Transcript

My name is Councillor Adam Stokes and I'm the Chairman of this Board and Councillor Tom Smith, Vice-Chairman of the Board, is also in attendance. Can I remind you that the audio/visual feed of this formal public meeting is being broadcasted live via the County Council's website and all your comments will remain accessible online as the meeting recording remains on the Council's website. And with this in mind I would like to welcome the members of the press and public who are watching this live. I'd also like to welcome the Executive Councillors and Executive Support Councillors who are attending our meeting today. And also welcome Andrew Crocombe, Deputy Chief Exec and Executive Director of Resources, who is present today. I would like to begin with a health and safety announcement. There is no fire drill planned this morning. In the event of a fire alarm sounding we need to leave the Council Chamber through the doors behind you and leave the building through reception into the front car park. We then need to wait in the car park for further instructions. Can I remind everyone to ensure their mobiles, laptops and iPads are on silent for the duration of this meeting and also when invited to speak can you please ensure you switch on your microphone. Otherwise those attending the meeting via Teams and members of the press and public listening to our meeting online won't be able to hear you. Please be aware that you need to speak directly into the microphones to be heard and the hearing loop is now activated. Requests to speak will be collated by the Vice-Chairman so if you wish to speak during the meeting can you please raise your hand and Councillor Tom Smith will make a note. We will try to ensure everyone has the opportunity to ask questions and make contributions and I would appreciate contributions succinct and concise and also ask that you indicate early when you wish to speak. So we'll now move on to the formal agenda which is first item is item 1, apologies for absent and replacement members. Over to you Tom please. Thank you Chairman. We have apologies for absence from Councillors Carrington, Mar Fleet and Macy and from Martin Kyle and we have Councillor Sia replacing Councillor Macy for this meeting only. Also from the officer side we have apologies for absence from Debbie Barnes. Thank you for those. Item 2, declarations of interest. Members are reminded that they only need to declare any relevant interests which have not been declared on their declaration of pecuniary interest form. Do any members wish to declare an interest today? No. Thank you. That's great. So we'll move on to item 3 which is minutes of the meeting held on the 25th of April 2024 and this is to confirm and sign the minutes from the last meeting of the board on the 25th of April 2024 as a correct record and these can be found on pages 5 to 12 of the agenda pack. I'm not intending to go through on page by page. Do we have a proposer for those please? Councillor Kendrick, do we have a seconder? Councillor Smith, all those in favour please? Thank you. Those against and any abstentions? We have three abstentions. Thank you for that. So we'll now move on to item 4 which is announcements by the Chairman, Executive Councillors and Chief Officers. I do not have any announcements today but I'd like to point out that although today's agenda is lighter than what we're used to, it does include consideration of two pre-decision items. I should therefore like to remind presenters that reports should be taken as read by members and ask that you only summarise key points and the type of input expected by the board. So introductions of the reports will be capped at five minutes to ensure we have sufficient time to consider and debate all items before us. We'll now move on to Executive Councillors. Do we have any announcements? No. Thank you. Chief Officers? No. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 5 which is consideration of call-ins. Tom, are there any call-ins to consider please? None received. Thank you. Item 6, consideration of Councillor calls for action. Tom, have we received any? None received, Chairman. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 7 which will be taking two parts, this item, and it's the Corporate Plan Success Framework 2324 Quarter 4 and the Corporate Plan Success Framework 2425. And this is a pre-decision scrutiny item on pages 13 to 96 of the Agenda Pack and invites the board to review the 2324 Corporate Plan performance for Quarter 4 which is Appendix 1 and associated Appendix A pages 13 to 15 and the Corporate Plan Success Framework for the years 2425 which is 16 to 96, both of which will be presented to the Executive on the 2nd of July 2024. And please note that Quarter 4 of the 2324, there are no service-level performance indicators with the OSMB's remit to review. The views of the board will be reported to the Executive as part of the consideration of this item by a designated scrutiny officer and, as mentioned, we will be doing Quarter 4 first and then 2425 second. Our actions are to consider the attached report and determine whether the board supports the recommendation to the Executive as set out in the report and to agree any additional comments to be passed on to the Executive in relation to this item. And this report will be presented in two parts by Caroline Jackson, Head of Corporate Performance. So over to you, Caroline, please. Thank you, Chairman. So I'll start with Quarter 4 performance, if that's okay. So, again, the format you'll be familiar with, we have 44 activities that underpin the delivery of the Corporate Plan. We are reporting those obviously for Quarter 4 and none of those are actually red-rag rated, which is really positive. We have 38 of the 44 are progressing as planned, so are shown as green. The six activities that are AMBA rated, and just to be clear, the AMBA means that there is a milestone within that activity that is slightly behind where we expected it to be, but overall the activity is still on plan, so progressing within agreed limits. Of the six, two of those were AMBA rated in Quarter 3, so you'll be familiar with them. A13, which is around working with partners and implementing the housing for independence strategy, which we've discussed previously, and A21 around working with partners across the integrated care system to deliver priorities for the next three years. It is worth pointing out we have seen an improvement in activity A47, which was around transforming the way we engage with customers through the implementation of our customer strategy. This was rated AMBA in Quarter 3, but is now green in Quarter 4. So the newly AMBA rated activities for Quarter 4 are activity A10 around achieving the net zero carbon emissions as a council through the development of the Green Master Plan. The update is that revisions to the Green Master Plan and the adoption of the Carbon Management Plan will now take place during 24/25. A11 is around that we will respond to our communities in a joined up way and proactively coordinate with partners to develop and deliver a better flood protection. Again, as we are aware, further resources have been made available for flood investigations and further flood resilience projects have been delivered to households. A25 is around maximizing the use and provision of our water as a valuable resource. Again, whilst the report that was due to be delivered has been delayed, we have seen all schemes within the programme progressing as planned. And the final activity is around the delivering of our business intelligence strategy. Again, we have seen progress within this area, however the technical infrastructure that needs to underpin that has been slightly delayed and will be moving forward in 24/25. So progress still being made but just slightly behind some of those key milestones. In terms of the key performance indicators, there are 32 that were reported in Quarter 4 where we have an ambition or a target set. Of these, 90.6% have either exceeded or achieved their target, which is an increase from 88% in Quarter 3, so a really positive position for the end of the year. 13 of those indicators exceeded their target, 7 were exceeded in Quarter 3 and are still exceeding in Quarter 4, but we have 6 new measures that are exceeding their target in Quarter 4. Two of them relate to academic achievement data. I'll just point out this does relate to summer 2023, which does feel slightly odd that young people have just sat their examinations and were only reporting last year's results. But obviously due to a large data gathering and collection and reporting process, data has only just been released at a national level around the percentage of children achieving a good level of development in their early years, so really positive. And also we've reduced the gap in achievement between pupils who are eligible for free school meals and those that are non-free school meal eligible pupils nationally, so those achieving their good level of development, so we've reduced that gap. Three relate to the percentage of roads where maintenance should be considered, so that's principal, non-principal and unclassified roads. They are an annually reported measure. And the final measure is around adults discharged from hospital who remain home 91 days after discharge. Again, we've seen an improvement this quarter from 85.1% to 91%. So moving on to those measures that were achieving their ambition or target. Sorry, in terms of those measures which are achieving their ambition or target, so that's those that are green rag rated, 16 were reported in Quarter 4, 13 of those are achieving in Quarter -- sorry, 16 were reported as achieving in Quarter 4, 13 were also achieving in Quarter 3. So we're seeing a continuation of that positive impact. Two measures that are now achieving their target are carers who said they had as much social contact as they would like. This is the first time this is reported as it's a yearly survey. And also the percentage of pupils achieving grades five or above in English and maths in their GCSEs, again, summer 2023 data. We are also seeing two measures exceeding their target that are now achieving, so carers who have had a review of their needs. Again, this does fluctuate depending on the time of year in terms of some of the recording within the system. And a number of factors also around the individual carers themselves and the availability of the carers to undertake the assessment. And we've also seen a slight reduction in the children in care living in a family environment still achieving its target but has reduced from 86.4 to 83.9%. Okay. So we've also got measures that did not achieve their target are the same as those that we reported in Quarter 3. And we've included so no new measures that aren't achieving. We've included an overview for waste as we have done previously. And also the carers supported in the last 12 months, again, a measure we've discussed obviously at