the boards in in other towns because we have no experience of a town board leveling up money as we have that have no experience of the town board. And I would have liked to have had brought to Max a sooner date with the progress that has been has been made. We were told that the chair has been appointed. And I don't think we've very little knowledge of the chair. I don't think we have very much knowledge at all about him. But I would like to know along with a lot of other members, questions that have been asked of me. And how, how was, how was the chair appointed? Was there, was there a job description? And where are the documents documented, so that members can see how many nominations they were, and how, and who made and conducted the interviews, and how we determined that this particular person was the best for Hrill. That's my first question, because we've no idea how many nominees there were, and how that happened, other than we did make two nominations, and I believe would have been considered, but I'm not sure who interviewed them all. The form you're asking to submit to the government today. And it's just a tick box form, but I didn't read everything very carefully. It's a tick box form that says the chair is a director of the Hrill Football Club. And looking at the criteria laid down for all authorities from the government in the White Paper on town boards, there is a criteria laid down, and there are five things, five boxes that have to be ticked before an applicant can be considered. And that is, it has to be a local charitable organisation, the chair rather, it has to be from a local charitable organisation, a philanthropist, or the head of a further education colleague, or a director of the National Health Board or Trust, and the fifth one, a director of a football club. So he definitely fits that, but I have problems with the form, because the form goes on to say your tick box form that will be submitted today that you are asking for approval of, that the chair is the director of the Hrill Football Club. And of course, that does fit the criteria. But it doesn't say in the form that he is a volunteer at the football club. It says in the form, it says the chair is the director of the Hrill Football Club and is employed by the co-op. In his profile, which I read very carefully, says he's no longer employed by the co-op, and he is a volunteer at the football club, a voluntary director. I'm a little bit uncomfortable in the form should have said that instead of director, it should have said voluntary, because he hasn't been appointed to this directorship, he's just volunteered to do it. So that's something that I need you to answer how that came about, and should it be submitted to government. We'll come in on that. I'll let Tony deal with the technical issue. Oh, yes, absolutely. How were the board members appointed? Excuse me, I'm finished asking the questions, if I may, leader. The statutory appointments that have been made are in Appendix A, and quite clearly didn't need appointing, they are statutory. Of course, the police, the business groups, and education. It gives you a list of 11 members that nobody's had any knowledge of, or how they were appointed. Was there an invitation for nominations, and where did the invitations go? Or were they all self-appointed? I don't understand the statutory ones have to be there. And where did, or how did we engage with the community, so that they were aware that they could put members forward for an interview, I imagine. And where is the job description? Because I think that's important as well, because it has to be made clear, looking at the guidance, the board can only act as a scrutiny on the project submitted for consideration. And it's their duty to formulate the programmes that have been put forward for projects to be evaluated, and the quality of any of the projects. They're there as a scrutiny, and sort of a point-giver to make sure that the programmes that are being given, so has that been made quite clear to them, or not? And then, have we had a consultation to establish, and have you had a conversation, and I believe Bobby touched on this, that there will be a continuity, even if there is a change of government. So I just need that, because it's a long programme of ten years, and have we, I've written these down Sharon, I have as much difficulty this morning reading my own writing as I have getting online. Have we written in with all the members statutory, I mean the statutory nominations have to go, but we do need to know that the nominees have gone through some exercise of appropriate members. So those are the questions that I'd like to ask, and have we got, I mean I think it's early days yet to make sure that if they don't attend meetings, that they will be asked, or someone will be asked to reappoint someone else in their place. I assume that will be dealt with in the nitty-gritty at some stage or other. My last thing is, my last thing is, leader, I want to ask the chair or the cabinet, or whoever has this duty to ensure, to ensure a confidence in the process, in the area of benefit. We represent 27, the town council that is, represent 27,000 people in the town of Birkrill, and I would like to make a request that we have two town councillors on the board, and two county councillors on the board. But could you answer my other questions, and just address that consideration at the end. Thank you so much. Okay. I think your whole, the whole of your questions encapsulates a subject that I touched on when this was in cabinet last month, and Tony touched on as well. And in all our discussions and indeed Jonah's when we met as a group as when I addressed the real members, and throughout that process of keeping, keeping you all informed that the difficulty was the time scales involved. They were incredibly tight. My own thought process was that we needed terms of reference first and then we can appoint a chair. I thought the government's policy, and that's what it is, the government's policy was put in the cart before the horse. But nevertheless, look, that's what the policy was, that's what we had to do. That's why we went ahead and did it. Now, if you look back to the decision back in May, based on those really tight time scales, the decision was to delegate to Tony and I to implement the requirements of the government and appoint a board. I kept the, we kept you up to date on that process as it was ongoing, and the process was open. It was open to the public, and it was to invite people to apply for the position of chair of the board. There was a rigorous process. There was, people were approached. People declined. There was a couple of people who declined. There was a process whereby people were invited to put an application in. They did. We had a full and proper, vigorous interviewing process, which went well. And from that process, it was quite clear that the name chair, Adam Roche, was head and shoulders. He was really, he presented very, very well, vast experience in the commercial world within the banking sector, and it wasn't the, and I have stressed this as well, I've stressed this in my communications on this show, that the fact he's chairman of the board, was not the chairman of the football club, the board of the football club, was not the box that we ticked and she warned him in. It was his impressive CV. It was his