Transcript

Welcome to everybody, all the committee and cabinet members and officers who are here for this meeting of the select committee. If I can ask you to make sure that all your mobiles are switched off or on silent and in line with the guidance on social media. More than happy for anyone attending today's meeting, including the committee, to use social media provided it doesn't disturb the business of the meeting. The meeting is being webcast and a recording will be available online afterwards. In the case of a fire, exit the room through the door you came in and then to the door to your left. Or in simpler terms, if there is a fire, follow me. If there are any questions, do please, members, raise your hands. We have got, as you know, an agenda with some questions that members have suggested. They are guidelines, they're not prescriptive, so just raise your hand and I'll come to you as soon as possible. And for a reminder that the microphones, when asked to speak, please press the right hand microphone button and then speak clearly into the microphone and turn it off afterwards. Right, for item one today is apologies for absence. We've had apologies from officers Katie Stewart and Dan Quinn and also from committee member Luke Bennett. And could I just welcome Ayesha Assad to the meeting as she is substituting for Luke today. Item two is the minutes of the meeting held on the 29th of April. If I can ask any members to make comments on regarding any factual accuracies and ask if you are happy that they be signed as a true and correct record. Is that agreed? Okay. I'll do that after the meeting. Next is to receive any declarations of disposable -- disposable pecuniary interests, significant personal interests, any gifts or hospitality accepted. Members are asked to declare at this point if there is any disposable pecuniary interest or any other interests under the code of conduct in relation to any items of business that we are discussing. Are there any? No. Thank you very much. Right, item four is questions and petitions. We've had two questions, one from a member of the public and one from the committee member, Councillor Catherine Bart. In accordance with the standing orders, questions -- questioners may participate in meetings and ask a supplementary question. Also note that cabinet members Matt Furness and Steve Backs will be in attendance to help with that. Firstly, a question from Catherine Bart. Now, you have had the question submitted and an answer. Catherine, do you have a follow-up? No? Well, thank you very much indeed. Now, we also had a question from a member of the public, Amy Coleman. Is Amy with us this morning? Not here or online that we're aware of. Okay. Well, the question from Amy has been circulated. It's on the website and it has also been answered and the answer has been circulated. I'm sure that if Amy does have any follow-up, we'll be more than happy to come back to her on that one as well outside of the meeting. Right. Now, I'm conscious that we have quite a few substantive items on today's agenda. You'll have seen from the list that we're aiming for the meeting to finish by 1.30. I think that might be a bit of a push because there are quite a few substantive items. I'm aiming to have a comfort break during the course of the meeting as well at an appropriate point, but I'm guessing that the meeting is more likely to go on to about 2 o'clock or up to 2.30, maybe. But we're aiming for not longer than 2 p.m. I've already been advised by one member that he has to leave slightly early, which is understandable. If we finish at 2, does that cause any problems for anybody else around the table? Okay. At 1 o'clock. Okay. Well, hopefully we'll still have the rest of members understand that because people have got other commitments as well. But I just wanted to alert you to the timings. Right. Item five is the updated Vision Zero road safety strategy, including a new approach to 20 mile per hour speed limits. And we have a number of witnesses this morning. Matt Furness, cabinet member for highways, transport and economic growth. Welcome to Paul Millin, our strategic transport group manager. Lucy Money, who's the director of highways and transport. Duncan Knox, who's road safety and sustainable school travel manager. And Rebecca Harrison, the safer travel team leader. All have been very much involved in the creation of this strategy. I'll ask in a moment the witnesses to introduce the paper and to make any comments. Everybody's had the document in writing, but I think it's useful just to bring out your key concerns. I think all I would say is that I'm conscious that 20 years ago Surrey had between 60 and 70 deaths on our roads every year. And in the last few years that has reduced to 30 or under, which is a really good positive thing. But that's still 30 a year too many, hence this very much updated strategy to see what can be done to reduce. Vision Zero is a fantastic objective. Whether Zero will ever be achieved I think is questionable, but I think that's what needs to be aimed for. So who would like to lead on this? Matt, would you like to introduce it and then over to officers? Thank you, Chair, but I think you've done a very good introduction yourself there, to be fair. Yes, as you say, this is our ambition to get to zero. The 30 deaths or under a year that you have mentioned, we have reduced it right down, but it has plateaued at that level. So I think it's important to note that this is a road-safe partnership with Surrey Police, including the Police and Crime Commissioner, Surrey Fire and Rescue, ourselves at Surrey Highways, as well as National Highways colleagues. So it is very much a partnership effort to get us to that zero and with our target of a reduction of collisions where someone is killed or seriously injured by 50% by 2035. And in addition, we have a new approach to 20 mile an hour limits. I suppose the key thing that I will say in the questions that you're about to ask, we'll draw this out in more detail, is I'm pleased with the level of response that we got from members of the public. I am pleased in a rather roundabout way, I think we'll describe it as, that actually members of the public are supporting the fact that we're not doing a blanket approach to 20 mile an hour. There does seem to be a little bit more we need to do on communicating the objectives of Vision Zero, and that's something that we can draw out in the questions themselves. But I think it's clear to say that members of the public are supportive of the measures that we are taking, both on the 20 mile an hour and on the Vision Zero. We just need to set out a little bit more clearly how we are going to achieve that. I don't know if Paul or Lucy wants to say any more. No, I think it would be good to get into the questions, Chairman. I think Max explained exactly where we are in the consultation process with residents and the private session that we had with the police some while ago now. Okay, can I just interrupt you there? I mentioned earlier that Amy Coleman, member of the public, wasn't with us for the question. She has arrived in the building, but with her baby. So before we get into this discussion proper, if we can get Amy up here so that she can be involved with what she had sent him previously, is that okay? Because I suspect that she will then want to probably make her way after. I think the fact that she has made the effort to be here today we should acknowledge. So bear with us a few minutes. Sorry, we'll come back to that. [Silence] [Silence] [Silence] [Silence] Amy, welcome to the meeting. I heard that you had arrived in the building. We had gone over that item already, but out of fairness I wanted you to have the opportunity to say anything or ask any supplemental questions. If you want to, can you just pop the microphone on? The button on the right. That would be fine. Over to you. [Silence] Got it. Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. I've come here today to follow up with a question and I thank you very much for the response I've already received. My follow up question really regards the benefits of reducing the verge cutting schedule that present a significant opportunity to the Council. My question is, given that Surrey County Council are budgeting over £1.5 million worth for verge cutting in the current financial year, how much is too much to spend on cutting verges, particularly when we know that if we reduce the cutting schedule for a number of significant benefits? It's a very simple change that we can make. It's easy to implement. It also has significant biodiversity benefits and it's the economically rational thing to do. Surrey has a very finite amount of resources and we know that. We've seen other services that have really struggled to make ends meet in recent years. Will the Council tell me whether this really is the most sensible thing to do to continue spending over £1.5 million a year cutting verges? And if so, then at which point does that no longer become the economically rational thing to do? Thank you. Thanks very much, Amy. Feel free to sit or not sit entirely as you wish. Okay, that's fine. I'll ask if I may, Councillor Matt Furness, who's the Surrey County Council cabinet member for highways, to respond to your concerns. I'm sure Matt is fully aware that as a Council, we get as many complaints from residents about verges not being cut as we do when they are cut. But over to you, Matt, in terms of biodiversity and I suspect also issues concerning sight lines and safety. Thank you, Chair and thank you, Ms Coleman. It's a difficult one, grass cutting, because it's quite a polarised viewpoint. When we took back the contract, well, the agency agreements from all of the districts and boroughs, many were doing well in excess of what we have now, which is six cuts in the urban area and two cuts in the rural areas. Some were doing up to 12 or 20, which is quite significant. We have had a little bit of trouble. I will put my hands up and say that particularly in the urban areas where the cutting regime people still do not feel is great enough. They would actually like to increase the number of cuts that we currently do. I think we're holding firm at six in the urban area and two in the rural. You did mention about the Blue Heart verges and what we are encouraging is as many residents as possible to register those verges to promote biodiversity, because we know then that there is the local support there to reduce the number of cuts quite significantly. I'm afraid that on an economic view, it's less that for us. It's really about the maintenance activity, making sure that the sightlines, as the Chairman said, are kept clear, but also addressing the wishes of other residents within the county. There has been quite a change. I would like us to continue with six and two. We did increase it from four last year to six due to the level of concern that we were receiving from residents, particularly in urban areas. But I wouldn't like to increase that further. I would like to keep it as it is and see if we can continue with the Blue Heart scheme to see if areas that we can reduce the amount of cutting yet further where we do have that local support. Thank you, Chair. Well, thank you very much, Amy, and for making it today. We appreciate the fact that you have made the effort to come in. I'm sure if there are any follow-up queries between yourself and/or Matt Furness, we'd be happy to deal with those. Thank you very much. You're very welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, but you might want to get off. I'll see how I get on, but thank you. Thanks very much indeed. I'd just like to say that the Blue Heart scheme is fantastic, and it's great that Surrey supports it. The difficulty is, of course, that that requires the onus on individuals to actually go through a lengthy administration process, which is my reason for asking that we consider reducing the default cutting schedule. I know, of course, there's a safety element to be considered, and that's fine, but there are plenty of verges, particularly in our urban areas, where we could benefit from a reduced cutting schedule. I really, really ask the Council to consider those economic benefits, because many people do not understand the biodiversity benefits and why it's so important to all of us. But I think we can all get a handle on cash-strapped local authorities really struggling to make ends meet and making savings where they can. Thank you. Thanks very much. Chairman, if I may, just on that, what I will commit to is I will see if we can make the Blue Heart administration scheme that little bit easier to apply for. Right. If we can return to item five, vision zero. Now, Matt Furness has given the introduction. Who was it who was speaking? Lucy, would you be kind enough to start again with your comments? I won't repeat what other colleagues have said. I think, very simply, obviously, this is the second time we've come to select committee to discuss this after consultation. So we've asked the public what they think. What you see in the report, hopefully, is a reflection of that. And, yeah, we're looking forward to the questions today so we can explore a little bit more where we've got to and what next. Thank you. Thanks very much, Lucy. And I'd also like to welcome this morning Councillor Jonathan Essex, who is asked to come to this meeting and to ask a number of questions in addition to those that we had already outlined. Some we had already anticipated, Jonathan, but others, if you do, please, I'll get you to chip in as and when appropriate. Is that OK? Right. So, first of all, a question we've had notice of is from Catherine Bart. Catherine. Thank you. I'm just interested about the consultation and I'm interested to know whether the results were broadly what you anticipated. And how has the strategy been changed, if it's been changed, as a result of what came out of the consultation? Thank you. Thank you for the question. Yes, I would say that we were hoping probably overall for more support on the 20 mile an hour proposal because we had taken quite a lot of care to emphasise that it wasn't a blanket approach and that we would be consulting with local people on each and every scheme. So