length previously. And we have obviously reviewed that as part of the 24/25 measure set that you'll be reviewing and hopefully proposing to sign off for the 24/25 framework to ensure that that carer supported measure really looks at actual quality support provided to carers and is a realistic target that we've set. We've also included some contextual measures on the recommendations of executive directors, so areas that we don't set a target for but we feel are of interest to committee members and that we would find useful to look at the context of Lincolnshire. So we've included those where we've seen a really positive impact around employment in medium and high-skilled jobs in Lincolnshire. We're also continuing to see the impact of heritage events in attracting visitors to Lincolnshire and seeing that the use of the Visit Lincolnshire website has been incredibly positive and seeing that translation of people visiting the site and then going on to look at other activities and potentially book activities within Lincolnshire. We're also continuing to see the high levels of highway service combined score. So again, given the demands on our highway service at the moment, that's a really positive picture. And we've also highlighted the continued work around undertaking section 19 flood investigations and the support that's being provided to homes at risk of flooding. Finally, the annual data regarding the council's expenditure has also been released for 22/23 and this shows that we continue to see service delivered at a lower cost than our overall, than our comparators. Obviously full details are all on the council website in terms of all of the measures and activities. I'll now move, do you want to pause for comment on that before I move on to 24/25? Yeah. That's great, thank you. So we'll pause at that point. Do we have any questions on this? Councillor Lee, please. Yeah, I just wanted to ask if we could have a bit more information around the waste target that we're not fulfilling. Some time ago at full council I raised a question and it was about the recycling centre at Great Northern Terrace. It's pretty chaotic there. The way the traffic, it is, I've been and I went with Councillor McNally and I'm told it is still the same now. Nothing's changed. They used to have somebody directing the traffic which meant that people were directed to a particular, you know, you put your waste in that one. Well that person's gone and now apparently it's just like a free for all. It wasn't the day that we went but I'm told that it still is. So can I ask a little bit more because those figures, am I right in thinking it's the 76% one there on page 55? That's not actually very good and if that recycling centre still isn't very good, can I ask that that's looked at again please? Because, you know, it could be a factor. Thank you. Thank you. I know Andy isn't here today unfortunately. I think when we've spoken before previously haven't we about actually the recycling is only one part of the picture. And actually what we do want to see is actually more reuse and less actually coming for recycling. And actually the national framework hasn't reflected that kind of shift so there hasn't been any changes to the national targets. Even though we're saying actually reuse and energy from waste are actually much, that's a better way than recycling because of the cost, the carbon footprint and just the general overall waste of recycling. And I think if the head of waste was here today I know he'd reiterate that point and I know it's a point that council Hill has made previously in relation to the real positive picture we have from our energy from waste plan. And actually nationally those measures around recycling need to be reviewed. But take on part of your point around and we'll feed back to Andy around still the ongoing issues at Great Northern Terrace. That was what I was going to ask because I appreciate what you said and I'm glad for the clarification but it is an issue. And I would ask maybe at the next meeting can somebody bring Matt back and tell me if anything's actually been done to change or improve that situation at Great Northern Terrace because it is just not good enough. Thank you. I was just going to say I'm sure as well that will be being picked up in Environment and Economy Committee but I will make sure that that comes back as well. It hasn't though Caroline and I think it must be six months since I raised it and it's still just as bad. Thank you. Yeah we'll make sure that's picked up in this. Councillor Key please. Thank you chairman. Funny enough I was going to ask a question about the same thing but we're on the same wavelength and Caroline you just mentioned reuse. And there's a very popular programme on the telly that everybody watches where a lady rummages about at a recycling centre and turns things into something else. And I'm assuming that is behind that sort of idea is behind on page 53 where it says materials can hopefully be passed on to the residents and reuse which is higher up on the scale of beneficial things to do with stuff. So I just wondered if we had any more information on that and whether any thought had been given to working with the charities who have all the charity shops. Thank you. Yeah I know again we've discussed this previously haven't we and again we'll ask for an update in terms of like I say there was looking at options of reuse within the waste recycling centres themselves and then I think it was also specifically looking at a scheme that had been in place a number of years ago. And I know Andy was going to take that away and have a look at some of those options and I'll certainly get an update around that. I mean I know there's loads of stuff goes there which could quite happily have another life without doing anything to it. And I'm sure we'd all be keen to see that. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Brockway please. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much for the report. I've got some queries about targets as well. Mine is largely about the way targets are found and reported. On page 22 and 23 you give an outline of targets which have exceeded the ambition. Fine it looks very good but then when you go to the next page you see the percentage of children achieving a good level of development in early years. And those are really not very good figures. Sixty seven point five percent is not good. I mean that's an awful lot of children who are not achieving a good level of development in early years. And as part of this and as part of my questions I could really do with some actual figures of actual numbers of children. This is very clearly laid out and I do appreciate it. One thing I found good about this report is a question come into my mind and then it was answered in the next paragraph which is really good because it means that the report takes it into a greater depth and just reporting the information. So thank you for that. But when we are talking about that we've achieved our ambitions and exceeded our ambitions and then we see a figure that shows that an awful lot of Lincolnshire children are not achieving a good level of development in early years. And on the next page it shows that something like 13 and a bit percentage of our children are not even getting their early years entitlement. I'd like to know how many children that actually is because if that's a lot of children if they're not getting their early years entitlement that is advantages enormously. So I'd really like an in-depth answer there. Obviously I don't expect you to give it today but I would like to know how many children, what's the demographic, what is the social background because that's a worrying number of children. And then again, but obviously well done for achieving the rest but on page 37 is a similar query. I was looking at the GCSE figures. Now we're on a par with the rest of the country and having taught GCSEs I know how difficult it is sometimes to get children to engage. But we have a number there on the top right hand side of the page showing that 4,637 of our children didn't get grade 5 or above in English and maths. That's pretty serious for those children. Are we talking about that 4,500 odd didn't get English and maths or is it some didn't get English and some didn't get maths? So I could do with some information there please. I just feel that with a report like this and it isn't just this particular report it's similar target setting reports. We need to be very careful about saying that we've exceeded a target. The target for children getting their early years entitlement can only be 100%. Really we should be failing that target every time until we get 100% of those children in. We're never going to achieve that because not every child is healthy enough to go in. There's all sorts of parameters there. But to say we've exceeded a target of 80% in some of these things, what do we think then about the other 20%? Now this is something I raise repeatedly in different committees and I'm going to keep raising it because I think targets have to be very carefully worded. When you're looking at adults in further education and things like that, there's an element of choice they can decide. So the targets are more malleable there. The targets are more acceptable when we say we've achieved an ambition. But with children like this, if we're saying that they haven't either picked up, their parents haven't engaged or we haven't provided or some reason has kept them from their early years entitlement, our target should be 100%. That's our target. It can't be anything less. So please, could I have some more detailed figures on the things I've raised? The development. What are these children not developing? What are the problems? Where do they live? How many of them are there? And the same thing with the early years entitlement because those years, more and more and more, we know how crucial they are to their future development. Is there any link between those not getting their early years entitlement to those who are not getting their maths and English at GCSE? So you see, there's a lot of data there and I'm asking a lot of you, so I won't ask any more. But thank you very much for the huge amount of useful information in this report. Happy to come back. So in terms of early years entitlement, I think there is obviously that debate about the target. We will have parents who will not take up their early years entitlement, as you say, for many reasons. And some of that is that they want their children to remain at home and don't want them to go into an early years provision. So there is a question, I suppose the question is if we set our 100% target, say we are unlikely to ever achieve that, so we've set targets that we feel are in line with what other local authorities similar to ourselves in terms of geographic demographic, you know, population. So I think that is a kind of a theoretical question around do you set it at