impressive performance in interview as well that got him the job. Now, in terms of appointment of the rest of the board, yeah, there are guidelines which are quite prescriptive, but yet within that, there's a process where we have some freedom to appoint the board, and you'll see from the papers that there's a number of board members. There's not a massive number of board members because the view and the governance from the guidance and on any governance board, you can have a cast of thousands and you don't have an efficient board. So we've got representatives from all of this, from all of the main sectors there, and we, of course, the chairman of the board had some input in that. He's the chair of the board and he needs to have the input. We had a good group of people who put their names forward, people who put their names forward as to be chair, but were happy then to not be chair and be members of the board. So there was a vigorous process that was ongoing. I mean, I can't speak for the real mags and if we should have come yesterday and presented, I apologise. As you can imagine, Joan, myself and Tony and Barry as chair of real mags have been somewhat busy over these last three weeks. But the information is there, we've stuck to the processes, we've got a good chair in place and I think a good and varied board, all committed to real and that was, I'll stress that again, not only was the chair appointed on his commercial experience, but on his dedication to real as well. And that's it, you've raised that Joan, right to raise that, and that was an important part of the selection. Tony, I don't know, do you want to add anything to that, perhaps around the technical side about what the government want in terms of the form, that sort of thing? Okay, thank you, Jason. Yeah, just to add on the process, I think Jason has said, you know, the people who were shortlisted as potential chairs were interviewed by myself and Jason. We did have an independent observer as part of those as well. Sorry, and sorry, and Barry as well. Sorry, Barry, there's been a lot going on. My memory is playing tricks on me. So myself and Barry, Councillor Barry Mellor and Jason all interviewed them as an independent observer from a consultant that was helping us with this process. So it was a it was a thorough, rigorous process. The, the rest of the board, we did have a separate session, then with the chair, Adam Roach to discuss who the other board members would be, we had many, many different organisations and sectors that we could have chosen from for them. But as Jason said, the advice is that we should have had between 12 and 15 people on the board is any any more than that it really starts to get unwieldy. We've actually ended up with 16, which is at the higher end. But we know that there was long and detailed discussions and a rationale for that. Five of those are statutory and 11 were people that we had flexibility to put on onto the board. And there is an option for the for some subgroups, because there are, you know, there are three different kind of priority areas for the for this fund. And there is the potential for some subgroups to look at those areas, but that's really a decision that's down to the board, not down to myself or Jason as the lead member. So, I mean the form really is what it is it's the formality that we had to go through in order to get the funding, so it you know it is, you know, there are some tick boxes on there that we've had to take. There is some narrative in there we've had to provide, but, you know, there's no real flexibility around that. On the, on the question of two town councilors, Jason, the, you know, there was no statutory requirement for the town council to be represented on the board, but we thought it was important. Clearly, because this board is about thrill, and therefore the town council needs to be an active partner and contributor to that. There's always a, I think with these boards that there is the, the advice and the steer is that it shouldn't be too elected representative heavy. If that's a correct phrase. And so it's supposed to be more community focused and more business focused. And there are a number of statutory requirements there to have some elected representatives on so we felt it was, it was important to make sure we've got those requirements, and that's my, my view on that one Jason, I think, I think you're right, Tony, just the town council point, it was the, the guidance was clear there was no specific role for town council but clearly it's important that the town council have an input into the role and there is, as you can see there's a rep from the town council on there which was real time council elected voted through. And I just want to share Tony's view that if we had to question the need to when you've got one who can report back, and it would just take another space, when the concept is we don't want a two bigger board to and to unwieldly. In terms of the Yeah, and the other point is Tony Tony says is, it should be from, you know, the business and the community business community and general community as well. You've already got to time to county council is on it, and the member of parliament as well. So it shouldn't be elected member heavy just picking up on Tony's views on subgroups and subcommittees, I, I've advocated. I'm a strong supporter of that particularly from the business community, because with the seats on the board. It would be wrong to fill it completely with members of the business community, but they play an important role so what I'm looking at in, as the board develops is that there is a subcommittee, and more of the business community can feed back to the reps on the board. So the business community is really at the heart and part and parcel of this and Barry I don't know if you want to come in, as your, your chair of the chair of the the mags and yeah for being involved in this process. Yeah, I mean, it didn't come to the mags yesterday but I mean, you'd send out the email. Couple of weeks ago, outlining the outcome of the interviews at the board. And also, the other members there. One of the things I would say is that the names that had come forward. There were very few female, very few female people there. And we thought we wanted to try and get a balance, not to have it too heavy with males. As for Adam Roach. Yes. He had a fantastic CV, work through the top edge of the co op. He's a volunteer now chair of the Real Football Club, we just didn't volunteer himself into that position. He was put into that position by a board. But it's his vast experience to help the co op. And that really turned it. So, I wouldn't let the chair of Real Football Club waiver. The importance of this fellow. That's all I need to say sorry. Yeah. Okay. Joan, I think we've addressed everything there. You have. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, leader. I'm not happy with the answers. I think the answers reflect. The situation. The transparency point by saying a number of things. First of all, the timescales were such that we had to have the process delegated to me and Tony, I kept all the stakeholders updated on this as the process was going along. We had Joan, you saw, I put forward thing. So I'm not happy with the answers that I've been given leader, but I have to accept them. I'm making no criticism of the year of the chair. I am making criticism of how it's been handled behind closed doors. Thank you. The process was delegated to myself and Tony because of huge time restraints, and during that very limited time process where we had to undertake a lot of work. We kept stakeholders informed. I'm content to that. Okay. Brian, do you want to come in? Yeah. Yeah. Likewise, I've got a problem with the chair that you've appointed. Joan's sort of touched on a lot of some of my feelings, but in fact, that's the question. So it was just for clarity then. So it was you, Jason, Tony Ward and Barry Miller that selected the chair. Did you use some sort of scoring matrix to score these candidates or did you just sit there, listen, ask a few questions and then made a decision? To answer your question, this cabinet unanimously delegated the power to myself and Tony to go ahead and appoint the chairman of the board, which we did. That's the first point I want to make. The second point is that, as I said at the last cabinet meeting, we were given some extra money, additional money over and above the 20 million specifically to use for the processes in getting the board off the ground, including the interviewing process for the chair of the board. So we were silly not to accept that money because it was there and it meant that we didn't have to use internal capacity, that we could use a well-known, established and reputable consultant who assisted in the interview process. The interview process met all HR guidelines. We had a long list, we had a short list, we had a scoring matrix to answer your question. We all, all interviewees were interviewed, went through exactly the same process, had exactly the same questions. The interviews occurred over, was it two or three days, Tony? I think it was one day and then we missed a day and then the following day, I think it was the Wednesday and the Friday. Anyway, they were interviewed extensively. As I said, there was a professional scoring matrix. We then convened and went through our views and our scores. And as I said, for all the reasons we've talked about, Adam Roche, because of his commercial experience, his years working, as Barry has said, at the highest level of a commercial bank, his commitment to RIL clearly fitted the bill. So, sorry I've gone on a bit there, but I just did want to give you a detailed answer as to the processes that this cabinet delegated to Tony and myself to appoint the chairman of the board. Thanks. That's it. Yeah, I wasn't trying to catch it out of anything else. I was interested to know, did you use a scoring matrix of some sort just to add a bit of integrity to the process? For what it's worth, obviously, I haven't got a problem with the chair, certainly got an issue, but it's nothing to do with me, with some of the members of the board. But that's only my personal view and we'll see how it all develops and hopefully it goes down the right tracks and RIL benefits from this project. So, thank you. Thanks, Brian. And as I said, there will be elected member representation on the board, but my expectation is the board will be working with all of the elected members in RIL, so looking forward to your input as well, Brian. Perhaps we can leave party politics at the door and work for RIL's advantage, so thanks for that. Okay, thanks everyone. I think there's no further questions then. We'll go to the recommendations. So, that's the cabinet notes and support, the information included in and appended to this report, including the appointment as chair of the new RIL board and the proposed membership of the board. And the information submitted to the government is attached to Appendix A, because someone proposed that we accept that proposed by Barry, seconded by Alan, and all in favour, so that's unanimous, thank you. Okay, we're going to take a short break. Be back at 10 to. Thank you. That's a comfort break. So, we are on the agenda item. Sorry, bear with me, I'll just get my screen. So, it's agenda item seven, the Council Performance Self Assessment. Gwyneth obviously is not here, she's given apologies. So, Helen and Emma, welcome. Can I hand over to yourself straight away? Thank you. Yes, certainly. So, just one minute to go. Good afternoon everyone, thank you ever so much for your time this afternoon. Quite right, Councillor Gwyneth sent her apologies for today, but I'm really grateful for Gwyneth's support at Governance and Audit Committee and Performance Greeting, which is the committees that have considered this report and appendices before it's come to cabinet today and its final place council in July. So, these reports are the Council's Performance Self Assessment for 23/24, providing our end of year analysis of progress and challenges with our key performance objectives, which is our corporate plan themes. They're critical pieces of work that help us to reflect on our progress and the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. They also discharge our statutory duties under the Local Government and Election Wales Act 2021, the Equalities Act 2010, the Wales Measure 2011 and our contributions to the Wellbeing and Future Generations Act 2015. I'm incredibly grateful and proud of the team who pulled this piece of work together, working collaboratively across all eight of the service areas that make up our organisation. I'm joined today by Emma Horan, Strategic Planning and Performance Officer, who will support with any questions. So one of the main changes in the Local Government Elections Wales Act was the requirement for the council to not only monitor our performance, but also to agree improvement actions on that performance and evidence the implementation of those actions. And I signed post members to section 4.4 of the cover report for the six improvement actions that have been identified for this period, October 23 to March 24, that will assist you with the recommendation 3.1 of the cover report today on considering and agreeing to those improvement actions. This is a chunky set of appendices, but taken together gives us that rich picture of the organisation's performance and progress. Appendix 1 is the XX summary, which is a really great short document to give you the key headlines, and then that can guide you on what perhaps you want to delve into the detail about, which can be found in Appendix 2. That's structured in chapters for each of the corporate plan themes, and again will help you guide your interest. And recommendation 3.2 of the cover report is asking you to confirm the contents of the performance self assessment which is essentially Appendix 2. Appendix 1 is the exact summary of that. Part of our performance management framework is an annual service challenge process, and a summary of the improvement actions from that process for 23 to 24 are given in Appendix 3 for your information. And then the final appendix of this report, Appendix 4, is about the panel performance assessment. So this is a new element of our performance management framework as a council brought in by the Local Government and Elections Act. It's statutory to have a panel performance assessment once every council term, and the WLGA will be conducting ours in September. So the final recommendation of this cover report is to provide feedback on that draft scope of the panel performance assessment and that's your Appendix 4. Before opening up to questions and comments, I