a little bit kind of surprised that it wasn't more accepted by more people. But then when we looked at more detail at the responses, we found that a lot of people who had clicked that they didn't like 20s when they had elaborated in the free text response. They said, well, actually, I don't mind them outside schools, residential areas and town centres. And that's what our policy says. So actually, in effect, they do kind of support it. So what we've done in response to that, I think there's a lack of understanding there. We've given additional commitment to try and explain it more when we do launch it in the future, subject to the cabinet approval. We've also provided an additional note to explain how we proposed to consult with local people on the process as well, which has been hub circulated as well. We've also ensured that we've incorporated the plan for drivers that the government published a supplementary bit of guidance on 20s in March during the time when we were consulting on this. So all in all, I think taking on board people's comments, they don't quite understand it. So we're going to try and explain it more. And I think we've got a better product as a result of that in the end. Thanks very much. I will give members the opportunity to have a follow up question if they wish. But I'll just remind you of timing issues that we have today. Thank you, Catherine. Next is Richard here on a very similar theme. Looking at the percentages. Seventy seven percent of the respondents said they weren't confident that the scheme would deliver or the strategy would deliver road safety improvements. Does this mean that we need to revisit the strategy? Should we have another look at it? Will it have enough impact? Because it doesn't seem to have had the impact so far. And you mentioned. It was mentioned that we're going to go into some more communication. What form will that take, please? Sure. Thank you for that question. Yes. So we're ensuring that the strategy will have impact because we're following national and international best practice in road safety in the safe systems approach and the Vision Zero ethos. And all our activities that we are proposing with our partners fall under that kind of umbrella. And I think a lot of the lack of confidence that was expressed in the in the consultation was associated with road maintenance. And I think we can accept this frustrations all round on that. But there is significant work already taking place to address that, which I'm sure Lucy could elaborate on if required. The additional work that we're proposing to do to explain the 20s proposal in more detail will probably take the form of a website with a little video explainer of what the benefits of 20s are. But what also crucially what stories approach to that will be in terms of consulting with local people before we implement it and that we're not proposing the blanket approach that it's not appropriate for all roads is the ones that the schools, the residential areas, the town centers and what have you. So each and every time that there is a 20 scheme proposed, we can refer people to that website that explains what the benefits are and why we approach it in the way that we do. Thank you very much. Now, Catherine, you've got a couple of other questions. Would you like to try and combine those? I will try. So far we have a strategy and I wondered at what point we could have the delivery plan which would include KPIs, obviously, which would measure, you know, explain what we're going to measure to track our ambition on this. For example, I think I've put in here that, you know, that we've used words like a high level of compliance and we would want to, I think, put a figure on that. And I think let's just get the answer to that one first and then keep going. Thank you very much. So, yes, we certainly do envisage that the activities that we have within the strategy will form the basis for an action plan, a delivery plan and we do have a matrix now added to the strategy that lists all the activities, which partner organization is responsible for each one and which components of the safe systems approach each one kind of addresses because some address more than one. So that's kind of like a delivery matrix, if you like, but then that would form a basis to create some sort of milestones if it's an activity with a, you know, a deadline or some numbers, numerics around those. Certainly we want to, and that will be scrutinized in the first instance by the road safe governance board, which has the senior decision makers from all the organizations on it. And, of course, in the future by this select committee if desired. So, yeah, that certainly hopefully will be the intention. As well as creating a monitoring on the data in road casualty terms within the strategy within section four, we outline that we will be producing fact sheets on data on the number of casualties that we have each year under a number of categories, demographics, road user behavior and each of the components of the safe systems. So that will be used to monitor our performance and the action plan to measure our delivery of the actions that we want to achieve. Regarding the threshold for a high level of compliance, we don't set a threshold for what a high level of compliance is for a speed limit, but we do measure speeds wherever there are concerns and prioritize interventions at the sites of the greatest speed and casualty problems. And I think it's very difficult to set a precise threshold because you may have mean average speeds of, let's say, 33 miles per hour in a 30 outside a school, and you may have mean average speeds of 33 in a 30 where it's a much more rural type feel to the area and it's not quite as built up. And obviously we would prioritize our resources at the school. So there's other factors that we need to take into account, as well as just pure numbers on speeding, such as the number of casualties as well and the presence of vulnerable road users at any one site. But we do measure it, and we do have a data-led, intelligence-led approach with our partners. Thank you. Lance, you had a follow up? Indeed. Thank you. So two questions. One is the desire is to reduce the deaths and serious injuries by 50% by 2035, which is effectively 10% a year for -- sorry, 5% a year for 10 years, a specific number. Is that the main measurement we could use, and can we expect to see a sort of step change each year over the 10 years, or do you see it very back-ended? The second question is the road-safe governance board I've not come across before, is that part of Surrey County Council, or is that an independent body? Would you see -- what do you see as the relationship between that board and this select committee? Okay, so regarding the data, we will be monitoring the reductions in care size as we go along, and we'll be disaggregating that down by different road user groups and demographics and components of the safe systems. And by doing that and looking at the long-term trends, we can see where we're achieving good reductions in those categories and where perhaps we're not, and therefore we can look at our activities and say, is this activity addressing that population, that road user group or not? And maybe we need to turn up the dial on some activities and turn down the dial on others, and that will be for offices to kind of work together across the partnership to come together and work out what we're going to do and submit that to the road-safe board. In terms of how that relationship works with this committee, well, first of all, the county council is represented on that partnership board by our cabinet member, and the work that we do and the work of that cabinet member is for scrutiny by this select committee. Okay. Thank you. The next question is from Mark Sugden. Mark. Thank you. I just have a quick follow-up on the question from Catherine. When we talk about high level of compliance with existing speed limits, in essence, what we're saying is that not the case, that it's a desire, but we really don't have measurements for the vast majority of roads. You indicated there are speed surveys, but how many speed surveys are done and how many roads are covered? So I just want to clarify that this high level of compliance and the desire for it is not something that can be measured, can it, for the vast majority of roads? I'm actually really proud of the amount of speed management work that we do in comparison to the local authorities. We've measured the speeds on thousands of roads, thousands of sites, I should say. We have a full-time member of staff who goes out with what we call speed detection radar boxes, and we strap them to street furniture or lighting columns without anyone really knowing it's there. And he has about 15 of those, and we're looking to buy some more. So we're rolling that out all the time in response to any concerns over speeding. And we've got this database as a result of wherever there is a concern over speeding, we can work out how bad it is, and we look at the number of casualties at that site. And then for each borough and district, we meet with the police every six months and say, Right, this is the latest picture in, say, Mole Valley or Tandridge, which sites need the most attention? So we have a data-led, intelligence-led, and we take into account local knowledge and the local road use as well as part of that. So I think we've got a very comprehensive system. We can supplement that with telematics data as well. This is where data is gathered on speeds from connected vehicles, from traffic master and companies like that, sat-nav companies, that overlay the actual speeds across the road network. So we can have a look at that, but that's not quite as accurate as a spot speed measurement using a speed detection radar box. So we can actually measure the speed levels across the network in a fairly comprehensive way. Mark, you've got another question. Thank you. I'm just looking at annex 2, the headline results from the consultation questions. Vision Zero is a very broad strategy that covers very many things, and an awful lot of results under certain areas are very positive. The area that is the most contentious, which I think Hugh alluded to, is the issue of safe speed, where the proportion negative of how satisfied are you that the measures we have proposed will ensure that more drivers will stick more closely to the speed limit is a negative. And also how do you feel about our proposed new approach to implementing 20 mile an hour speed limits, which is also a negative. Lots of other very positive numbers and other aspects. Three quick questions. You indicated in some instances the answers to the questions when you looked at the free form may be that people misunderstood the questions. But there were 3,600 responses, and there's only 135 or 4% of those where there is maybe a lack of clarity or misunderstanding. And you then indicated the way you're going to solve this is through enhanced communications. What I'm trying to get to the bottom of, is the issue lack of understanding and communication, or is there a fundamental disagreement from those people who responded to this to the proposed strategy? Sure. I think there is partly a lack of understanding because people in those free text box comments said, you know, I do, even though they clicked on the box that said they don't support 20 mile per hour, our policy on 20 miles per hour, they've then gone to elaborate to say, but I do support it so that it's not a blanket and I do support it in residential areas and outside schools and what have you. So I think clearly there was a misunderstanding. But I would also acknowledge that there is a population out there who are not in support. Absolutely. But the reasons they gave are along the lines of typically, it's not successful in reducing speeds. It isn't successful in reducing casualties. That's the opinion that they gave. And it creates more noise and pollution. Well, we know from comprehensive national and international research, that is simply not the case. The evidence says, you know, lower speed limits are successful in reducing speeds, and there's more and more evidence coming out of all sorts of places across the UK. And it is successful in reducing casualties and insurance claims. There's data coming out on insurance claims as well. And there is also comprehensive research on noise and pollution too. And this kind of approach forms an essential part of a comprehensive transport strategy that's there to support more walking and cycling and alternative modes as well. So I think people are against it. They quite clearly said that they are. But the evidence says otherwise. Chair, if I might just add, I mean, one thing throughout this consultation that really came through very clearly for me is we need to look at how we do consultations and change the way. This arbitrary yes/no, do you agree/disagree type thing clearly in this one was not helpful because the free text comments were clearly sharing people's actual views on where they would like to see various elements of the policy and so forth. So I think whether it understood, read the policy, didn't read the policy is kind of relevant. We need to take this away as an authority and say we haven't had the -- this hasn't been the best way of communicating what we are trying to achieve because we've had such a juxtaposition on answers from a yes/no to a free text. And it's the free text that's supporting what we're trying to do, whereas people have gone no as just a reaction to something else. So I would say we need to take this away. And when we look to do future consultations, we need to tailor it far more to what we are trying to achieve and communicate it in a better way rather than just putting the policy up. And maybe as Duncan mentioned, it does require an introductory video of these are the key points of what we are trying to achieve. We're seeing it when we try and do any forms of changes to the road layout, any placemaking schemes. A traditional set of plans and an online questionnaire just aren't cutting it anymore. It does require a more personal and a more varied medium to actually get communication across. So I think that's one that we're going to very