a target that you're never going to achieve. In terms of good level of development, we know obviously the impact of COVID on that younger age group, we know the impact of those children coming through into school and their school readiness and obviously that is a big piece of work that obviously Children's Services and the Health Service particularly are working on. In terms of the English and maths at GCSE, you're absolutely right, it's both. So they have to have both. So there will be a higher proportion potentially of children who have got one or the other, but this is about having both English and maths. Thank you for that. I understand Heather Sande is on Teams and would like to come in on this, please, Heather. Yes, thank you. Thanks very much, Chair. I mean, Caroline's explained it all in quite a lot of depth and just to say that the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee also receive a more detailed report that breaks down the areas. All really interesting questions from Councillor Brockway, which we wrestled with the Children's Committee and also within the Children's Services Directorate and the targets and how they're set obviously are agreed through Council and I agree with Caroline, it's a debate to be had because absolutely we'd like 100% in probably a lot of our targets. But it's about really striving to make sure that we are competing with our regional colleagues and our national colleagues and that children in Lincolnshire are getting the best deal we can and that we measure that against those comparators. In terms of the numbers, I can go into the numbers, there's roughly 8000 children in each year group in Lincolnshire, but we can have a look at that breakdown as well. Thank you for that. And we'll now move on to Councillor Smith, please. Thank you, Chairman. And with your indulgence, I have three questions I'd like to ask. Well, two are a question, one's a point, Chairman. Firstly, do we know when the Section 19 investigations will be fully completed and the appropriate report or reports, plural, published? As I know a number of instances in my own division alone, I have had serious flooding during Storm Bet and Storm Hank and I was not the worst affected division by a long way. I know colleagues who were not as high up in geography as the walls are were a lot more affected than my own division, so I know it's an interest of everybody concerned. Secondly, Chairman, could we have a reply from highways around non-principal and unclassified roads, what the cost would be to Lincolnshire County Council to, in a five-year or 10-year or 15-year period, to bring down our backlog of works on those roads to be in line with North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire as they're referenced in the table, and bear with me, I shall get the number, on page 31. But I do know we have a much larger geographical area. The only other point I'd like to make, Chairman, is around waste, and I know this has been mentioned by colleagues. The only thing I would say, as I've said to Andy when he's been present, it is my opinion that the waste hierarchy is out of date. It's 28 years old. We didn't have things like energy from waste plants at a level that we do now, it was created in 1996, so I would gently argue that actually, as has been said by Caroline, we actually don't want things to go into recycling if we can avoid that, because it's exceedingly energy intensive, whereas if it gets reused, which is obviously the best outcome it's reused, if we can't it goes for energy from waste, we're actually generating energy and saving money, whereas if it's recycled, it's costing money because it's having to be remade into something else. It's costing energy. But when you look at that in the national formula in the waste hierarchy, it's lower down the waste hierarchy than actually recycling it, because unfortunately the waste hierarchy is 28 years old and hasn't kept up with changing technology and changing in times. If I may, General, I'll make one very brief point on early years and children's that Councillor Broadway has brought up. As Heather has said, this is regularly, shall I say, chewed over in children's scrutiny, and I may be, despite my age, might have a slightly old-fashioned view, which is if parents wish to keep their children at home rather than in an earlier setting, that is something we should also support. It is down to ultimately parental choice on what they think is best for their child, because they will know what's best for their child more than anybody else will, because that's their child. They will know what their limitations are, what they think their benefit is or benefits, whether it's being at home or in earlier. So, yes, it's important that we make sure that those that want the entitlement have the entitlement and it's there, but it's also important that we recognise that not everyone's going to take that up for a whole host of reasons, as Councillor Broadway has already alluded to. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. I'll just come back around the Section 19 investigations. Obviously, we can get information in relation to specific investigations, but what we have done in the framework for 24/25 to try and make that information more useful, we've created a performance measure around Section 19 investigations completed within six months of starting, because I think that six-month period is kind of a reasonable period for that to be completed within. And we've set ourselves a target of around 90%. We will conclude a narrative where we've obviously got - where investigations aren't meeting that, but what we can do is take away the comments and look at those investigations that are ongoing now. I think the other point we can obviously take away around the backlog of work in highways and just another point that I think is worth mentioning around the early years entitlement, obviously, where we have children who are open to us, whether that's through early help or social care, then obviously we work very closely with those children, whether it is appropriate to access their early as entitlement, which in many cases it is for their development. So we have a very - obviously a much closer eye on those children. But yeah, we'll take the other points away. Thank you for that. Councillor Hill, if you want to come in, please. I'm just checking, is there anybody from the place - any officer from the place directorate present here on screen or - because I don't want to answer on their behalf, but hopefully there is someone. Is there any officer from the place directorate? Okay. I'll apologise. There should be somebody here and in future obviously we appreciate that everybody can't be everywhere, but it's disappointing that there is not one officer from that directorate and this won't happen again, Chairman. I apologise. I'll do my best to answer the questions that you raised, Councillor Smith. First of all, in terms of the backlog of highways maintenance, obviously as you're well aware that we have put extra investment in to highways maintenance and that has been very much focused on the more minor roads, which has made - is actually meaning that we are making - they are not deteriorating now, but they are at least holding their own. And you'll be aware later on on this agenda there is some proposals from the current underspend - the underspends from last year where we do that, but your information how much it would cost to get them up to the same standard as north and northeast. I think you did make the point the geographic are considerably different. We, you know, we have a huge rural area, whereas there are much tighter boundaries, so it's not a great surprise that we're on paper - well, the evidence is there. We are - we have more issues to deal with. I take your point about the recycling is an interesting subject and in terms of where we are with the energy waste plant, which is now running at capacity and which is good, but obviously does - that means there is more wear and tear on the machinery there. But it is working capacity and obviously with the new reforms coming in, presumably which will carry on with the new government in terms of the food waste separation and other issues that will probably mean that will give us more capacity there. But I think you are quite right in terms of making sure that recycling is good, but not if it becomes a negative cost to the - cost to the environment and I think I'm not sure what the - coming back to Councillor Lee's point about Great Northern Terrace, obviously the overall rate of recycling at the - of all our sites is good, but I'm not sure whether Lincoln is as good. I think we need to get that information back, but I do also take the point that I think we all have - there are issues of management, shall we say, of movement management, shall we say, at the sites and what we or the contractors are doing. There was another point which I've forgotten you made which I can't quite remember in terms of place. There was one other thing, but if you could remind me. Section 19, I knew there was something else. Section 19 reports, obviously they're in the hands of a government approved contractor, so the target still is to get all those section 19 reports which just to remind members is where a - the inside of a house has been flooded. It just needs one house in Lincolnshire which is far more rigorous than many other council areas. The target still is to get all those reports finished by the end of August. So quite a challenging target, but I'm sure that they are confident or Councillor Davies confident that we will hit those targets. And obviously it is supposed to be the case that the contractors are actually engaging and letting local members know, like you, I have a big rural area. I have to say that's been a mixed result, but the reports will be available in the autumn and then obviously there will be the issue of deciding how to prioritize what is done and when it's done. And it might be that some areas aren't done at all because the cost benefit is, for example, you're going to spend a million pounds to protect two houses. Well, obviously that makes no sense at all, so then there will be a decision which obviously scrutiny will be involved in in terms of how we prioritize those areas which are being done. Parallel to that, the highways department, if you recall, we - some of the extra money we gave to highways last year, they have invested in new drainage equipment which I understand is working very well. Some very modern equipment with root cutting and cameras and all the rest of it. So those areas where there has been issues of flooding off the highway, not necessarily because of due to the highway, but other issues. So I know there's a lot of work going on where there may be quite a few of these section 19 reports can be resolved by the extra work that the highways drainage teams are now doing. And each division now has its own drainage team and I know certainly from my area that the reports I'm getting back that has proved very successful and will go to helping to resolve some of the question problems. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Councillor Hill. Do we have any other questions on this first part of the quarter 4? No. So before we move on, I would like to move that the board supports the recommendations to the executive as detailed on page 13 of the report and ask that our comments on quarter 4 as these have been captured by the scrutiny officer be shared with the executive ahead of their consideration. Do I have a seconder, please, Councillor Smith? All those in favour, please? That's unanimous. Thank you. So we'll now move on to performance framework for 2425. Back to Carolyn, please. Thank you. So, yes, thank you, chairman. On page 82 of your pack. So these are the proposed key performance indicators and activities that we'll report to you during 2425 that seek to demonstrate the delivery of our strategic priorities. You'll see that this time we've included for the first time the rationale for the targets. So why we have set the target, we've set in order to try and be, you know, as open and transparent as possible. As we know, we've had a number of questions obviously around targets during the course of the year. Just to reiterate the point that kind of made earlier in terms of the factors when we set targets, there are a number, you know, in terms of where we are in terms of current performance, where our ambition is to be. Do we want to obviously be in line or ahead of our comparators, any known potential changes or any kind of service capabilities. So really looking at the data in the round and looking at where we want to set our ambition for that key performance indicator. All of the targets have been signed off by the relevant member portfolio holder and I'll now hand over for any questions. Thank you. Do we have any questions on this report? No? Councillor Smith, please. Thank you, chairman. And if it's -- there's two I've got, which is in -- it mentions that to SND schools, shall I say fiscal state is in a challenging position. Do we know when that will be resolved because I know that's being worked with officers. And secondly, with regards -- it mentions to the potential of possibly purchasing additional gritters that we are currently leasing. Do we have any financial provision already in place for wear and tear on these machines that are potentially to be newly purchased? Because obviously if we are purchasing the ones we are already potentially leasing or potentially going to, there is an element of inbuilt wear and tear on these assets. Thank you. Sorry, can I just check, I don't know if you know the page number for the SND school. It's one of the activities, isn't it? We'll find it. Bear with me. 67. 67. Thank you. 67. Mr. Chairman, if I could come in there, please. Yeah, please do, Heather. That would be lovely. Thank you. And thanks, Councillor Smith. So as you know, school budgets, they're self governed and we work with schools to address those challenges. And we've been working really closely with those two schools. The funding obviously comes directly from central government through to the schools. So it's about us working with them to look at the cohorts of children they've got, the funding that they've got and their staffing ratios. It's an ongoing issue. And in terms of a timeline for resolution, I think that what we're looking for is within the next academic year to have a plan that will see those two schools able to live within their budget. Thank you. Thank you for that. Councillor Key, please. Yes, thank you, Chairman. It's just a question and I'm obviously new to this committee, so it might be a stupid question. But on page 94, the recycling target, I'm going back to that again. It says that our target's 50%, but the national target is 55%. So why aren't we 55%? Thank you. Karen, please. Thank you, yeah. Again, I think this is a realistic -- when we look at our end of year target, which was 40.96%, the fact has been taken into account of what do we realistically want to achieve. And it comes back to that point before of do we actually want to increase the amount of recycling? And actually is it more about focusing on those other areas? And actually, although the national target is 55%, is that actually realistic and achievable given we're currently at 40.9%? I think would be the rationale. Okay. Thank you for that. Do we have any further questions or points on this? No? So I will move that the board supports the recommendations to the executive as detailed on page 13 of the report and ask that our comments, as these have been captured by the scrutiny officer, be shared with the executive ahead of the consideration. Do I have a seconder, please? Councillor Cyr. And all those in favour, please? That's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 8, which is the review of financial performance 2324. This next pre-decision scrutiny report can be found between pages 97 and 166 of the agenda pack. The report to the executive details the council's financial performance for 2324, highlighting under spends of 11.345 million on the council budgets and 14.259 million on the school's budgets. The report further outlines the council's use of 12.8 million from the extraordinary revenue under spends for additional capital investment in place infrastructure and finally the report explains variances from the revenue and capital budgets, proposes the carry forward of over and under spends into 2425 and presents the prudential and financial performance indicators for 2324. And this report will be considered by the executive on the 2nd of July and the views will be reported to the executive by a designated scrutiny officer. So our actions are that we consider the attached report to determine whether the board supports the recommendation to the executive as set out in the report and agree any additional comments to be passed on to the executive in relation to this item. And this report will be presented by Michelle Grady, assistant director for finances. So over to you, Michelle, please. Thank you very much, Chairman. So, as Chairman said the report sets out the year end position for the year 2324, and explains variances on our revenue and capital budgets. It then makes proposals on the carry forwards of those budgets, and those proposals once gone through executive, as we've stated will then go on to council on the 13th of September to seek approval to make changes to our budgets in year. In terms of our revenue budget, as we've stated, the revenue under spend for the year end was 13.4 million, excluding schools, which is in line with what we've reported in quarter three. It's probably just worth noting that there was a couple of significant changes during quarter four that have offset each other. So we had some additional cost pressures relating to waste services and homeschool transport being offset by significant rates for evaluation and refund and some slippage in some IT expected costs. The board will also recall that the executive approved the movement of one off benefits in the revenue budget in quarter two to make further investment in our capital program of 12.8 million relating to the infrastructure services and also flood response. So table C on page 113 gives a breakdown of the service responses and appendix A gives you a bit more detail of that. The schools, dedicated schools budget under spender 14.5 million will be ring fenced and automatically carried forward for schools use in following years. In terms of our capital program, table D on page 117 sets out the summary of the capital position. The net program was under spent by just over 20 million pounds, but most of that is project variances which are due to timing of the budget and actual costs. So rather than being over or under spends on specific projects, it's just a timing difference of the delivery of those budgets and the cost of the actual projects related to mainly in areas of such as Grantham Southern Relief Road, the Spalding Western Relief Road and the A16 rail schemes. Any under spends or variances or capital budgets will carry forward automatically but we always review the whole program as part of budget setting to come back to council and make any updates as we need to going forward. So the key thing on the revenue budgets is the proposals around the carry forward of the under spends and those are detailed on page 122 and summarized on table E on page 123. The report sets out our financial regulations and what elements are carried forward automatically, leaving the balance of 10.93 million for consideration by the executive to make proposals forward to council. The proposals that are on that table, as you can see at the bottom of that table, is to increase our contingency budget by 1.4 million. When we set our budget this year, we actually reduced our contingency to reflect the position at that time but given some of the pressures that have come through in the last quarter, we thought it was prudent to top that up by areas where we know we've got overspends. And then the remaining budget being allocated to the development fund to support the additional highways works predominantly in the area that's already been discussed, so the unclassified roads and some of the smaller roads. And those we believe are deliverable within the timeframe that the budget's being set. So the three areas there are additional highways works, investor save around the DECO program and emergent council priorities 1.3 million. So at that point I'll happily take any questions. Thank you. Do we have any questions? Councillor Kendrick, please. Could you say a little bit more about the emergent council priorities? I'm not very clear on that. Thank you. I think it's just that. It's to add to reserve in our development fund. So if we do have emergent priorities during the year, they can be allocated and agreed upon by the executive as and when they come. So it's effectively just given us a bit of buffer to deal with stuff in the year. We have used things like that for flood response and things like that. So it's not a specific priority, it's just whatever emerges during the year. Councillor Hill, please. Yeah, I mean, things come up out the blue. For example, my colleague here to my left is we're having to allocate substantial sums of money to repair East Gate at the castle and some repairs to the walls which comes with a substantial bill. So those sort of things where we need to make sure that where these things come along, we can be dealt with. Because obviously it's a scheduled monument, that particular structure. And we need to make sure that we dealt with that. I don't know whether he wants to talk about whether Councillor Detroit just wants to say there is some work required at the -- and we need to get the scaffolding down off the East Gate as well. But he wants to just talk about that. Yes, thank