wanted to share some of the reflections lead member Gwyneth and I have had on considering this annual report this year, and our performance more generally as an organisation. We have ambition and aspiration of an organisation that's absolutely the right thing. However, our performance needs to be seen in the context of constrained budget and resources. We need to continue to change and adjust iteratively our commitment and our expectation in light of budget and resource constraints, and be prepared to face more reds, as outlined in the report, in the face of reducing pace or speed and delivery in light of those budget constraints, and understand that that might be acceptable for the time being. And indeed is in two of our improvement actions listed in 4.4 of the cover report. So you'll see that one of them is around thinking around prioritisation our efforts around sustainable transport plan and focusing more on the regional delivery of that. And also another improvement action around and continuing to iteratively review our objectives. This shows a majority of approach, and indeed the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act asks us to review our wellbeing objectives annually as well. So Emma is available to take members through any detail in terms of the themes that are discussed. In the past we've sort of taken you through a bit of theme by theme but welcome chair your sort of direction on what whether you'd like that to happen again today. And before we open to any questions, Emma have I missed anything? Just wanted to emphasise some feedback that we got from Governance and Audit Committee which was that the volume of the reports and there's a lot of detail in them, and we appreciate that. Appendix 1 is the executive summary as Helena said and we assume everyone reads that and if you want to know where Denbyshire is at or think, you know, that is the place to go. The performance report in Appendix 2 is for the period September to March. So that is the final two quarters of last year. I just wanted to emphasise that in terms of Appendix 1, the executive summary, what we try and do is use the statutory duties we've got around performance but to work with what we want as an organisation, reflecting our values and our principles around being clear about our performance, being transparent about showing how we are bringing all of that to life. So we provide some comment on the ways we've responded to the financial pressures to deliver a balanced budget, that some of the decisions have been challenging and difficult, but the involvement of backbenchers has been critical. That governance is effective is demonstrated by scrutiny around certain aspects of the budget proposals, calling proposals in, that demonstrates that we've got effective governance. I think a key point of progress last year was the recommencement of service performance challenges, which offer that deep dive into how services are performing. In terms of the corporate plan then, as Helen said, the corporate plan reflects a long-term focus on making Denbyshire a better place. So we do have a number of indicators that are read and will remain read probably for some time, but that doesn't mean that we shift our focus or change our ambition, which reflects the discussion in the item before last. We're making great strides, although still facing some challenges around homelessness, the growth in micro-providers allowing greater access to services has been really important this year. Investment in early years provision has been really, really key. We're seeing more use of Welsh informally, which is very difficult to measure, but I think we can all see and feel that people are using more Welsh informally and formally. And that's something that we've seen really grow in the last year, and we want to capitalise on that growing confidence. We've still got some challenges, which we highlight in the report around the housing waiting list, making safe, damaged roads and pavements within time, and still with a focus on economy and working skills. What I think we should just emphasise before I finish is that we've got six improvement activities that have been identified. So work has already started with the service to look at the reasons for poor performance in relation to damaged roads, that is continuing with officers and members working together to look at a code of practice. The economic strategy we're saying needs to take into account of culture in its widest possible sense, so that's an important one this period. Following discussions around this report, it's been agreed that we will focus on the development of the regional transport plan, therefore closing our local sustainable transport plan. So we seek amendment from council in July to amend that commitment in the corporate plan. Consider the stakeholder survey responses, which we've seen a decline this year for reasons that we think we understand associated with the budget. We want to consider more fully some findings of the new ways of working journey checker, which talks about the extent to which we're embedding the Wellbeing and Future Generations Act. And as Helen said, a really key point is keeping the corporate plan commitments under review, making sure they're realistic and manageable. What we've also included in the paper pack is the draft scope for the panel peer assessment. Again, this is a new duty under the Local Government and Wales Elections Act. Wales, sorry, we're one of the first, among the first authorities to start arranging that in this term, so we're working really hard to try and make that panel peer assessment work for us. So the scope, the draft scope has been included in the papers. Thank you. Okay, thanks both. Real detailed introduction there. As you say, it is a long and detailed plan. So I'll open the questions. I think Julie, do you want to come in? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Lida. Thank you both for the presentation and thank you for all your hard work on these papers. It's quite right, really, that we're measured against our corporate priorities, something that means a lot to us in terms of making sure we deliver for the people of Denbyshire. I just wanted to make a note of, in particular, its appendix for that new duty, the performance panel assessments. I welcome that because it gives us another opportunity to really benchmark how well we're doing in terms of our performance with outside people looking in, working with us to ensure that, you know, okay, we may not make it in terms of corporate plan themes. I think you've already mentioned that we may have to adjust our expectations, but it's quite right that that's there and that's in place for us. So I do look forward to the implementation of that process and also receiving those results. It can only help us perform better in the long run. So thank you very much for all your hard work on that. Thanks, Lida. Okay, any more questions now? Can't see any from the screen. Yeah, I mean, I think there is a theme about expectations and I think we're not isolated. What's the phrase? We're not an island. You know, it's a tough world out there and we are really subject to, you know, everything that's going on. So, you know, just in terms of my portfolio. Okay, I'll come back in Bobby, in terms of my portfolio. So, you know, where it's benchmarked locally, so for