much take away from this consultation and others. I've got a follow-up on this subject because as we've seen, 42% of respondents were either unconfident or very unconfident that the strategy would actually improve Surrey's road safety. And the primary reason given by respondents, they felt that road maintenance had a greater impact on road safety and that money would be better spent on fixing potholes, improving roads and so on. Should the highways improvement and maintenance program be given greater emphasis in this strategy to address this concern which has come directly from this consultation, albeit maybe in your views not directly related to road safety, but in the views of those residents it is? Yeah, I think of course road maintenance is crucial and it's really important for road safety. But this is a partnership road safety strategy, it's not a county council maintenance strategy. It doesn't mean that the maintenance work isn't going to be taking place and Lucy I'm sure will be able to elaborate on everything that we're doing in that area. But when we're working with partners on a road safety strategy, we don't want to dominate the text and the strategy with that pure activity that they're largely not involved in. That's a county council responsibility and our partners were very clear on that as well. So it is important but doesn't need to dominate this particular document. If I may just add to that, please. Yes. So in terms of the highway maintenance, we already have a strategy around asset management, how we look after our assets. That also is looking at the safety of users. So it is kind of not ignored in terms of our choices about how we carry out maintenance. As Duncan says, that is our own policy and approach. So it does it slightly separately to what we're doing here. I think the point that's already been made is when we're explaining how we're approaching road safety as a partnership, there's probably more we need to do to explain how we're tackling issues on maintenance to provide that confidence in terms of how we're looking after our roads, how we are intervening to make sure they're safe such as when we respond to fixing potholes or how we're improving the whole condition of the network that is slightly separate to what we're talking about in terms of the Vision Zero strategy. Okay. Lance. So there's clear evidence that reducing the speeds of vehicles on the roads will reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries. Is there any evidence that improving the maintenance of roads will improve that? I mean, is there any evidence that says the state of our highways is increasing the number of deaths and serious injuries? I can see that the rates are increasing and we know that the maintenance of the roads has been deteriorating. Is there a connection between the two? I don't have any data to hand on, but we do know that when collisions are recorded by the police, they put in a few tick boxes on what they think the causes may have been, and of course, if there's any serious incident, then it's forensically investigated. And they will let us know if there is a road defect that needs repairing urgently that may have been involved in causing or contributing to the serious incident. So we can look at the stats and we do know that, you know, road potholes and defects and things like that are occasionally mentioned in the accident or collision reports. So we can have a look at that, and it is an important factor, certainly. And I think, you know, the work to ensure that our footways and cycleways is important too, to make sure that they're usable as well from overhanging foliage, and I think there's a lot of work going on to try and rectify some of those issues. So I think it goes hand in hand together, and we absolutely need to have better road maintenance, which is happening alongside a road safety strategy. Catherine, you have another question? I did. Trying to get back to implementing the road safe target, so 50% reduction in road accidents by 2035, have you got an idea of how many new reduced speed limits would need to be implemented to achieve this? Just to try to get in terms of practically what changes would be needed to speed limits around the county to start approaching this strategy. And obviously there's a cost associated with that. Sure. Thank you. Safe speeds are one of the most important components of the strategy, of any Vision Zero strategy. But it's only one component, and I think it's very difficult to divide out which component is going to deliver at which amount, because they all work together. And collisions are multifaceted, and it could be that, you know, there's a defect with the vehicle combined with a defect on the highway, and that they were going too fast, and maybe they were tired, and maybe they'd had a drink that evening. You know, you don't know which one of those things in any one incident had been the overriding factor. But we do know that setting appropriate speed limits is not just about changing speed limits, it's about improving the compliance with those speed limits once you've set them correctly. But we do have a rural speed limit program as part of the strategy, and we've already changed the, we're kind of on a mission to get rid of the 60 mph speed limit, which is inappropriate for a lot of our rural roads, where it's kind of single track with passing places, for example. And having a 60 limit is just not appropriate for those kind of roads. And we've got some emerging data from the first tranche, which is starting to show that it has worked in reducing speeds somewhat. A little bit everywhere adds up to a large difference overall. So, I think setting those speed limits appropriately is going to be a huge part of this, but I couldn't say exactly how much will need to be done, but we will keep going until we've got rid of those 60 mph, and I think we'll keep going on, you know, wherever there's a demand for 20, if we put it in line with our policy, we know that that helps reduce casualties as well, in cooperation and consultation with local people. Catherine, did you want to follow on with your question about the social media polls? Is that okay? Fine. I'll pick up on that, if I may, because in polls that were conducted on social media particularly, there was consistently a majority of the respondents who were against 20 mph zones in residential areas, town centres, and around schools. Can you explain the results of that poll relative to the overall results? Who were the respondents on social media? Sure, yeah, thank you for that question. On those social media polls, which are kind of snapshot polls, we didn't actually ask any information on the demographics of the people responding to those. Some of those polls were sent out in a targeted way to certain groups that we wanted to hear more from, because they were what you might call seldom heard groups, perhaps. So there were younger people and parents and carers as well who we don't necessarily would respond to the full-blown consultation survey. But as to why their views were different, we can only surmise that those self-selecting respondents were different to those people responding to the commonplace web portal poll. No idea is a good answer. Cameron McIntosh, you have a question? Yep, thank you Chairman. I think it's already been touched on briefly by Duncan, but a relatively straightforward question around governance. So I'm guessing if you could provide some further clarity on the proposed governance structures, so who will be involved, and also how these relate to pre-existing structures as well, I think would just be really helpful to understand. Thank you. Yes, thank you for that question. So as part of the strategy and part of developing the strategy, we've started to set up or renew a governance board of senior decision makers from each of the organisations involved in delivering the strategy. So that includes our cabinet member for highways who's responsible for road safety, the police and crime commissioner, the assistant chief constable who's representing the police, and the chief fire officer as well. And their role is to scrutinise the delivery of strategy and to make major investment decisions. There is some money available from the road safe partnership which officers will use to, will bid to, and the governance board will decide on how that is spent with the police being the treasurer of that money. And then there'll be a strategy and delivery group of key officers from each of the organisations who will be working together on a more day-to-day basis on delivering road safety interventions. And we'll be meeting on a periodic basis to develop our plans and go forward and put them in front of the governance board on a periodic basis. And that'll include setting out a business plan, setting how the running costs of the road safe partnership will be paid for from part of the fees from diversionary courses, national driver improvement courses, such as speed awareness courses. And if there's any surplus left over from that, how that money's going to be invested. Thank you. Those questions were in essence dealing with the – I'm sorry. Oh, Jan. It's really not just a question, it's an observation. For the past year I've been driving regularly, nearly daily, to the Memorial Hospital at Teddington. And that takes me right the way through a whole 20 mile an hour, nothing more, nothing less. But what I have to say, people are mentioning potholes, what I've noticed is that borough, the road markings, brilliant. And that's where we're failing. I go to several places where it's all faded and you're trying to see what lane perhaps you should be in or not. Once you brighten up, in other words, double lines, the actual channels you're supposed to be in, I think that combines well. It isn't just potholes, I think it's the lack of the remarking on the roads. That's not – I don't think it's hugely expensive. But I did notice on my journey now going over to Kingston Bridge and on through Teddington, all 20. So therefore we go along, sailing along at 20, there isn't any accidents because we've all been shown what lane we're supposed to be in very clearly. And I think that's lacking in some areas in this county where the road markings have not been renewed for some while and it's looking a bit faded. That may help. All I can say, Chair, is that following the task in finish we've put a significant number of millions into road marking. Far more we spend on road marking than we do on grass cutting, for example. So all I can say is you can see that the lines, if you were driving through Rygate, they are being refreshed as we speak, so at the end of the day that is what we are doing. But I would urge the committee, if we could focus on the Vision Zero element of the partnership that we're working with and the speed limit policy, please. Thank you. We have a series of questions that have been submitted in terms of specifically the 20 mile per hour speed limits and the local consultation process on those. The first is from John, John Beckett. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Matt. The strategy refers to the need for 20 mile an hour speed limits to be self-enforcing. For the benefit of this committee and members of the public, what does self-enforcing actually mean? Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. So a self-enforcing speed limit is one where due to the physical nature of the road environment, drivers voluntarily choose a speed in compliance with the posted speed limit without the need for additional police enforcement. And that could be due to the width or alignment of road, form of visibility, the presence of parked vehicles or traffic calming. So what we're aiming to do with the speed limits that we set is not put them in so much lower than the existing speeds that will be ignored and brought into disrepute by people not feeling that they're credible. And therefore then asking for the police to make it work by providing enforcement because the police will not have the resources to do that, even if they wanted to. So what we need to do is put them in a way that they are self-enforcing without the need for additional police enforcement. And that means it's a better investment of public money because we're putting in speed limits that work. Thank you. I'll move on to Mark, who has a number of issues about the process of local community engagement in this process. Thank you. Yeah. In December, the committee recommended further work to clarify the process of local community engagement. Thank you very much for Annex 5 on that engagement. I'm seeking clarity in the sense that if I look at the desire, we already have on our website a document on setting local speed limits policy and how to go about it. And the first thing, and residents can actually go online at the moment and request a speed limit reduction. And step one, request to change a speed limit is received. It goes to highways or via the website or by calling the number. And then the highways engagement and commissioning team will then consider the request and if necessary will consult with the local member to decide whether to proceed with a full speed limit assessment. If I look at the process being proposed in Annex 5, first desire for a 20 mile an hour speed limit established. There's nothing that mentions the local councilor in there. It simply says this, that and the other. And then feasibility work is undertaken on options and scope. Speed surveys will need to be commissioned. And then after that informal engagement plan, officers will consult with a local divisional member. Now, I don't know how many requests we will get and how much demand there will be for speed surveys. And also the amount of money that we'll be able to implement these things. So my question is, it seems to me with a proposal that you're going to spend an awful lot of money getting to something that may never have been feasibly possible financially in the first place. So my question is, at what point will the divisional member be involved and could it be earlier than what is proposed in Annex 5? Sure. Under Item 2 in Annex 5, the second bullet point, we explained that the local member would be invited to put their local