you, leader. Anyone that's visited the castle over the last year or more would have realized that there's been a level of damage to both East and West Gate. And around some of the internal walls as well. We've obviously had English Heritage come in and survey. And we've had specialists in to give us the amount of works and details that we'd need to perform to bring that back to a satisfactory standard. We've worked through that. We've been out and costed. Clearly there's -- until you actually get into the works, there's a level of risk there with the final costs. But we've got them work scheduled for the East Gate and some of the internal walls. And we're waiting on costs and a level of detail for the West Gate that obviously is covered in scaffolding as well at the moment. So we're working through that. Works are going to be aggressive soon. But we're just at that stage where we're looking at cost control and looking at the level of works that will absolutely be necessary. And then going forward, we're looking into putting maintenance procedures in place into some of the contracts that we're going to look to deliver. So this will be an ongoing thing that hopefully we can keep on top of and make sure we catch any repairs early going forward. Thank you for that. Councillor Lee, please. Thanks, chair. I wanted to ask just to be clear that the end figure then that we've got to play with, if you like, is 11.345. Yeah. And I was going to ask about the emerging priorities as well because whilst I'm very happy to spend some of the money on roads, and I think the castle is a great thing. I'd like to see some of this money going on, social priorities as well. And I wondered if we could have some idea of how much will be spent on roads and how much will go on other things. Or is that something that's still to be decided? Because my support for that will be in line. I want to know how this money is going to be spent because normally I have no problem spending money on roads, but please, not all of it. So if I can refer you to the table E on I think it's page 122, that kind of sets out the total. So after our financial reg movements of 1% carry forwards, the total balance remaining for consideration is 10.793 million. So that's in that table, and the bottom part of the table sets out where the proposals are to allocate that. So 1.4 to contingency to deal with the pressures that we've been facing in quarter four. The remainder to go into the development fund with 7 million specifically for the additional highways works, which is believed to be a deliverable amount of money for works for the contractors. An investor save program on the highways depot of 1 million with the emergent council priorities just being 1.3 million. So that's set out at the bottom of that table. Thank you for that. Obviously my group will probably come back with something in September. And just to say Richard, very supportive with the work at the castle, absolutely support that. I'm pleased actually that we are actually spending this money and not just sitting on it. We've got to have money in the pot for a rainy day, but we need to spend it because it's pouring now as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Key. Yes, thank you, chairman. As someone like Martin who represents a really rural area, I'm delighted that there's going to be some more money for the roads. In fact, my answer would be roads, roads, roads, because that's all I hear. And in the last few weeks I've been delighted that two very rural roads in my area are finally having work done and they've wanted it doing for decades. So I am very much in favor of this money going to roads. I will always vote for money for roads because that's all I hear. I get sick to death of hearing about it. But we are making a difference. And so I am absolutely thrilled that 7 million more pounds going in, which is a drop in the ocean, of course. It sounds like a huge amount of money, but it will all make a difference because it already is. So I'm very much in favor. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for that. Councillor Brockway, did you want to comment? Actually, chairman, my comments have largely been made. It's the same supportive things as other people are saying. Thank you. Thank you for that. Do we have any further comments? No? I've got a couple. So with schools continually becoming academies, will the school's budget variance continue to increase? Do we expect that? Or will our income from four schools reduce on a par with that? So the formula for school's funding is that we have the dedicated school's budget for the entirety of the schools in Lincolnshire. And then the academies get their own element of that. So the school's budgets are governed by their own governors anyway, so it makes very little difference to our overall component of funding, if you like. With schools academizing, I think the challenge will be maintain schools where they're suffering with financial difficulty because of child pupil numbers, which Heather obviously touched on earlier. Thank you. And my second question, although I really do like underspends in budgets, it's the accountant in me. What specific measures are being put in place to improve budgeting going forward to stop the big variances and make it more accurate, particularly in areas like waste services and transport where costs are higher than anticipated? So it's probably useful, again, to reiterate that because of our forecasting, we were able in Q2 to make those early decisions about investing into our capital program, so we invested on the waste stations, which we knew we'd need to do to meet some of the requirements of the change in legislation. Also invested in the LED bulbs swap out. And these things give us long-term revenue savings. So our forecasting allowed us to do that. I think waste, we've obviously had some discussion this morning about some of the challenges about the waste streams. So recycling is lovely, but the price of selling plastics is dropping. So that whole dynamics around the waste and the income that we can generate from the EFW plant is all things that we know we need to get better at forecasting. So we've got some dedicated resource in there now to try and improve that forecasting. I think probably just worth noting we did transfer 6 million pounds worth of income from the waste budget into the capital program earlier in the year. School transport has been a national issue. I think, again, we've got quite a lot of resource, corporate resource supporting that area to try and look at how we can manage that budget better and manage the risks around that budget better. Thank you. Councillor Smith, please. Thank you, chair. Michelle, you've prompted a question on school transport, so unfortunately for you. What can we do, because it's -- I appreciate and I've had conversation with the chief, which is why I ask it in this way, because the legislation is nearly 100 years old. It was done in just after the Second World War, basically, and it's -- we are very much hamstrung with how we have to operate, but the cost of SEND transport is exponentially exploding. It's phenomenal. The -- I think the LGA -- it was the LGA that did a very good report on it not too long ago. And those costs are largely out of our control. So what, as a council, can we practically do, other than keep saying every year, well, we've got to put more in continuously, more in continuously, because eventually, how long is a piece of -- or how long is an elastic eventually? If you stretch it too much, it snaps. I think there's two elements to how we can support it. So there's the element around demand and the element of cost. So in terms of cost, there's quite a lot of work going on supported by the commercial team to look at how we procure those services and how we contract to try and open up the market better and get a better price. In terms of demand, I think you're right, the national report kind of highlighted the concerns around that. It's predominantly that the mainstream transport was not so much of an issue. It's also a huge increase in alternative provision requirements as well. We've been investing in that area in terms of providing more school places. That was obviously on the report earlier on. So children don't have to travel as far, and obviously it's better outcomes for the children as well if they don't have to travel. So again, we're looking at how we make better investment around providing places so children don't have to travel. So there's a lot of moving parts in the whole looking at the transport conundrum, I think. Thank you. Councillor Hill, please. Just on two of those points. The first one is about waste. We did discuss this with waste officers recently, actually. And I think the two main reasons were one was the -- as I think it's been referred to, the actual value of recyclers, plastic recyclers has gone right down. Which means, of course, the projection in terms of the income coming in from that has changed. Obviously, it should be easy to multiply the number of households in Ankenshire with the amount of waste they produce. So I think that's a lot better than it was. And the other main issue was there have been, because the energy from waste plants is working at full capacity, there have been some times when it's been out of action, which meant, of course, then there had to be some other way of disposing of the waste, which helped an extra cost. And I know there is work going on with the contractor at the engine waste plant to make sure we got better provision, shall we say, when it's down, when that facility is not working. It does always close, I think it's two weeks of the year, isn't it, for necessary maintenance. But I think there is a worry that the harder it works, the more likely we will have outages and we need to plan better for that. So I think that was the main one. And the second point was -- just have forgotten again, what is your point? School transport is a national issue and it's a growing national issue. And certainly through the county council's network, we're not unique by any stretch of the imagination. All of our type authorities who have got this issue are all reporting massive increases in their costs. We are particularly vulnerable, obviously, in Lincolnshire because we're a rural county and then our homeschool transport budget is well in excess of 40 million now, which is quite incredible. So we are very much hoping the new government, whoever that may be, will do some necessary reforms to make sure that we can keep the -- it is not the main normal transport, if I put it like that. It is all the other ones where, frankly, there needs to be some national changes in terms of legislation and entitlement to make sure we can do that. Because as has been mentioned, we've spent over 100 million pounds, got a whole new range of new or refurbished special needs schools, so there should be no need for us to be spending lots of money on children being