example, on the procurement, then, you know, we're doing well. There's other issues which we can do on, we can work on, but that's the out of work benefits and that's benchmarked nationally and that's, you know, priority to improve. You know, there's a wider economy which we don't, I think to pinch your face, we don't have our hands fully on that lever, you know, but we acknowledge there's things we can do and we can improve. So, yes, I think acknowledgement that there's forces out there as well. Okay, Bobby, do you want to come in? Yeah, just briefly, thank you, Eda. I'm just, I suppose, looking ahead, I'm a bit worried about how we're going to judge our performance within the light of what's gone on over the last six months or so. We've set a council tax with a three million pound deficit. We've got Queen's Market empty with no one to run it. We haven't met our changes in climate change targets. And on top of everything else, we haven't managed to roll out our new waste service without it becoming what I can only describe as a disaster. And part of this performance assessment is about making sure the reputational damage, no reputational damage, takes, you know, is done to to Denbyshire County Council. We, only seems like yesterday, we were a well run, high performing council. And I feel very sorry and worried for the future and how we're going to present our performance assessment based on what's been going on within the last six months or so. I just wondered if anybody's got anything that they would like to say. I mean, I've been part of Denbyshire for so long, and it's just such a shame to see the problems that we have at the moment in all sorts of areas. OK, thanks Bobby. Helen and Emma want to come in. What I would say is that, you know, obviously we spoke at length this morning about the specific and massive problems we've got on the waste rollout and I can acknowledge that. There will be an inquiry into that and this is really around lessons learned and that's the theme from this plan so I'll acknowledge that. There are huge budget challenges that we face and we're not alone there. All councils are in the same boat. We talked about, Bobby, we sat in the meeting together, didn't we? We talked about how, if you're talking about the long term, how we transform the way we deliver services. And in those conversations about transformation, we've still got to be ambitious and make sure that we get things right. And that really is part of, well, I would say is part of this process. Helen or Emma, did you want to come in and then I'll bring Julie in. Yeah, and thank you, Bobby, for your question, and thank you for engaging in this material to be able to express that so well. That's exactly what we need members to do is to look at this information that's being presented and scrutinise and ask questions and I encourage council to look at these documents and think about how your scrutiny forward plans want to be populated to support us to deliver for the people in place of Denbyshire. In terms of the waste roll out in particular, that's going to very much feature I can imagine in quarter two of 24/25 because obviously this report is till the 31st of March 2024, and the implementation was after that. So, this will be a lens on that. There are other lenses that Gary's talked about in terms of scrutiny and a review, which again, this report that you'll receive in six months time at the end of quarter two will use some of that rich evidence to inform. In terms of the deficit of 3 million, I think it's acknowledging how we have reacted and how we deliver against that challenge. And again, I feel assured that we've got some tracking measures working with finance and audit in our 24/25 performance management framework around tracking for our budget and key performance indicators are in everyone's service plan around meeting their financial target and coming in within their budget envelope. In terms of what makes up a well run high performing council and what's actually in the Local Government and Elections Act, there's seven governance areas, one of which is performance. So whilst I'm not downplaying performance, it's crucial. There are other governance areas that we need to feel confident that we're delivering well on, including risk, asset management, Emma will be able to tell you all seven, of which one is performance management. So we need to feel confident and feel assured that we're hitting all of those seven areas of governance. And again, that's a role for governance and audit, which they discharge their duties really well in terms of scrutinising us and supporting us to improve as an organisation. Emma, I know you had some thoughts as well. I think given I've got a unique opportunity to be at cabinet I think it's always worthwhile using it and governance and audit committee felt that we'd probably downplayed our level of praise, I guess, for the financial management, financial planning that's happened. So we're taking a cautious approach to that, but we'll comment more on that. So we probably could make more of some aspects of the good corporate health that we have. And the corporate plan is about a wide, wide range of things that affect people's lives from schools to social care, biodiversity, all the things that are discussed. The waste, of course, is in there. It's a small part of the corporate plan. Very challenging at the moment, we appreciate that. So as Helen said, commentary will be on that in the next report. And I just wanted to pick up on the comment about the theme we've got about being a well-run, high-performing council. Part of the focus of that theme is acting as one family. And so pulling together when times are difficult as well as times are fairly easygoing. And I think that, speaking as a member of staff, we've got staff volunteering, supporting, checking in on colleagues that are working in waste at the moment. I think it's really, really important to emphasise that whilst there are challenges and I'm a Denvershire resident as well, I'm not going to sort of shy away from it. I think that an aspect of being a well-run, high-performing council is making sure that you do stick together, support one another, call one another to account, be transparent. And I think that's all the things that we're trying to do in this report and through monitoring of the corporate plan. Thanks, Emma. It wasn't so much the bins, I was meaning the reputational damage that's been done. But thanks for your answers anyway. Thanks, Bobbie. Julie, did you want to come in? Yes. Thanks, Jason. Actually, I was going to say something similar to what Emma was reiterating there. We have got challenges. We do focus on perhaps, in terms of performance, it's always looking at where we're not doing well. And sometimes we should be looking at the areas that we are doing really, really well. And even in those areas where on paper we don't look, we're performing very well, the staff are doing an absolute amazing job day in, day out. And I think that's one thing we forget here that, Emma, you've said you're a Denvershire resident, we've got staff here, a Denvershire resident. We are taking that one family approach, corporate approach in terms of our priorities to help support us through the bad times, not just the good times. But there is a lot of good work that goes on day to day that sometimes gets forgotten about. And