allocation towards the feasibility study. So the local member would be inherently part of that process. And if the local member didn't want to proceed, then obviously they don't have to. And that would be in light of the petition or lobbying that they may have received. But we'd be very happy to elaborate on this process or amend this process to make sure it's clearer that the local member is involved at the start. That wasn't our intention, but perhaps it doesn't come out of this text as strongly as it ought to for locally funded schemes, certainly. And in doing that, having this potentially two-stage process, ultimately you would save money if you do a feasibility study, look at the potential for a scheme, and then you realize, well, actually to do these additional roads would take a fair bit of extra money for traffic calming. So therefore, we'll reduce the scope and only do these roads. So it kind of saves you money on the way without going ahead with consultation on a scheme that couldn't be affordable anyway. So I think it's the intention of this that members are definitely involved right from the beginning. And Chad, if I might add, and the team wants to jump in, I think even just from my own personal experience, I fully expect that the vast majority of requests for any speed limit change comes from the divisional member to start with rather than directly off our website. And as Duncan has outlined, and he's nodding to that statement, so that's always good, and on your point, I fully expect that the divisional member will be notified, as Duncan has mentioned, either for cash as for your allocation, there's no other way of saying that, or actually just notifying your advocacy to say they have had this, have you as a divisional member had any comments or approaches from members of the public to gauge the level of interest. So I think it's inherently in there, but if members would like that to be more formally written, I'm sure we can absolutely change that. But as I say, I think you as members actually approach us far more with these requests than members of the public. This is just for my education, but also because I get asked it regularly by members of the public who have asked for speed assessments, and we get the results of the speed assessments. And the primary factor is mean speed, as I understand it. But the second thing that we look at is the 85th percentile. This causes me some real problems when I'm providing responses to residents and where we've done a speed survey. I can think of a local example where the mean speed is 30 and a half, but the 85th percentile is 36 and a half. And we say, well, the mean speed is fine, there is some speeding, but not something we would take action on. And then I'm making an assumption, which I'd like clarity on, that if the 85th percentile is 36, then there's 15% from 85 to 100, if I'm correct, that are above that. So we give an answer that says the mean speed is 30, but actually the speed of an awful lot of cars could be significantly higher. And I have to say, I find that difficult to explain to residents when we say really there isn't much of an issue because of the mean speed. Can you just clarify why we look at the 85th percentile and how we handle something where the gap between mean and 85th is more than, say, a couple of miles per hour? Thank you. And Duncan, could I just ask that for the benefit of not only the room, but any members of the public watching, that you give the answer in plain English. Sure. Thank you. So in direct response to that request, just to clarify, the 85th percentile speed is the speed above which the fastest 15% of vehicles are travelling. So we look at that as well as the mean speed when we're looking at what interventions would be appropriate or how much priority should be given to a site. Because if you look at simply -- because it gives you an idea of the spread of the speeds at a single location. So the mean speed could actually be reduced because it's quite a congested location and so there could be occasionally stationary queuing traffic. So mean speeds are automatically quite low in peak hours. But in free-flowing conditions, perhaps later in the evening, the speeds might go up a lot higher and therefore you get a much higher 85th percentile speed at some locations compared to others. And that's important for us to know and that's important for us to help us decide what level of attention that site needs. So if it didn't have such a high level of 85th percentile speed and the mean speeds were fairly low, then perhaps we wouldn't prioritize that site. But another site which has the same mean speed but a much higher 85th percentile speed, we absolutely, as you say, know that there is a smaller population who are going much, much too fast. And therefore we might still want to prioritize that with our police colleagues to do something about it. So it just adds additional information and an idea about what we need to do at that site. And if we're looking at engineering measures, it would also inform us of what type of engineering measures might be necessary to get those speeds down. So we might need more substantial engineering measures to get the speeds down if we do have the higher level of speed. This is the sort of thing I think we could, you know, add to our website explanations and direct people to to help them understand how we kind of make our decisions on a day-to-day basis and work with our police colleagues on managing speeds. Because I know that clearly is of prime interest to a lot of our residents. Richard, next question. Richard Tier. Richard, microphone. No, that's fine. I'm happy to pick up on that one. The question that we had looked at here was can the strategy and the relevant annex be amended to make clear that approval will only be given to 20 mile per hour schemes where members can demonstrate overwhelming local support for introducing such a scheme. So what is the level of support because I was discussing with residents in one area just the other evening and make the point that a consultation isn't just for residents of that area. It's for all users of the public roads in that area. It's an area with a school. So, you know, there'll be different opinions from different people, not just residents. So what is this? What's the threshold? Thank you. I think this is a really important question. So thank you for this one. I don't think it is helpful to define what level precisely local support is required. And that is for exactly what you're saying. You know, it's because anyone can respond to a local engagement on consultation on speed limits, not just people who live locally. And there's bound to be for different schemes. There's bound to be different local stakeholder groups that have different views. So you might have, for example, residents or parents and carers of school children and the wider school community in an area, local businesses. And then there's people who don't live on those affected roads but regularly walk, cycle or drive on them. So I think it's important that we consider not just the level of support among different stakeholder groups, but it's also important for local members to consider the veracity of their arguments. For example, only a small number of people might suggest a change in the scope of a scheme, and that might be a very, very good suggestion. But they might be in a minority group. And there might also be some very important legitimate concerns over road safety held by a smaller group. So even though they're a small part of the survey response, you might look at what they're saying and think, actually, we haven't thought of that, and their idea is a jolly good one. And, therefore, I think it's for members to take into account the level of support but also the views of different stakeholder groups and take that decision themselves rather than be dictated to by a policy with a twinkle in my eye and love in my heart. If we just said it's a percentage number who need to support it, we wouldn't need to have local members to take the decision. So basically it's a valued judgment. Yeah. And I think it's important to take those factors into account, and what we will be able to do with the consultation responses on any scheme is draw out what those different stakeholder groups are as well as the themes that are brought out from any consultation responses for the local member to then decide, taking into account officer's advice, research, and evidence as well. Richard, you wanted to come back in? Thank you, Chair. Apologies for the earlier lapse. I'm really interested about the engagement with local councils, particularly parish councils, which I have three in my area. And I think were we to get the policy out to them, they'd have a better understanding of the process, and we'd get better engagement as divisional members with them. So can I ask you if that could be part of the process, please? Certainly. I think we would be delighted to have the views of parish councils, and they can help disseminate any proposals to local people as well through their own media channels. So I don't have a problem mentioning that within our proposed process, that if there is parish councils there, it will take special care to make sure that they're aware of any proposals and that their views are taken into account as part of the consultation process. Yes, thank you. Lance? So my observation is when we do parking, a very similar process takes place. We generally have an informal process. We sort of test the opinion of the local residents before we move ahead with a formal consultation. And I have to say that works very well from my experience, but there's no suggestion in that, but there has to be overwhelming support. So I absolutely agree with your -- it is down to the member to weigh up the pros and cons of the information and the feedback. But the entire observation I make in the parking situation, we have a parking officer who actually pulls all that together, does the informal consultation. It's not clear to me as we go through this particular section who is going to be doing these consultations. Is there going to be an officer deployed to do these things, because it's going to be quite the same sort of level of activity as the parking consultations. So have you got any thoughts on who would be doing these consultations? Sure, thank you. I think that's a helpful question, because it helps us elaborate on the process a little bit more. If it's the local member wanting to promote a scheme, it's going to probably be the highway's engagement and commissioning team colleagues who administer that budget on behalf of local members who will be undertaking that work. But there will be other schemes promoted by more centrally focused based teams, active travel teams and road safety team who will have officers and do have officers who will be going forward with that process. I think what's key is working with the local member to clarify with them and consult with them on what extent of local engagement they envisage needing to take place on any particular scheme. There may be some schemes where you have, you know, only one or two or three roads where a 20 makes a lot of sense and it's probably not that controversial, in which case you might say, well, we don't need to go overboard with an informal consultation, we can just do a fairly straightforward version. Whereas there may be some other schemes over a much wider housing estate area or a town centre where you say, right, we need to have an engagement plan that involves a web portal to get people's views, but we maybe have some face-to-face engagement events as well, which show the plans. There may be more than one option that we want to put in front of people informally and there's maybe a parish council that we need to go and see or a residence association that we need to see and I think we need to work with the local member to decide what we ought to do in that sense to make sure we've got an overview of what people think and what the arguments are before we proceed to the next stage, which is more costly, the statutory consultation, which is much closer to what the final scheme could be. So I think that pragmatic approach is exactly the right approach, because I've implemented a 20-mile-an-hour scheme and I know Richard has in his area, and that pragmatic approach works very well. What I'm just slightly worried about is the way this appendix is laid out, it looks like you have to do this every time. So even if you want to do a very small scheme, you've got to go through this massive, what looks like a massive consultation, but you seem to be saying that's not the case, which I'm very content with. John, you had a question on the role of involvement of councillors. Has that discussion more or less covered that point or did you have any other point? Yeah. The discussion actually has answered the question. I was just obviously just like reassurance that the councillor role is actually included in Section 5. Thank you. Yeah, if I may, I think the first bullet point under Section 3 says officers will consult with the local divisional member on the level of informal engagement required for the proposed scheme, so that's the very first thing that that section says, so, you know, absolutely. That's Section 3 of Annex 5. Yeah, sorry. Thank you. Mark? Yes, thank you. So my question is on the road safety working groups, which currently exist, I believe, and do meet every six months or so in each of the 11 districts and boroughs. So my three questions here are, and I'm not interested in the individual names, but just who actually sits on that in terms of, I don't know, job title, I know it's police and you'll have road safety people. I think you have highway engineers. So it's like, I am unclear because they are informal meetings with no published agendas or minutes. I'm unclear as to who sits on them. The key focus, which I think is collision hotspots where. So I don't know how broad the brief is of what's discussed. Often when I do raise issues of speeding, it says it will be referred to this working group. But how can Councillors work better with it and how can we get more information on the outcomes of those informal meetings? Thank