taken elsewhere. But we have a system at the moment where we are vulnerable to appeals, et cetera, and then we find that we are still having to spend the cost. So I think one of the urgent priorities of the new government will be to get this sorted out, either give us more money or reform the situation. And there's a lot of lobbying going on about this, including for labor, potential labor ministers to make sure they are aware of, if they become the new government, what the situation is. But it is urgent because you're right, if it carries on as it is, both with the transport and other issues, SEN issues, will bankrupt a lot of councils in a few years' time, and some of them will be on the edge next year unless something is done. Thank you for that. Councillor Key, you want to come back in? Yeah, sorry for a second question, but having listened to the news about Lincoln Castle, and I'm not going to look at Councillor Bootroy, he knows what I'm going to say, we obviously have other visitor attractions in the county, one in my area which is Hekington Windmill, and if I don't mention this now, I should get probably accosted when I get back to the village, because it hasn't worked for years, it's a huge visitor attraction, had massive lottery grants, but the mill itself, which we own, isn't working. And I know the process has started, but I just really want to re-emphasize the fact that the castle is a huge attraction, but there are others as well that need work. Thank you. Councillor Lee as well. You're on. I thought you were going to mention Ellis Windmill then, Councillor Lee. But yeah, we have a number of windmills, we are working hard to get the costs in for the repairs and the maintenance that is required on them. We're going through that process at the moment. Some repairs have already been done to Borough of La Marche, and that's looking good. We've rebuilt part of the outbuildings, put disabled toilets in, and we've done a lot of works around that. We're working obviously with East Lindsay District Council on Alford Windmill to secure the future of that. And I think Heckington Windmill is a fine example of what can be done by groups and the community to actually make a very good and sustainable visitor attraction. So if anyone wants to go, it's definitely worth a visit. But I haven't forgot, it's there, we are working and getting costs through. And as you rightly know, the mill rights and the people that do carry out this work are highly skilled and there isn't too many of them at the moment. So we're working to obviously try and, once we've got the costs, to secure them and get the work done. Thank you. Councillor Hill. Yeah, some years ago, just for Councillor Gies' benefit, I went to Heckington Windmill, met Mr Pinchbank and had a guided tour of the windmill. As you're well aware, the County Council invested quite a lot of money into the windmill in support of their lottery bid, I think it was some years ago. But of course, I would remind you that it was working all right until somebody didn't put the brake on or something, and then it smashed. So, obviously, I was invited back there again, I said, well, yes, we'll do what we can. And I think the committee there are quite pragmatic in terms of what they can do themselves, but some of it will require specialist mill right. And these people are as rare as hen's teeth, aren't they? So we will get back to Heckington Windmill, I'm sure, eventually. Hopefully, the visitor centre is working well, because I was hoping that some of they could contribute to some of the future costs of the sales from the hopeful profits they're making in that good facility. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. If there are no further questions on this report, I will move that the board supports the recommendations to the executive detailed on pages 99 to 100 of the report. And I ask that our comments, as these have been captured by the scrutiny office, be shared with the executive for their consideration on the 2nd of July. Do I have a seconder, please? Councillor Sia. All those in favour, please? That's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 9, which is the Treasury Management Annual Report 2324. And this report can be found on pages 168 to 208 of the Agenda Pack. The report, which was prepared in line with the SIPFA Code of Practice for Treasury Management, details the council's treasury management activities for the financial year 2324. It compares these activities to the strategy, the treasury management strategy for 2324, which was approved by the Executive Council for Resources, Communications and Commissioning on the 13th of March 23. The report also addresses any issues that have arose in treasury management during this period. Our actions are that the contents of the reports are reviewed and any comments be passed on to the Executive Council for Resources, Communications and Commissioning. And this report will be presented by Karen Tong, Treasury Manager, and Chris Scott from Link Asset Services, also in attendance for this item. So over to you, Karen, please. Thank you, Chair. I will go through the main key points, summary points, which are listed on page 180 of the report of your pack. The detail behind those summary can be found in the report on the pages mentioned there. At the end, I'll also pass you over to Chris Scott from Link Asset Services. He's our treasury advisor, and he's joined us today to give a brief comment on the treasury performance for the year from his advisor-client perspective. So as you'll see, the annual report is broken down into the usual three main areas of interest rate, economic summary, investment activity and borrowing activity. Page 169 of your pack shows the actual movement of short term and long term interest rates over the year. And it shows that rates increased during the year following the increases in the base rate by the Onegity Policy Committee of the Bank of England as a measure to bring inflation back down to their target levels of 2%. Base rate actually peaked at 5.25 in August and still remains at that level today as inflation has been a lot stickier than first estimated to come down. Rates since October have been volatile and linked to market expectations of when the next cut in base is expected will happen. CPI inflation reached 2% target level last month, actually. And the latest market expectation is that the first cut in base rate will happen in August, but we'll see. Actual rate activity was higher than forecast in the strategy on both short term and long term rates, but they're both still expected to fall over the coming months and years. It's just a matter of timing. Moving on to investments, the average balance during 23/24 was 286 million, which was very similar to the previous year. The Council's risk appetite remains low, priority given to security of capital over return. No limits to counterparties were breached during the year, and there were no concerns over the recovery of investments, even though you'll note in the report that one counterparty that the Council has had exposure to has fallen off the list during the year due to downgrading. They're still expected to return as due with no concerns. You'll see that the advantage of the increased interest rate levels over the years resulted in an increased investment return during the year of 9.4 million. This was compared to 3.8 million in the previous year. And I'm pleased to report that all benchmark investment rates were exceeded during the year, despite us having been restricted by the lower risk profile that we have compared to benchmarks. Details of the outperformance can be found on page 17374 of the pack for the detail. As part of the cash flow strategy in the year, a small amount of 11 million short-term borrowing was taken to support liquidity, and this was at a cost of 5.25 and has since been repaid in the year. Turning to borrowing, no new external borrowing was taken during the year, and this was in line with the borrowing strategy and debt liability benchmark. 10.3 million of borrowing was repaid during the year as due, leaving the Council's total external debt at the end of March at 457.4 million. And this is costing us 3.7, just 3.713% on that borrowing. Interest paid to services debt in the year was 17.2 million, to give you an idea of how much that is, that cost. Council borrowing requirement of just under 16 million, which was net of under spends maturing debt and voluntary payment provision, was met in full by internal borrowing for the year. Internal borrowing, if you notice, using the Council's cash balances to finance that requirement. And this has left the total internal borrowing balance at the end of the year of just 217.4 million. This is about 31.9% of the Council's capital financing requirement, or CFR, at the year end. And this level is in line with the Council's borrowing strategy, general level of cash balance available and the debt liability benchmark. Finally, the Council's governed by the SICFA Prudential Code for capital financing. When it undertakes its borrowing, setting prudential indicators to ensure capital plans are affordable, prudent and sustainable are a requirement of this code. And I can confirm that all prudential indicators set have been adhered to in the year with no breaches. And for further details of the prudential indicators, they're shown in Appendix C on page 205 of the pack. So that's all I intend to say. I'll just briefly hand you over to Chris for his comment. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Chair. I mean, just from a general perspective, you've heard that the base interest rate rose from three and a half to its current peak of five and a quarter where it's maintained. That brings positives and negatives. Obviously, from an investment perspective, it's positive because it means you're going to generate much more in the way of investment income from the cash that you've got to invest. And as you've heard, that's held up a pretty constant level of around 240 million during the year. So that's been good news, but it's also high interest rates are not great from a borrowing perspective. So we're not advocating borrowing at the moment because you wouldn't want to lock into interest rates at the peak of the cycle. So obviously, from a borrowing perspective, it's not not so good if you're looking to borrow. But I'll come on to that a little bit later. Just looking at investments, generally, as I say, the portfolio is pretty constant in terms of balance. But, you know, the key thing here is the amount of investment income you generated was over five and a half million more than the previous year. So it gives you an idea of how much that increase in interest rates has been beneficial to you. We do a lot of comparison between, you know, individual authorities in terms of what they're doing, how they're performing, what level of activity they're undertaking. Your average return of just over five and a half percent is pretty much at the top end of what we what we see. We also have comparative information in the report, which you've seen, which places you very favorably against other county councils. But also we have a local sort of peer group of a selection of other authorities in the area which you outperformed against as well. There's also your internal benchmark of Sonya minus 10 basis points, which you exceeded as well. So from a performance point of view, excellent. Obviously, the additional investment income is is welcome. And you've done that by taking a relatively low risk approach to the counterparties and the durations that you're that you're using. So all excellent on that on that side of things, just from borrowing perspective. I just mentioned that we wouldn't advocate any borrowing at the moment, even if your projections show that you need to, you know, clearly lock in at the moment. It doesn't make sense. So, again, the fact that you didn't borrow during the year makes perfect sense and bears out bears out that that advice. And you have a great three point seven percent on your overall portfolio, again, is very much at the lower end. What we see with other local authorities as well. So you've got your well placed there. There's also mention of internal borrowing whereby you've run your cash down in the borrowing. That's around 31 percent of your capital financing requirement. Again, comparing that to what we see elsewhere, in particular, other county councils, that's pretty similar to what we what we see. And then our view is appropriate, particularly based on the fact that your cash balances have been resilient and pretty much not moved from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. So, yeah, overall, I'm happy in all areas. OK, thank you. Do we have any questions? Councillor Key. Yes, thank you. This is an observation as just a man on the street, really. It's a simple question. Since the interest rates peaked in August, have we done enough to reduce our borrowing requirement so we pay less interest? So that would be my question. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. The borrowing requirement is set by the plans on the capital expenditure budget. Most of take ignoring sort of grants and contributions and any capital receipts and reserves are used. The result is the borrowing requirement to finance that programme. So it's it's that's the level set by the borrowing requirement. But the decision to actually borrow that externally or internally is my decision. And we've because of the interest rate environment and the debt liability benchmarks are telling us we didn't need to borrow this year anyway. So it wasn't a significant factor for this year, future years next year that we are sort of showing underborrowed. So we will have to borrow next year up to the borrowing requirement for that year. But as we're in a falling interest rate environment, that that will probably take place towards the year end and may not happen at all if the plans are rephased or into future years, as sometimes happens. May I come back? Wait a minute. Andrew Crookham would like to come in as well, please. It might just be a bit more context to the two to two years ago, the budget for twenty twenty to twenty three, when it looked like inflation was starting to rise and we were expecting to see interest rates go. We went through a process firstly with the executive and then through the council setting budget of ensuring that the capital spending envelope was going to be reasonable in terms of what we thought was coming along the line in terms of interest rates. That was the control measure that we put in place that Karen talked about at the start of our answer there. So naturally as interest rates come down or circumstances change, you know, it's a consideration for members in terms of the shape and size of the capital programme that they wish to see and for further debate as it goes forward. Thank you. Councillor Keegan, do you want to come back? I was just going to say obviously we repaid ten million in debt. Could we have repaid more? That's probably how I should have put the question in the first place. Thank you. No, not without penalty. We take borrowing on a maturity basis, which means that we pay principal across the life of the debt and then we pay the principal when at the end of the debt. And so that's the ten million that's fallen out naturally in the year that we spoke of. If we can repay early on that debt, but given the interest rates on our loans are less than the current market rate levels, we would incur a penalty for doing so. So we generally don't do that. Thank you. That is exactly what I thought you'd say. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Hill, please. Just in terms of this somewhere, I don't think you see here that there is a whole programme of how much, you know, we are going to repay. I would say we're unusual. Not all councils actually pay back the principal and so their debt levels just keep going up. And we took some years ago now, we took the view that we would pay back the principal because you can pay back the interest and just leave it. And not all councils do that and their debt profile would just keep going up. I mean, in terms of the internal borrowing or using our resources, we've been doing that for some years now and I think that's worked very well. But obviously when interest rates come down, which they have come down and then the cost of borrowing follows that, there will be a decision to be made and it will be a clear decision in terms of if we want to invest in new infrastructure, we can. Some of it we can pay for internally but I think there will come a choice, we'll have to, the borrowing will have to increase again if we still want to have that ambition. And we'll wait to see what the new government, hopefully it will continue, whoever they are, will continue with cash grants but there is concern that might not happen. So I think we're in a pretty good place actually compared to many. We did have four years some time ago when we didn't borrow at all but I'm afraid that wasn't sustainable in the end. Can I just add, to follow on that, I forgot to mention that on Appendix F of the report, page 207, it actually gives you the detail of when debt is falling out, maturing naturally over the course of that debt, so you'll be able to see that, thanks. Thank you for that. Councillor Brockway, please. Thank you, Chairman, thank you for the report. Could I ask you some questions about page 187, please, which is the lending. Just to clarify my understanding and to actually ask a couple of questions about it. I notice, so we're talking about lending of temporary surpluses, so is this us lending to other people? Can I ask that first? Yes, it is, and those on that appendix are the counterparties that we're able to lend to, give money to, yeah. Right, thank you. Right, okay, so my thinking there is right then, but given the question just from Councillor Key, do we have the same privileges of imposing penalties on these people if they pay in a way that we haven't anticipated or haven't agreed? Yeah, I mean, when you invest fixed investments with these counterparties, you undertake an agreement to lend a certain amount at a certain rate for a certain timeframe, and if either party defaults on that, then there would be penalties incurred. Thank you, two more quick as part of this question. If we found ourselves in a position of needing this money back for some sort of massive unforeseen emergency, could we get a hold of it, and would that penalise us? And then there's just one more little one. We could attempt to ask for it back early, but there would be penalties, yeah, definitely. Thank you, and my last question, and thank you for your patience with me. My last question is I noticed that one of these counterparties is the Overseas Chinese Banking Corp, and I thought, well, why are we banking with China, but I understand that's a Singapore bank, is it? Yes, they're all based in Singapore who've got a triple A rating, and it's nothing to do with China, just in the name. Thank you. Do we have any further questions? No, I've got a couple, and mine relates to the Link Group report, so it's Chris. So on page 193 you've got the interest rate forecast. They have been consistent in the reports we've seen throughout the year on Treasury. I'm just interested in how you come to get to these figures, because they are quite in line with where the bank is at the minute, so even earlier in the year when the rates weren't that high, I'm just intrigued on how you get to these figures. Yes, so we have an internal group of economists who basically weekly meet to assess everything that's out there. We also take into account a wide range of other commentators' information as well, from which we then produce our central interest rate forecast, which is essentially what we hang our hat on in terms of what we think is going to happen next, and we generally project that forward two or three years in terms of what we think is going to happen next, and that's important because that then feeds through into discussions with Treasury officers in terms of should we be borrowing, what's the correct length of time to invest, so on and so forth, but it's a continual process. It's not just we send out a forecast and we leave it, we review it when it makes sense. We don't change it every week, we'll change it periodically when there's a real seed change in things for whatever reason, so there's a pretty dynamic process behind it in terms of keeping it refreshed up to date and transmitting that to the Council and its officers. That's great. Thank you. And then on page 194 and 195, we've got the current investment list and the expected credit loss. Could you just explain what that column actually means? Is that what could happen if they defaulted on the investment? Yeah, I mean, it's a historic measure based on, so different counterparties will have different long-term ratings, ranging from AA down to A-, which is the sort of floor of which is acceptable. So what we do is we look back over the last five years and it's information provided by the credit rating agencies that will say, well, those that are rated A, there's been an average level of default of 0.0 or 0.0, so it's tiny. That's then applied to your portfolio and the duration of the investments that you've got. So it's a potential. It probably wouldn't happen. It's very unlikely, but you can't rule anything out. No, that's fine. Yeah. No, that's fine. That's great. That's provided by the rating agencies. No, that's brilliant. No, thank you for that. Do we have any further questions? No. So I'd like to move that the Board endorse the report and ask that our comments be shared with the Executive Councillor for information and consideration. Please raise your hand if you agree. Thank you. That's unanimous. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 10, which is the scrutiny committee work programmes. And you'll find this on pages 209 to 224 of the agenda pack. It is this board's primary responsibility to oversee the work programmes of other scrutiny committees, ensuring satisfaction with each committee's overall work programme and planned activities rather than engaging in detailed discussions on specific item. The report provides us with an update on the activity undertaken by the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee and the Public Protection and Community Scrutiny Committee. So the actions for us is the report invites us to review and comment on the contents of the report and one, record our satisfaction with the activity undertaken and two, endorse the activity planned for the rest of 24. The report will be presented in two parts. I will take both parts together and then take any questions when they've both been presented. So we'll go to the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee and that will be Councillor Rob Kendrick. The chairman, please. Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Just to give you a brief report, the committee has met three times since the last update in February and considered the items as set out on pages 212 to 214 at our meetings held in March, April and June. I should just mention that we have had a slight change of membership since May but the committee still maintains that I would regard as a very robust level of scrutiny. At our April meeting, we considered a proposed decision by the Executive Councillor for Children Services, Community Safety, Procurement and Migration in relation to the recommissioning of the Lincolnshire Leaving Care Service. Now, the council has a statutory responsibility to provide a Leaving Care Service to eligible children in care aged 16 to 25. And since 2007, the Lincolnshire Leaving Care Service has been provided by Barnardo's. However, the contract will cease on the 31st of March, 2025 and there's no further option of extension. Therefore, the committee supported the recommendations to insource the Lincolnshire Leaving Care Service from April, 2025 after exploring the benefits and added value that this would bring including closer working with adult care, better recruitment and retention of leaving care workers and bringing care leavers close to the council to ensure their needs are met and integrated across the different services. In June, the committee supported the recommendations to the leader of the council to build a new four classroom block at Gosburton House Academy, a special school near Spalding. Now, it's recognised this is a very complex project which has many technical challenges with the site including being in a flood list area and I recall from the meeting that, for example, they're having to put massive piles into the ground to make that a suitable site for building. This has resulted in the original budget of 4.72 million having to be increased to 6.8 million. The committee welcomed this final special school project and was assured that all the issues had been covered and that the project could be delivered within the overall building communities of specialist provision strategy program budget of 100 million and 81. There are no changes to be reported in our work program as set out on pages 2015 to 2017. The committee's next meeting will be held on the 19th of July where we'll be considering the multi-agency youth justice plan before it's presented to the county council in September for approval and an annual update on the holiday activities and food program which in the past has been a very successful program and a proposed decision by the executive on the new Lincolnshire secure children's home build which will be for the mains works contract. And that concludes my very brief update, Mr Chairman. Thank you for that. We'll now move over to the Public Protection and Community Scrutiny Committee and our dear Councillor Andrew Key who's been thrown the challenge in his first meeting. Yeah, no pressure. Anyway, before I start, Mr Chairman, I would just like to pay tribute to the former chairman of this committee, Councillor Nigel Pepper and thank him for his excellent leadership of it and I'm so pleased that he's staying on the committee and I'll value his wise council. So, thank you, Nigel. Since our last update to the board, the committee's met in March and May and on Tuesday this week. The report within the agenda pack provides a brief account of the discussions held in March and May on pages 218 to 220. At our last meeting on Tuesday, the committee discussed in detail the five items listed on page 221. We were satisfied with the progress and performance of the different areas of work and look forward to receiving the next annual updates in 12 months time. Just for clarity purposes, I left the meeting for the Safer Lincolnshire Partnership Annual Report 2023 to 2024 due to having a pecuniary interest in that item. In relation to the Voluntary Sector Annual Position Report, the committee was informed about the work of the Voluntary Centre Services and Lincolnshire CVS, which have created a formal partnership known as the Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Partnership. We're updated on the first Lincolnshire Volunteering Conference that was held on the 12th of June, which had about 80 people from Lincolnshire in attendance, along with some national speakers. This explored the challenges facing organisations in Lincolnshire and raised best practice awareness of how to support volunteers. About two-thirds of the attendees were from organisations that the partnership didn't regularly work with, which enabled the partnership to broaden its reach and engage with new organisations who are keen on hosting volunteers going forward. The committee questioned the regularity of the conferences and it was hoped to hold them on an annual basis. We suggested that going forward it might be useful to stream or record the conference so that people could watch it later. The committee also suggested that it might be useful to hold a counsellor development session for all counsellors on volunteering and the support available to the voluntary sector. And I was particularly keen on the free training that is available to volunteers that many people may not know about. The committee also discussed at length the work of the Safer Lincolnshire Partnerships, Lincolnshire Women's Strategy, supporting women and girls at risk of entering the criminal justice system, in particular the impact of short custodial sentences which, according to national research, aren't effective and do not improve outcomes for women. One common theme throughout the debate was the need for further communication and engagement and getting the message out there about the Women Rise project and the support available for women. However, this also needs to be balanced against the capacity of a small team to support an increase in women coming forward for support and we were assured that this was being considered. There is one change to the report of our work programme as set out on pages 221 to 224. A report on the lease agreement for operational vehicles has been added to the agenda for our meeting on the 30th of July, which is for pre-decision scrutiny prior to a decision by Councillor Corey between the 5th and 30th of August. This now means that we have a total of eight items on the July agenda, which also includes Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue's statement of assurance and a review of the performance of the library service contract for year 8. In addition, we'll be sitting at the Crime and Disorder Scrutiny Committee to consider two items in relation to the work around antisocial behaviour and substance misuse, which are two of Safer Lincolnshire Partnerships core priorities. As I explained to my committee, I'm very keen this year that we don't build up a backlog of things by pushing them back all the time, so hence the quite heavy agenda in July. But going forward, I plan to include a comfort break during our meetings. We held a break during Tuesday's meeting and it helped to reduce disruption during the meeting and I'm sure it improved the discussion of the items at the end of the agenda. And I would encourage other scrutiny chairpeople to also consider introducing comfort breaks for their committee meetings. Thank you very much Mr Chairman, that concludes my update. Thank you for that. Well I won't be introducing comfort breaks into this meeting. Councillor Lee and then Councillor Kendrick please. Thank you chair, just to echo Councillor Keith's comments about our previous chair absolutely endorsed them. And to welcome him, I think he did a really good job the other day. I absolutely agree with him about comfort breaks. If you're sat jiggling, you do not concentrate on the work in front of you and people joke about it, but it's a fact and I think it did improve concentration. So there's that. But yeah, welcome to you and actually I was just looking at the agenda for July. I don't know if I'm a little bit of a sad case but I was thinking oh I'm looking forward to that one. That looks really good, I enjoy that committee. There's lots of fire service things so that's good. There's library on it, there's everything isn't there? Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. Councillor Kendrick please. All I wanted to say, Chairman, I think the Children and Young People's Scrutiny Committee have led the way on this with comfort breaks. Probably so, probably so. Do you have any further comments on those? No, I'd like to thank you both for presenting those and I'd like to move that the board satisfaction of the work undertaken be recorded and that the board endorse the work programmes as been developed to date. Can you raise your hand if you agree please? That's unanimous, thank you. So we'll now move on to the two information only items which is item 11 which is the people management update quarter 4. The quarterly report for the people management can be found in the pack between pages 225 to 230. We are not debating the item today, however members are advised to contact our designated scrutiny officer offline and raise any points or questions about this report. Therefore I move that the report be noted. Can I please raise your hand if you agree? That's all agreed, thank you. So item 12 is the overview and scrutiny management board work programme and this is on the report on the rest of the pages at the end of the gender pack. We do not normally debate this item and our action is to note its contents. Therefore I move that the report be noted with a caveat of necessary amendments identified since the publication of this agenda which will be incorporated by designated scrutiny officer. Can you raise your hand if you agree please? That is unanimous. So with that in mind I'd like to say that that concludes the business of this meeting. Thank you all for your attendance and safe journey home. Thank you. Thank you.