even, as I just said, even though we are having difficulties in particular services, the staff are doing their absolute level best to get us over the line and get us through those difficulties. So I just want to express my thanks to all of them. Thank you. I will as chief exec because it was a question about the broader council. I've got a lot to add to what Emma, Helen and Councillor Julie Matthews have said. But we are, you know, it's important we stay as one family. We back each other and support each other. So some things aren't going as well as we would have planned. What do you do if you had a good council? You pull together, you address those issues in an open and transparent way. That's what we've done today. I think Gary could have said to the leader today, for example, the constitution means you don't have to take questions. You don't have to do that. But no, we are the sort of authority that wants to be open and transparent. That's why we have reports like this. We don't just put the greens on there. We put the reds on there because it's all about governance and openness and transparency. And that's how you improve. And you have honest conversations with each other, which we've done today as well under that urgent item. And that's absolutely fine because it's all about being a learning authority, recognizing where you're not performing well and where you are performing well and seek to make the relevant improvements where you think you can. And that's the sort of authority that I continue to want us to be. We're not perfect. We don't get everything right. And where we don't get things right, we will seek to improve as quickly as we can. Thank you, leader. Thank you, Graham. I've got Hugh and Terry. Are you are you calling me in, Chair? Sorry, Hugh. Yeah. Yeah. Well, only just to say I'm sorry, I was so proud 15 years ago when I was elected to represent Denwisher County Council. And as has just been said by a previous speaker, we were a high performing, well-respected council. I hope we still are, despite our localized difficulties at the moment. But it really is desperate to have to face the public on all these issues. It seems to be one thing after the other. I don't want to add oil to troubled waters, but I just pick up today's news release to say that Denwisher Leisure can't open the pool at SC2 this summer, if I read it correctly. And one says, what's going on? We had good leisure services. We had good waste services. Everything worked well. Everybody was happy today. I was just walking to downtown. I happened to pass one of the public realm vehicles. There were three guys standing by. I didn't speak to them. I hasten to. I know I knew at least one of them by name because he's worked for the council since he was a lad. He must be about 60 now, if not more. And I could hear the conversation just as I walked past and something about my forms going in on Friday. You know, I'm thinking, what's going on? You know, I'm really somehow somebody somewhere needs to get a grip of all this unhappiness because it's not reading well with me, the public, other members, anybody you can think of. So that's just my appeal, really. How do we how do we get through this? Do we do it by scrutiny committees or what it is? Leadership? Is it as good as what it should be in certain areas? Not, you know, you know, some officers don't seem to be very visible. Some are brilliant and they're right there. And that's just what I say as a personal view of a feeling of unhappiness about where we where we've got to. OK, Hugh. Yes, thanks. Thanks, Hugh. You've highlighted you've highlighted the issues at the moment, which are challenging and the most challenging, of course. And this whole meeting, really, let's be honest, has been dominated by the waste rollout and the massive problems that we face there. And as leader, I'm acknowledging those massive problems. I'm acknowledging the enormity of them. I'm working flat out round the clock to get that to resolve that. We're also working on it on the other issues. Hugh, the Queen's market, there are negotiations going on at the moment. They're commercially sensitive. We can't talk about those. I can't address the Denver for Leisure issue without being breaking news. But, you know, these are difficult times and I'll acknowledge that. We're working very, very hard at the moment to resolve the issue around waste. And you'll be leading on that, Hugh. You'll be leading on the scrutiny of that. I'll say no more, I think. I know you've been waiting, Terry, but following the protocol of people in the room. I've got Ellen and then Delith. Ellen, do you want to come in? Thank you. I just wanted to ask a question about Appendix 4, the panel performance assessment report. Just firstly, I couldn't think of more pertinent areas to focus on than those chosen by the Working Group. But I wondered if you're able to clarify if and therefore maybe how the panel performance assessment can be used as another layer of assurance, really, to ensure that we're navigating these extremely difficult times as effectively as we possibly can. Yeah, so I think we need to be level headed on the expectations of what we can get out of this panel peer assessment. It's the first, one of the first in Wales, and it's the first since the measure, the Local Government Elections Act has come in. WLGA will finesse their approach to it going on so that, you know, managing expectations from the outset. However, and Emma knows this, I have got, I'm quite excited about it. So, it's an opportunity to, what we're presenting today is, although my offices are really objective about how they go about doing this, we are, it's an insider view, you know, this is an opportunity to say this is what we think, you know, is that what you're seeing? They're only here for a week. So again, managing expectations, they will be exposed to lots of different people, lots of different viewpoints. They'll absorb a lot of information prior to them coming. Those are the areas that we want them to focus on, which is page five of the actual appendices. Forgive me, I don't know what it is in your in your overall pack. So, leadership, how well is the Council's corporate and political structures working? How is the capacity and capability seated to deliver the Council's priorities? I think that might pick up on some bits that Councillor Hugh Irving has mentioned today. Number two, budget proposals and transformation. How well has the Council managed the current financial crisis and how well is the Council preparing for the future? Again, a key question that perhaps Bobby has alluded to today. Partnership working, how well places the Council to work effectively with partners and maximize resources across sectors? And that was a question that, Ellen, you mentioned when we looked at the climate change paper earlier today. So really key sort of areas of focus that we've asked them to particularly look at. But if you look at appendix one question hierarchy, these are all of the kind of key scrutiny questions that are at the disposal of the panel to sort of pick up when they're speaking to these various voices and groups of people and looking at particular processes. So, whilst my expectations are being appropriately managed, I'm actually quite excited about this and actually in our interactions with WLGA, we're wanting to get the most out of