you. Thank you for the question. So the road safety working groups are hosted by the road safety team, my team, and operational officer meetings where you have road safety engineers from my team alongside police road safety specialists as well, casualty reduction police officers and traffic management officers from the police. And the road safety team looks at maps of collisions across a district or borough, identifies collision hotspots, clusters of dots on the map or routes where there may be more dots than we would prefer. But also are happy to add to the agenda any sites where there have been serious public concerns over road safety where sometimes perhaps they haven't resulted in injury collisions. But there clearly is a pattern of collisions because of what the evidence the local people can present to us in the form of photographs or reports. And in those meetings we work together with police and we'll visit the sites, we'll look at potentially the speeds, commission speed surveys, and look at what patterns there may be. And if there is a pattern, that's interesting to us because there's usually something we can do as a solution to address that pattern because it suggests what the problem is. So we diagnose the problems and come up with solutions. We have a list of then schemes that we want to implement using the budget that's allocated centrally for those types of schemes. And we'll put them on a list and look at the cost benefit of each one and then prioritize for the following year or if we have money available and can deliver it within the year to deliver those schemes on a priority basis. We also look at the opportunity to link in with other schemes that might be taking place so there's a major scheme taking a place along that route or major maintenance. We say whilst you're doing that can you put this in as well to save money and to be joined up. In terms of how members can be informed of what we're doing, whenever we're doing a scheme I ask the team to make sure the local member is informed of any road safety scheme in their division that we're proposing. And to explain the reason and rationale for that so that you're informed in advance and I'll reemphasize that to them following your question. We're also happy to share the minutes of any of those road safety working group meetings. They would be available under FOI anyway and we're very happy to take any suggestions for sites from members to be looked at and we look at residents' suggestions and concerns as well. Next could I invite Jonathan Essex who has a question on 20 mile per hour schemes. Thank you and thanks also to inviting me as a visiting member of your committee as co-proposer of this vision zero motion to council. And just first I just want to say I really do support the comments made by others about the need to look at road maintenance from a road safety point of view as well. But clearly that's a separate scrutiny item and I guess maybe you might have an opportunity to look at that at some point in the future. Certainly I would say cycling along a cycle lane and a pothole doesn't seem to fit the specification but is still there. Discourages cycling and causes a road safety issue for cyclists was to suddenly swerve into traffic or even onto a pavement at that location. Maybe that's a separate issue but I think there are areas where road safety and highway maintenance are logically linked together. The question I'd like to ask though is about paragraph 43 of this report which notes the intention for 20 mile per hour schemes to be on the right roads. How will the council determine what these right roads are? Presumably they are the roads needed to enable vision zero target to be met so it's not just which roads it's how many roads. So you know what quantum of roads across Surrey would need a reduced speed limit if we are to meet this target. Otherwise we risk having a vision, a target which is really good or be it five years after the Stockholm deadline of 2030. But then a set of actions that may not actually lead us to meeting that target. I think it would be good for this committee to be assured by the end of this meeting that not only have we committed to the target. But we are confident that the actions in this strategy are sufficient to meet the target both in what we propose, how much we propose and how much money sits behind it. So my question is how do we determine what the right roads are, how many, where to enable this vision zero target to be met. And how do we include as has been alluded to not just the roads outside schools immediately be the roads around that. So we've got 400 I think odd schools around Surrey so presumably to start with we'd want to do a mini zone of 21 hour not just outside the school itself but in the surrounding areas. I don't know how many of our 400 odd schools have got 21 hour speed limit patches around them already or if not how many needs to be done and you know what would the cost of doing just that be. So my question really is what do you mean when you say right roads. Yeah, thank you very much for the question. I think our policy emphasizes that the focus is on residential areas outside schools and town centers. But I think there will be a discussion on more main roads, leading into those town centers, and I think in some areas where the speeds are already low, then why not make it 20 to be contiguous with the surrounding roads, but there may be other roads where it's a more strategic route where the speeds are higher, and it would take quite a lot of engineering to change that and it may not be considered appropriate on a more strategic route, perhaps on the more outskirts of towns where there's less football, where it may be, unless cycling where it may not be appropriate or desire as desirable to make it a 20. So I think it's a case by case basis, and it's not a blanket approach that we're proposing it's down to consultation engagement with the local member and the local people as to what roads, we really mean. But I take your point, particularly on, you know, if you're doing in roads in and around schools, you need to consider the wider area and Earl's Wood is a good example of that whole area is 20. For example, if you were to take, you know, 500 meters around every school in, let's say, Guilford, well, that's pretty much the whole of the residential and town center area of Guilford covered, if you were to do that. So, and that was probably that would probably be the right thing and desirable thing to do, but there may be some main roads coming into Guilford, where you may say well actually 20 wouldn't quite be as desirable as appropriate on those roads, but let's measure the speeds and see what people think and what it can work out what it would take to get those roads down to 20 successfully, and we could consider it on a case by case basis. Thank you. That's really helpful in, in, in sort of articulating where this might be going, I guess my remaining question and maybe it will be picked up by others. Late in the discussion is really how many right roads do we need to include to actually achieve our, our target by our deadline. But, but maybe others will pick up on that. Thank you, Jonathan. The next question we have is from Steven Cook C. Steven. Yes, thank you, Chairman. My question relates to speed management plans for particular areas where there are major speeding and casualty problems. Two questions. How does this process link into the road safety working groups that we've just heard about, and how will deliberations around adoption of 20 miles an hour speed limits tie into that process. And where are the speed management plans published and can counselors have access to them. Thank you very much for the question. So, speed management plans, we almost part of the road safety working group agenda, we've up till now had a speed management plan meeting with officers in the morning, and then the same district or borough road safety working group in the afternoon. And then the information from the speed management plan meeting where we're saying well there's a road here that needs some engineering measures will refer it to the road safety working group, and that's how we do it. We're trying to combine those into one meeting from now on, just to make it more efficient. So that inherently part of that, that same process. Those meetings are very much more about the speed management plan meetings are very much more about getting better compliance with the existing speed limits that are out there, rather than setting new speed limits. However, the road safety working group, if there is a casualty problem which we think would be ameliorated by putting in a lower speed limit or changing the speed limit, then that would be a scheme that they could then consider putting forward on the list. Sorry, the final question that you had, I forget, sorry. No, the second question was really are they published and can members have access to them? Yeah, the speed management plan is basically a very large spreadsheet of all the sites where we've done some speed measurements and looked at the number of casualties, and it's updated on a daily basis pretty much when new speed data comes in. So they're not published for that reason. However, we're very happy to provide a snapshot of any moment in time of what the speed management plan is saying. It will be redacted because there's some important confidential operational details that the police have in that spreadsheet as well. So we wouldn't give you the full version, but we would certainly be very happy to show you the sites that we think need the most attention in any member's division or any district or borough and which sites we are prioritizing and what we're proposing to do at each of those sites. Okay, thank you. Catherine, you had a follow-up about collision data. Yes, thank you. I think this has been covered in that Duncan mentioned was that members, if there are concerns that have been raised to members about various junctions or things like that, that we could communicate them to Duncan and your team would have a look. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman, and just to follow up on that. So when the every six month road safety working groups meet and the focus is on collision data, where is that data coming from? Is it police reports? Is it road insurance claims that might have been submitted? The use of crash map, which is maybe 18 months out of date? And what I'm trying to understand is where is the data coming from? The veracity of that data and what data won't be captured. I'm assuming if there's an accident, someone doesn't make an insurance claim, then that's not captured. What I do encourage with residents who say there's an issue and there's been a near miss or something is I do encourage them, even if it's for a near miss or some to report it to the police in the hope that that might be logged. But I'm just trying to understand the data that you have that you are using to determine these decisions. Sure. Thank you. So there's a national system that the police use for collecting collisions where someone has been injured and they have and they fill in a comprehensive set of forms and fields whenever there is a personal injury collision that is reported to them that they become aware of. We don't get to see anything from insurance companies on collisions. That's often been requested by the road safety industry, but that's confidential data that they do not share with us and never have. The data in crash map is the same data that we get from the police because that is compiled by the Department for Transport published on the Department for Transport website and is open data and then companies or organizations like the one that create crash map use that to create crash map. But it all derives from the same place. It takes them longer to compile it because that's a national system. We usually get data from the police that's three to six months old. So a collision takes place. It has to be the data around it has to be validated and loaded up onto GIS mapping and we share that mapping system with the police and it takes them that that bit of time to make sure it's all accurate and loaded up. So that's where it comes from. So it's reasonably up to date. But I'd just like to add that we don't always wholly rely on the collision data from the police because we do accept that there are lots of damage only collisions where no one is injured, which we don't have any data on whatsoever. But there can be collision hotspots where the public are very concerned and vehicles have, for example, overturned, but people have walked away from it. And that's understandably of great concern. And where there are such patterns of collisions, we have put in schemes. There's been one on a bend in Tandridge where there was no personal injury collisions, but the local landowner could send us about 10 photographs of vehicles in their field and we could see clearly that there was a pattern of collisions that needed addressing. And that's the key, having a pattern. Any one collision is just like a random event and we don't know really how we could stop that unless it's part of a pattern and history of collisions that say, well, clearly they're losing control on this bend. What can we do to make that bend safer? Thank you very much. Now we move on to a section in terms of funding for all of this. Mark, you had a question on funding. Yes. The question is, do we have enough money to fund the strategy? There is reference in the document to the increased funding that the cabinet member provided across a number of line items in 2022. But, of course, we are already halfway through 24/25 and most of those additional funding screens were for three years. So 18 months has already gone. So is the current annual budget for road safety schemes at 200,000 pounds in the medium-term financial plan rises to 400,000 next year and then 500,000 for the three years they're out? So there is a provision over five years. The school road safety schemes, which I think were a million over three years, currently there's nothing in the plan beyond 25/26, although obviously there will be opportunities in the future, maybe to add money in there. And then the road safety