it as well. And we're actively working with our contact in WLGA called Joe on making this fit for us as well as for what the Local Government Elections Act wanted it to do as well for the sector. And just to say that papers coming to cabinet in July about specifically about this, and all of the results are going to go through our governance and audit scrutiny cabinet process following after we've had the assessment. So, and I can see that as being a key piece of evidence that will inform our improvement actions that we identify in the quarter two report and the quarter four report this financial year. Excellent. And I know Dallas is behind it but in fairness Terry's had his hand up for a while on the screen so I'm going to bring Terry in and then Dallas, Terry. Thank you, Lee. My question is probably towards Emma, the author of this report. And it's to do with why there's a multitude of planning breaches throughout the county and why isn't that mentioned in any of these reports? You know, we spoke, we speak a lot about budgets and deficits and black holes and it's going to go on for years but DCC is missing out on council tax on lots and lots of unauthorised properties. So that's one aspect where we're missing out on on revenue. And then just three breaches in my ward, which is historical, I won't go into, but just three of many breaches in my ward are going to cost in the region of about 500,000 to clear rectify legal etc. So that's all the money. That's your libraries and your toilets. And so can I request that when a report extolling the virtues of the council, when that's when the next year's report is written, could we include planning breaches, please. Thank you. No enforcement issues Terry's raising there. Just before Emma comes in just absolutely clarify this that this document does not belong to Emma, you know this document belongs corporately to us all. If there's, if there's something that the corporate plan is missing on performance metrics and absolutely that's fantastic we'll take it to Emmeline, and we'll discuss it with the head of service and we'll agree that it enters in there equally when we come and we look at our corporate plan, then if there's something that's missing that's fine. But Emma has a wealth of experience and knowledge, she'll attempt to answer your question but she doesn't have the in depth knowledge of a head of service like Emmeline or on the finance side, Liz Thomas, Rhian is representing today on behalf of Liz so. Okay, sorry to interrupt I wasn't pointing the finger at Emma. I just saw the report to author, that's all. So there's, you know, I'm not, as I say, pointing the finger and there's no, yeah. No, thank you. Thanks Terry. Yeah, it's an interesting point that you raised and as you say, we don't include anything about planning breaches so we'll go as a team and talk to the services about that and think about whether that's something that we needed to include. It may be something and would think that it's features in the service plan level monitored by heads of service. I just wanted to invite you to feedback to us if you think there's any, you know, for any member, if there are any parts of the report that feel a little biased or unbalanced that you bring that back to us because our ambition is certainly not to extol the virtues of the councils. Helen said our aim is to take a very objective and level headed view at the organisation, the good and the bad. But we'll certainly feedback to you at the next, probably next governance audit committee around those planning breach queries. Thank you. Thanks Terry for highlighting that. I think Gary wants to come in on that. Yeah, and of course, Councillor Mendez is aware that you can use scrutiny for these purposes and I understand the scrutiny request form has gone in to be considered by chairs and vice chairs so that's another route as well in order to look at those sorts of issues. Okay, you've put that in have you Terry, yeah? Yes. Good. Okay, great. Okay, Dallas do you want to come in? Thank you chair for allowing me to come in. I don't really have a question I wanted to thank you for how comprehensive the assessments has been on the processes that go behind that. As someone who spent years and years and years doing self assessments every single year as a headteacher, I appreciate that the true value of any of those kinds of reports is how honest we are in evaluating where we are, and the constraints and the challenges that come behind us, because that's the only way that we can then move forward. So I also acknowledge the points that have been made by some of the councillors on the screen there, and acknowledge that, you know, we are in difficult times, I think we all as councillors every single one of us need to be honest about those challenges which are far beyond this council and, you know, I'm not going down any political route saying that is country wide, and obviously not just within this country either there have been, you know, global challenges. A well run high performing council I believe comes from the leadership that is shown during difficult times. It's easy to be a leader during times which are easy, but when you get good challenges of the nature that we have faced in recent times, since I've become a councillor in the last two years. It was certainly not what I was expecting to face. But I think good, good leadership is how you face those challenges, and how you go about dealing with them. I would like to thank the leader and Graham for acknowledging the problems that we've had with Vince, with the waste service, that none of us would say has been our glory, but I thank the leader for showing leadership in acknowledging that mistakes have been made, and how we are going to go about addressing those in a clear and decisive way. And as I say that's what shows good leadership and good governance is that we do that, and we acknowledge that on behalf of the residents. When we're looking at budgetary constraints, there are things that are beyond this council and once again good leadership is how we go about managing situation that we put in. So, I thank you for the reports, I think, having something that acknowledges that there is pressure is not a weakness. For me that's a strength, because that demonstrates that we understand, we know, we understand where those constraints are coming from. And when you understand and fully acknowledge them, that's when you can then start doing something about it in a step by step way. And I thank you for doing that because I think that shows that it is a well run authority to do that. It's too easy to not acknowledge those things and gloss over them. That doesn't show leadership, that doesn't show a well run authority. A well run authority acknowledges them and does something about it. I just wanted to support in that way. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, thanks. I can't see any more hands up. Emma, did you want to come in? Yes, thank you, Lida. It would be very easy for me to not come in because Delith has just said that much of what was going through my mind as well. Can I also thank Emma and Helen for this report? The value of it is in the fact that it's an honest report. It praises where praise is needed. It draws attention to where there are problems and issues and where we need to challenge each other and challenge ourselves. And for me, that's the purpose of any report, not to be here just to praise ourselves. And having seen the work that goes on, and I'm not looking at anything specific here, what is happening within these walls and out in the community on behalf of the residents. And there are 48 of us also representing people as councillors through thick and thin. Thank you both for presenting such an excellent report and thanks to Emma for this report. It's very valuable. We can learn a lot from it. We can praise ourselves where need to. And we can also pick up our socks where that's necessary as well. So we'll go to the recommendations now. So obviously Gwyneth isn't here so I'll take a lead on that. So the cabinet considers the report and he agrees any further actions required to respond to any performance related issues. But we've noted and acknowledged the six improvement actions. Okay, so it's important in the recommendations that is what we're acknowledging. Okay, so we're doing that. And then subject to that confirm the contents of the performance self-assessment for 23 to 24, prior to its approval by county council in July. And we've reflected on key messages arising from the self-assessment and provide feedback on the draft scope for the panel performance assessment. And I know that all of us in our respective leads are having conversations with our lead members on that. So those are the recommendations. Can I have a proposal? Proposed by Julie, seconded by Alan. In favour? Okay, thanks very much. Thank you. And everyone on the screen, good interesting discussion there. And thanks both. We're on to the final item now, the standing item on the finance report. Liz can't be with us so we've got our deputy section 151 officer, Rhianne. Welcome Rhianne, thanks. Can I hand straight over to you once you've got yourself sat down and sorted. Thank you leader, good afternoon all. The final revenue outing position for the financial year 2023-24. For members information and for cabinet to approve reserves as at the 31st of March, 2024. So I'm sure members will appreciate to take some time to complete the end of the financial year transactions and accounting for a large complex organisation that is the council. I'll highlight some of the details within the report for you. The council fund, appendix one summarises the council's revenue budget for 2023-24. We've been reporting an overspend throughout most of the year, with a forecast overspend of 2.8 million when we last reported in March. The overall position excluding schools is an overspend of 676,000. This is a positive movement of 2.1 million. The overall increase in cost and demand for services faced have stripped the budget by 3.2 million. And within this overall amount, individual services positions vary quite a bit. There are many services under spent, mainly due to budget control measures that were introduced during the year that were successful and in readiness for needing to make savings for 24-25. As reported during the year, there is overspend due to increases in demand and complexity areas specifically impacted with social care services. The overspend by services is then mitigated by corporate underspends of 2.7 million due largely to pay and energy corporately held budgets. 2023-24 was a year where it had been very difficult to forecast for these pressures, especially where there were volatile elements like movements and the energy costs. The overall position, therefore of 676,000 overspend on the council fund has been funded from the budget mitigation reserve. And you'll see all movements on the reserves listed in Appendix 3. For schools, Appendix 2 shows the positions with regard to schools. In total, schools have drawn down 5.2 million reserves during the year. 13 schools are in deficit as of 31 March 2024, and this compares to three schools in March 2023. The final point I wanted to make this afternoon was with regard to the 24-25 financial year. An early indication of the position in 24-25 is summarised in 4.7 of the report. As explained during the budget setting process, the 24-25 budget is an ongoing process and work continues on the saving proposals. It's early in the financial year, and whilst as always we are watching carefully the high-risk areas such as social care, there are also some areas where pressures do not become evident until early autumn. Of course, there's always risk associated with managing all budgets and achieving the savings, and these are also being closely monitored. Thank you. Thanks for the report. Yeah, I mean, as always on the financial report, it's a reflection of the pressures that we're all under, the difficult financial circumstances that we're out there and we find ourselves in. It's hard to hear that the budget control measures have worked in some departments, some areas, so that's good, that's obviously working. You've identified at 4.7 the budget and those high-risk areas, which are children's services and adult social care, and for those who attended the workshop, you know, I think that gave us a better understanding of the huge pressures there. Obviously, I can't talk about individual cases, but one child, one family can have a huge dent in the budget and lead to an overspend. It's as simple as that. I would urge all members to come to the budget workshops. We're having more of them, so people can be more involved in the process. I thought particularly the second half of the budget workshop we had recently where we had the facts and figures in front of us and there was discussions around priorities. That's important, that's the process that we have to go through, that's the whole budget setting process, so for all members to be involved in that, I think it's important. So I think if we can up our attendance, we can get more people to the budget workshops. I understand there was a clash with the meeting in Ruthyn, so maybe those who organized it could have it. I know it's always difficult to get all members together, but we could look at when there isn't other members' demands on time as well. Okay, so any further questions? Any questions around about the report, standing item? No hands up. Okay. Right. Okay, so Gwyneth isn't here. So the recommendations, it's a standing item, isn't it? So it's just that we note the revenue out to position and approve the reserves position as described at appendix one to three. And again, the budget workshop, we had discussions about the reserves, didn't we? Okay, in favour, sorry, proposal, sorry, Barry and seconded Julie and in favour. Okay, thank you. Okay, thanks everyone. It's been a long meeting, so thank you for your time. Oh, the forward work programme. And how could I forget that, the forward work programme? Sorry, Geoff, for giving it the big build up, there are no changes to the forward work programme. Well, I knew that, that's why I didn't say so. It's just there for members' information. Okay, no issues on the forward work programme. Yeah, just come in. I've seen an email from Mike Jones asking, he's away most of the day, but he'll be back for 3.30 and asking for the Lough, Clewett Street, St Peter's Square, if it could be put back to about 3.30. That's a long cabinet meeting. That's a cabinet briefing, yeah. We'll sort that out, yeah. Okay, so nothing on the forward work programme, on the cabinet itself, no? Okay, great. Thanks, we'll bring the meeting to an end.