speed management funding, which was again over three years at 1.1 million a year, sort of stops at the moment in 25/26. So a lot of the money that's referenced has already been spent and committed. So my question is, is there enough money? And if there isn't, what can we do about it? And then I do note in one of the documents about the source of funds, my question is, if you come and say, well, a counselor can fund this from our delegated funds, the maximum we can spend on ITS schemes is 40,000 pounds, which might get me two lines of a zebra crossing or something of the like. So I don't wish to be facetious, but the question is, how can counselors access some of the central funds or bid for some of those central funds beyond the countywide ITS scheme? And fundamentally, do we have the financial resources to implement this strategy? Thank you. So thank you for the question. I think by the end, just to provide a general update, by the end of the current financial year, we are expecting to have invested the bulk of that 3 million road safety outside schools budget on really valuable schemes, about 29 and more besides schemes outside schools to support walking to school crossings, traffic calming speed limits. And we also expect to have invested that the bulk of the 3 million pounds that was allocated towards speed management and road safety capital schemes as well. And a large portion of that has gone on average speed cameras, but also some substantial traffic calming schemes where, you know, engineering should be the first point of call and cameras come as a last resort. And those are going to have a significant difference. They're going to make a massive difference to road safety and that's been really successful. Currently there's a 500,000 pound budget within the capital pipeline for 20 mile an hour schemes from the current financial year for five years for 2.5 million pounds in total. So that's in the capital pipeline, but I think I would say that discussions are ongoing as to what budgets will be available in future years. And I personally will be making the case for continuing funding for road safety, but it's not my decision to make and there's lots of pressure on budgets across the county council. Jonathan Essex also had a query on the 2.5 million pounds that you've just mentioned and also another question. Thank you. It's really 2.5 million. How did you get to 2.5 million? How much is being proposed to be spent on 20 mile an hour aspects and how many on the many other aspects of this work within this plan? And how did you get to that number? How can you assure us as a scrutiny committee that that is the right amount to be putting in this budget and when will you review when we are due to review whether that's sufficient or not? Yeah, I mean, for example, in recent years, we've had 1 million pound a year for counts county wide counselor integrated transport schemes, which have been spent on things, including 21 hour zones and I guess the sort of things that would improve road safety. So based on how much those have cost over the last couple of years, how have we proposed 2.5 million is the right amount to right size the overall road safety budget such that we can deliver on the targets in this strategy. Thank you for that. Thanks for that question. We need to get this policy approved as yet. So the 2.5 million that's put in the pipeline is an indicative amount. It's a marker. We know we need to have some budget available to deliver should this policy get approved. So, as with all the capital budgets that will get reviewed. I think it's not just the two and a half million that would be in the pipeline as we've already explained. There are other amounts across various budgets and the zone allocations as well as other schemes, which are also delivering 20. We are at the early stages, aren't we, in terms of agreeing this revision to the policy. So I, we can't answer the question right now if that's enough to deliver this overall strategy, we need to factor in how all of the elements being delivered across all of the activities that the Harris transportation service actually take, but we will keep that under review. Obviously, and make the case to make any changes as needs be, but it's that budget is available for us to use specifically against the change to this policy, which is a helpful start. We will, you know, time will tell in terms of the volume of requests we get for the 20 mile an hour, I suppose, to determine whether that's sufficient or not know that budget process setting annually is helpful in that respect will get a sense of how far that meets the demand under the monitoring that we've already talking about. I'm still a bit confused as to how much money we have that's approved and how much money we may need to bid for. So, as Duncan's just said, the school road safety schemes, additional money is to all intense committed the road safety speech management additional funds, which were granted, and which we all supported is all committed. And there's nothing else in the pipeline in any long term budget, I can see with money's allocated against those two line items. Then we have road safety schemes, which is 200,000 this year, but it is in the forward plan 400,000 next year and then three years of 500,000. So when we're talking about this two and a half million or whatever money is available, I'm unsure where it is, what I what I see, and that 200,000 for this year may be committed as well already. So, everything's committed as we stand at the moment halfway through financial year. And if I look at 2526 on what's in the medium term financial plan unless there's a line items that I haven't seen, we simply have 400,000 pounds. So, how can we with just 400,000 pounds if that's the case, implement this vision, at least in the short to medium term. Before you answer that, I think Jonathan Essex has a follow up question basically on the same issue. Okay, thank you very much. So, the two and a half million is is an indicative amount thing that's good to know. Is it available to use now in this financial year. When can we start spending it, and just to comment on the additional monies on my understanding is this motion was on against the backdrop of plateauing data on serious accidents and fatalities over the last couple of years so my presumption is the current status of spending is what allows us to stay on that profile, not getting worse, but not getting better. So the amount of money we've got to improve things from the current status to have serious and fatal road traffic accidents across the whole of Surrey. I guess our indicative pitch is two and a half million pounds, accepting this other money but that other money keeps us where we are. So to improve we bought two and a half million from when. And may I ask maybe it's a written question, how you came up with that indicative amount and if for example you think it's roughly the right number or what we need to increase it by an order of magnitude to get near the scale of improvement ramp up to achieve this target. Are you envisaging that we spend the same amount in each of the next 10 years to get to having road traffic accidents that serious and fatal, or are you thinking it's two and a half million indicative and that's roughly what we need going forward, just to get a feel of where you think we are, because presumably to put down that number, as well as just say I need an indicative number to go in a budget, you presumably have based on something. Could you just run through what you've based it on and how much, the earlier question, how much is it on 21 hour speed limit reductions in areas and how much on other things. May I just ask the follow up question at the same time. In paragraph 9.7 of the draft strategy you talk about increased funding for substantial screens and in 9.10 you give an example of one where we've got some funding from the government, not Surrey, from the government on the A25 from Dorking to Rigate. It would be useful to know how many other routes of similar or higher level of accident risk you think we have in Surrey that needs funding, and whether we can ask the government for funding for those, or we have already, or indeed for money for the health benefits of this whole program, maybe they might match fund our two and a half million, but if we don't ask you don't get. Thank you. I think the cabinet member has some comments. Thank you, Chair. I'll start with Councillor Sugden first, if I may. So when we agreed the additional capital for the road safety outside schools of the £3 million, so £1 million per year to deal with the backlog of safety assessments that we had, we also agreed for an uplift of the central road safety budget to £500,000 a year. It was £200,000, if I remember correctly, and we increased it at the end of that capital spend to £500,000. So that's ongoing. That is committed, that is in the budget. The amounts that Councillor Essex is talking about of the £2.5 million is purely for the 20 mile an hour implementation. It is pipeline. It is a suggestion. It is not committed. And we're currently going through the capital budget reset at the moment, the cabinet meeting next week to have that discussion. Quite a few things are on the table. Let's put it that way. We need to get our capital borrowing costs down. This authority has been funding majority of its capital, particularly in highways and transport through borrowing. And I think the committee needs to have a think and discussion about what are the priorities. Is it extra money for road safety outside schools? Is it purely for 20 mile an hour implementation? Or do you want to see the money going on the highways, the potholes, the lining and so forth? So tough decisions, I would say, are ahead. These are, it might seem like small amounts of money, but it is all capital borrowing. We do need to get that down. And I think that we need to have a frank discussion about do we want what is currently in the pipeline and uncommitted to actually come into the main budget? What I would say, in addition, so that 500,000 pounds, which is already committed, is for a mixture of 20 mile an hour road safety, depending on what the pressures are in that year. So it can be used for a mixture of items. But again, the sums that are in there are just Surrey County Council's contribution. We work with Surrey Police. We work with our other partners. We have Community Infrastructure Levy. We have Section 106. There is other funding there. And with this whole zero vision policy, it is about the partnership and all of us working together with our various pots of money to deliver. It's not solely on the County Council to deliver everything. And that shouldn't always be our funding that is first on call for that delivery unless it's particularly in our remit of responsibility. So I just want to caution members there and just say we have got funding in the budget. We are applying for additional funding. But this committee will need to decide what are the priorities. Is it everything, which I'm sorry you're not going to get, but I'm not going to get as much as I will ask. Or are there specific areas of priority that we would like to focus and bid for that funding, particularly around the capital amount? Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Matt. Now, we have a section of questions dealing with communications and engagement. I feel that a lot of those have already been answered. So unless there are any particular points on those and also a couple of questions on where the strategy aligns with Department for Transport and Government. Given that we're meeting as the King is speaking in Parliament, I don't think we're going to get a lot of information. But Mark, you had a question just on aligning what we're doing here with the Department of Transport thus far. Yeah, I mean, the Department of Transport previous government updated in March 2024 the transport circular of January 2013. It is referenced in the in the draft strategy. And I think the reference talks to it. The strategy is more or less in line with the DFT circular updated circular. My question is, does it fully align? And if it doesn't, what elements, if any, of substance are not mentioned? One particular area in the DFT circular talks about variable speeds in that you may rather than have a speed limit of 20 mile all the time. You might have variable limits at particular times of the day, which might be more cost effective, easier to do in certain locations if that merited. I don't see anything about variable speed limit signage or anything in the documents. It's just a question of interest. Before you answer, Cameron had an aligned question. It's very aligned and definitely in a similar vein, Chairman. My question was really around what is the likely impact of a new government on this particular policy area and whether any engagement has started with new ministers in the DFT. Also, Andy wanted to come in. Thank you, Chairman. I have a question about the principle set out in page 97 of the report. I think they're very useful, actually. They're very clear. They set out the approach that the council has towards this area. And they're becoming more understood, actually. The background to my question really is that we have a 20 mile an hour speed limit in central Farnham, which was widely consulted on. I certainly supported it. It was supported by the population. It was supported by the police. The one problem we're having actually relates to really the final part of the principles, what happens if there's still problems with the implementation. And the only problem we're having with implementation, actually, and Duncan is probably aware of this, late in the evening, in fact, you do get a few irresponsible people that completely ignore the 20 mile an hour and are regularly observed speeding down a couple of central roads at 50 or even 60 miles an hour. And this caused outrage from a small number of people who have been writing to the police commissioner and pestering me and others and so on. Now, I want to actually ask them to actually come up with a little bit more evidence because at the moment it's, you know, word of mouth stuff that this is happening, although I've seen it myself. But if we can get that evidence, I've asked Duncan about the last point in the principles, which says any new speed limit will be evaluated to check how successful it's been. And if necessary, further supporting measures will be considered to improve compliance. That's the one thing that I need to be able to say to the residents that we won't completely ignore this. We can't rely on the police because clearly they're not going to do anything about it. And the other things that we can do, it doesn't relate to Duncan's point you made earlier in the meeting about we've got these boxes that we can put in. That would be extremely valuable, but you probably want some evidence before you do that that it's necessary to do. So if I could just ask for your comments on that, Duncan, if I may. Yeah, taking each of those questions in turn, probably if I may, Chair, just respond. I think there was another question from Councillor Essex on the DFT central funding, on the DFT safer roads funding. So we were given an allocated £1.8 million between Dorking and Rygate because the DFT's agents for this work, the Road Safety Foundation, had identified the top worst routes in the whole country and had identified that as a stretch and then bestowed money upon local authorities for us to sort those stretches out. At the moment they've had another round of doing that and they haven't identified any further roads in Surrey for that kind of funding. That suggests that, and that's because we don't have any worst roads in terms of road safety. That doesn't mean we can't do our own local analysis and use that information from the Road Safety Foundation to decide which roads we should be doing next and which stretches need our attention. And that will form part of our work with the Road Safety Working Group. We're going back to the next questions after that. The Department for Transport did issue an update to their circular as part of their plan for drivers. And I would simply say that update very much aligns with the approach being taken by Surrey in what we've proposed. I don't think there are any significant differences. Variable speed limits, we do have one in Surrey not far from here on Pendleton Road. It doesn't really make that much difference. At the school journey times, when it's the most intensely busy, speeds are slow anyway. And we find that maintaining those signs has become a real pain because they need to be set and reset. The timings need to be set as to when the time comes in and when they break. Then there's a problem that the speed limit, the official speed limit isn't signed correctly. And the amount of effort to try and just keep one scheme going for very little benefit is disproportionate and not effective. What you're better off doing is getting a permanent speed limit installed correctly with supporting measures if you need to. And then once it's in properly, it works forever without any additional attention. The latest government policy, I have looked at what the Labour government's manifesto said. And it says, and I quote, Labor will maintain and renew our road network to ensure it serves drivers, cyclists and other road users, remains safe and tackles congestion. I think it's just too early to say what that will mean in practice. It sounds very worthy words. The expression motherhood and apple pie comes to mind. I couldn't possibly comment. The implementation evidence, absolutely. I think it's an essential part of any speed limit change, whether it be 20, 30 or 40. But once you've done it, you go and measure it and see if it's worked. And if it hasn't worked, if those speeds haven't come down successfully, you've got two choices. You can either do something additionally to get the speeds down, maybe some engineering measures or narrow the road, whatever might be feasible. Or you put the speed limit back up to where it was before and accept that it's not going to work. Or I suppose the third option is you accept that it's not worked and leave it as it is. But that's not a satisfactory outcome either. Now, Catherine wanted to come back, but I think after that I'm then going to move to our discussion on recommendations. So, Catherine, last points. Thank you. I understand obviously that the strategy is a partnership with Surrey Police, but I'm just interested to know where do you see the greatest impact for achieving the strategy? Which organisation do you see it sitting with? I don't think you could say that one organisation has a bigger area. I think the two main organisations are the Surrey County Council and the police, of course. And, you know, helped by fire and rescue colleagues and the police and crime commissioner and national highways, they managed their roads. I don't think it's one or the other. These are components and we've decided to deliberately call them components in this iteration of the strategy. In the original one we called them pillars. But we had an internal discussion, we said, you know, we need to ensure that we get the message across that these things work together because collisions are multifaceted. And it could be down to somebody going too fast who's a bit tired, who's had a drink and there's a defect on the road and there's something wrong with the car. So any one of those factors could have caused it and there are different organisations and agencies who have got a responsibility to deal with any one of those factors. So it has to be a partnership approach and it has to be a joint strategy and a joint commitment from those organisations to delivering the results. So it's an impossible question to answer, I think, genuinely, other than to say we need to work together and I'm really pleased that we do have that high level commitment from the senior decision makers in both organisations, the police and crime commissioner and our cabinet member here who are, you know, setting out that they're committed to delivering this, which is great for us and it will make a real difference. Thank you very much, Duncan, for fielding the vast majority of that discussion. Committee, we now move on to a discussion about how we want to respond to this. And I think the fact that we have been discussing it for the best part of two hours emphasises the importance I think we all give to this road safety strategy. Now, we've got up on screen the draft that had been compiled before the meeting, but that's now open to discussion. Can we move to paragraph 4? Paragraph 4, if we could just say there at the beginning, rather than believes there should be, simply refer to what we were talking about earlier is the notes that the public would like to see. Because as we were discussing, roads maintenance is important, but it is a separate issue from road safety policy as such. But I think we should refer to the public feedback from the consultation. If we can go back, we'll go through the items from the top. Okay, supports vision zero road safe strategy in broad terms and the consultative approach that is being undertaken that notes the public concern about the impact of this strategy and likelihood of meeting the target to reduce KSIs by 50%. What we were discussing, that is sort of almost pasting over the concerns that we were discussing earlier because a lot of the public were very concerned and didn't actually believe that this strategy would have the effect that is being sought. And I'm just wondering if we can just make that paragraph slightly clearer to reflect our discussion about public concerns about whether the impact of this strategy, in essence, will succeed or words to that effect. Sorry, Lance, you wanted to come in. I was quite comfortable as it was. I think we all have a concern about whether this will actually deliver the result in 2035 and the steps on the journey to get there. But the feedback from the general public is their perception of the information they've been given. So I wouldn't like it to go too much in that direction. An acknowledgment of it. Could we also acknowledge that from what the team has said, there is an intention to communicate to the public so that they -- so that the concern about the success of the strategy -- I mean, we all have a concern that there will be enough -- I think there will be enough money behind this to succeed. But the public concern was that, you know, based on some erroneous information like 20 mile an hour limits don't reduce collisions. And there's a commitment from the team to get more communication out there to help the public understand the facts a bit better. You'll see that Dilip has already added in blue to the second paragraph reference to support future work to improve consultation methodologies. But you're right. I think we need to have, you know, sort of -- I'm sure the team will do it anyway. But to improve the consultation -- not consultation, but the communication with the public in terms of how this is -- Duncan is nodding -- how this is now presented to the public on an ongoing basis. Improve communication with the public. Richard. Chairman, I think it's very important to add a line about the funding. That we need to assure ourselves that the funding is sufficient to deliver this program. And there's no point in saying the intention is or we'd like to do this or we'd like to do that. But we really need to be sure that there's funding behind it that will deliver the program. Otherwise, we're just talking hot air. Yes. We could add words on item three to that. And Jonathan, yes. May I just support the comments of counselor Tia. And maybe item three might start out by saying more detailed targets are produced and want to progress. But I think more fundamentally that there's sufficient resources to deliver. And I don't think that's secondary to monitoring. I think you need to have the resource and then you need to monitor whether it's sufficient rather than the other way around. So whether that can be blended into a recommendation about monitoring or whether you need a separate recommendation about funding. No, I take your point, Jonathan. On item three, if we recommend more funding as well as detailed targets, that is giving more emphasis to the funding issue. With respect, I don't think more helps very much. What we don't know at the moment is how much we need. We can then have a discussion subsequent to that to determine how much we want to allocate. But unless we know to start with how much we might think we might need, we're just putting numbers out into thin air and relying on downstream monitoring to determine whether we've allocated enough. My suggestion is we have a sufficiently granular strategy or actions so we know not just what we're going to do but how much of these things we're going to do. And then how much money we should really be looking at. We can always search for more money, but unless we say to start with how much we think we might need, how are we ever going to get enough? Okay, understood. Lance? The issue really is not more, it's about prioritization. And what worries me, what we require is some prioritization of funding, and I think that should be in the recommendation. But clearly you don't want to tie yourself to this is the most important thing because that will be decided by cabinet and during the budget process. But I think this should be a priority because you're trying to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries, so that's a good thing to prioritize. But I think that would be sufficient. More funding doesn't make sense as a wording, but prioritization of funding probably does. Prioritization of more funding as well. You don't need the more. Can we say that we recommend identifying sufficient funding for identification? What is sufficient funding? Well, we don't know. Prioritization gives you an effect. I think actually the discussion around the table has focused in on the need for more funding for this to give us confidence that the strategy can be delivered. So I disagree with Lance. I think the word's more fun. I haven't got an answer as to how much that more funding is. But I think as a committee, if we're making this recommendation, it should include a reference to the need for more funding, albeit prioritized, yes. I accept the point, but more means you're taking it from somewhere else is the reality within the same budget. Richard? Chairman, it's about the assurance that there will be sufficient funding. We can argue about whether it's a million, two million, whatever the number is, but we do need to have some kind of assurance that sufficient funding will be given to make the program work. Shall we just go up to the screen again? Because while we've been speaking, Dilip has put some additional wording in for us. So if we can just read that for a moment. I think this is one of the advantages, albeit that one has preconceived recommendations before the meeting takes place. This is the purpose of having this meeting so that we can tweak what we are recommending to Cabinet on this strategy as a whole. If we can move down to item four. There is an alternate wording in blue. Are there any comments on either of those? The only addition would be it's a perception. There's no evidence to say that fixing pot holes and improving roads would have a greater impact. It's a perception, and we do need to communicate to resolve that perception, but I think adding the word perception would help. Where? Are we looking at red or blue? It notes the public perception which we would like to see. We've just worked on the red text. OK. Are members happy with the content of what is now the blue text on the screen as opposed to the red text before Dilip deletes it? We'll go with that. OK. Is everybody happy with what we now have on screen? That's been a very substantive motion, two hours, and I think it would be beneficial if we had a short comfort break, say five minutes, just to enable us to sort of get our breath back. Thank you very much. OK. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair. Thank you for your apology. We weren't going to blame the chair at all for the delay. So I brought the A team with me today, so I should do the introduction and then any difficult questions will be the ones answering. So thank you for the opportunity to present this report to the committee. I would also like to thank the community's highways and environment committee for their continued level of scrutiny of the so we find rescue service. It is appreciated this report and inspection improvement plan on the progress made by so we find rescue since the last inspection by her majesty's inspectorate in twenty twenty three clearly demonstrates the commitment to deliver lasting improvements and the hard work from staff across the service, which has taken place since our last report to you six months ago. We'd like to repeat the offer to members of a visit to so fine rescue service following the success of the visit earlier this year. We will send proposed dates with any follow up actions from this meeting. We welcome the questions already provided and look forward to discussing the report with you. Thank you, chair. Thank you for the opportunity to present this report to the committee. The last six months of seeing considerable improvements, sorry, fine, rescue service. We've made good progress against our inspection improvement plan and improvements in our productivity and performance. We were pleased that the cause of concern is discharged in April. And since then, we've had kind of renewed attention to all of our areas for improvement to close down some of the actions. We're looking forward to an informal visit by our lead inspector from the inspection. John Grimshaw tomorrow. He's coming along to the service, but that's part of his ongoing engagement with us. And that's an informal visit. We're also looking forward to our round four of inspections, which is expected to take place now in autumn 2025. The inspector of advise that there'll be a review of governance integrated throughout the next inspection, including scrutiny of our CRM pay and a focus on people and culture amongst some other areas. So this these meetings are really, really helpful for us to be able to show our inspector that we are being scrutinized. If I could just take the opportunity that we're also adding a second member's development session, and that will be taking place on the 29th of July in relation to the CRM pay proposals and report will be submitted to select committee in December, along with further performance and inspection improvement update. Thank you. And could you just sort of elaborate very briefly what the for those watching what the cause of concern was that has now been discharged. Yes. So the cause of concern was regarding risk plan. Prioritizes the highest risks and includes in proportion activity to reduce risk. So this is in relation to high level high risk premises. And what they also recommended was that all staff were aware of the expectations on them in their management of that program of activity. The inspectors came back in February, this year, and carried a detailed inspection with our teams carried out some focus groups and interviews, and also looked through all of our documents that had been delivered as part of the action plan, and they discharged the cause of concern. After that, after that visit. Thank you, john you had a question listed does that answer your concerns. Yes, it does. Thank you, which has to move to Richard, you have a question listed, I'm very interested about the process of one the identification of high risk. And then the communication to across the board of how you get that out. I mean, I know the inspectors focus on that in a F2 but I'm very interested on how you're getting that message out there about what the sites are, and how they should be dealt with. Thank you, counselor. So, with regards to the risk based inspection improvement, sorry improvement and the local risks in the area. So, bear with me a second, the program for high risk sites ensures that all high risk sites are visited by operational crews over 12 month period. So all of these sites are managed within what we call our community risk management database. And at the moment currently 100% of our high risk site visits are up to date. The serum so the community risk management data management system is being developed as part of the prevent and protect project to help operational crews access risk critical information. And in relation to a five to specifically that you mentioned, and local crews being made familiar with their local risks information, and that has actually been incorporated into station and borough plans, which are all published for the public to access. For example, it has also been included in local exercise plans as well. So crews will visit commons and heats in their area which are at risk of wildfire. They also visit new developments and also identify derelict premises with the potential of an arson risk, as well as having generic exercise plans for things like flooding will also do some training and have plans ready for places we know flood regularly to ensure that we have both access and can link in with other partner agencies, where we have high high rises we will exercise regular regularly towards those sites. And another example would be local fire crews will take place at exercises based on an emergency incident at fair Oaks Airport in Chobham. So all exercise plans and borough plans incorporate those local risks in those areas to make sure our station based operational crews are made aware. Excellent. Thank you very much. Mark. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. The improvement plan has a significant number of activities and 172 to deliver the program and address the 24 areas for improvement. And about 60 are complete 84 in progress and there's some yet to start, given the number. And a couple of questions. How are you prioritizing all this activity. And which are your biggest priorities, which will achieve the greatest reduction in risk. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just address the first aspect there and the prioritization. So, you're right, there was a huge amount of activities that are being carried out in amongst those 24 a five, and you'll also note that they do vary in their size and complexity. Some are and were quick wins. So it's around document reviews or circulating communications, for example, and others require a more robust project management approach, and such as incorporating and embedding our evaluation process across all the teams. Generally for B. A. you project so for business as usual projects, we would use a prioritization tool looking at risk and opportunity. However, if the project does sit within the inspection improvement plan, it is automatically prioritized. Each AFI owner is a member of the service leadership team, and they will take that AFI to their teams to discuss what requirements are needed with regards to resource where the immediate need is, and they'll then set themselves realistic targets. So the AFI is are spread across the width and breadth of the service. They don't belong to anyone team. We also have in place our intelligence and insurance program board. So the progress against the IP is monitored at that program board and any risks with regarding timelines or resource are discussed and where necessary change requests will go to that program board and for discussion and agreement. So even though there is a wealth of activity within the IP, the responsibility lies across the service, and we do regular monitoring and management of those priorities. And with regards to what our biggest priority is and the greatest reduction risk, understandably, as my colleague Bernie mentioned, the cause concern was our initial priority and plans to address that were put in place pretty immediately. We do consider all AFI's to be a priority, specifically relating to the reduction of risk to residents, such as AFI 3, which relates to how we make sure our prevention plan targets the people most at risk and that the level of activity is proportionate to the risk. To support the delivery of those actions, we're ensuring our community risk profile is robust and updated. We're targeting the most vulnerable in our communities and staff are carrying out the safe and well visits to a high standard. There are 29 yet to start. What key areas are those and is that because your prioritization is such that whilst everything is important, you focused on those things that are extremely, extremely important? I'm just trying to get a perspective. Yes, so there are some yet to start and there's a couple of aspects of that. Some of that will be dependent on previous activities being completed. So actually working in a kind of, you know, a waterfall approach when it comes to projects and we might not be able to undertake some of those actions until previous ones have been completed. And another fact will be that we just, you know, our resources are limited. There are only so many hours in the day, so we do prioritize those actions that we know we can get closed down or need to be in delivery before we start the other. So it's a mixture of those two elements really. Thank you. If you if you look across the 24 areas for improvement, which represent the biggest challenge in terms of the behavioral change that have to take place or change in your expectations of staff and how is that change to be managed? Do you have any changes in your performance management framework that would be necessary to achieve this? So all of our FIs do require some behavioral change or changes in expectations in expectations of our staff. However, our main area of focus has been with our station based response teams to ensure we have enhanced their training and that the crews have the tools available to deliver targeted prevention activities such as safe and well visits to our most vulnerable residents. We've developed training packages to increase a shared and consistent understanding as well of our risk based inspection program, which was delivered through the cause of concern. With regards to performance management framework, no changes were required. However, we are doing a lot more familiarization and engagement with our teams around the framework framework, and we're undertaking quarterly workshops to make sure we're delivering against it. The feedback we're getting is that it's being received positively, especially when you have station based crews that wouldn't be based here at Woodhatch, which is where most of management and frameworks and policies and everything get put into place to have that open dialogue and a lot more transparency around how frameworks are put in place and what you can do to influence the content and how their views are also important in creating these frameworks. It's been received quite positively, so we make sure that we're proactive in gaining their views and gaining their buy in because ultimately they're delivering it for us. I've got a question and query. Your response to this committee's recommendations last December highlighting the importance of the new prevent and protect software rollout in delivering the improvement plan and improved workforce efficiencies. Can you give us an update, please, on that IT project? Is the new technology fully rolled out now and embedded and what productivity gains are being achieved from it? The preventive protect went live on July 1st just early this month with the initial rollout to the fire safety teams and this is our main area of focus due to the cause of concern, so we will now continue to roll that out to all our teams taking us through to the end of the year. It's too early in the implementation stages to measure any potential productivity gains, however the system has been received positively. We do regular updates on the rollout and the embedding, recently just last month our IT project manager for this project attended our leaders forum which has got a big cohort of our operational and non-operational staff and presented an update on that so we have received positive feedback and our staff are looking forward to it being fully implemented. I'd like to follow that up with a question concerning the safe and well visits, those completed or submitted for audit. The number of safe and well visits are improving but remain below the national average, we believe. So what barriers exist and what can be done to increase the number of those visits? Which members of staff actually undertake that program? Is it a dedicated team in Surrey Fire and Rescue or just some other arrangement? What liaison is there for example with Surrey Social Services? The reason we're asking about who does it is a discussion that we've had with previous fire chiefs about maybe members of staff who have been on the front line coming up to retirement don't necessarily want to retire but aren't fit enough to pass their medical to continue doing what they're doing but could be usefully employed doing safe and well visits because they have a lot of knowledge and many years of experience. So a bit of information about where we are on safe and well visits would be useful. I'm going to take that one, chair, if that's okay. So I think this one follows quite nicely on from the previous question with regards to the implementation of our prevent and protect system and also with regards to getting buy-in from our staff around delivery of productivity and increasing performance. So if I start with where we find ourselves, so we've seen a significant improvement in '23/'24 on performance when we compared to previous years. You quite rightly have highlighted that we're still coming in below the national average but we're really confident with the actions that we've taken that we will see that continue to increase and come in this year more aligned to the national average. That is supported by the implementation of the prevent and protect system which enables us to look at better streamlining of how we're recording information. We've also looked at things such as the current ways of working around forms of how we collect the data so that we're trying to make the point at which a safe and well visit is being undertaken that is as effective as possible and as efficient as possible. Predominantly we have two groups of staff that undertake safe and well visits so we have operational firefighters, really important in terms of them understanding around the communities in which they're serving and also to ensure that we're being productive in terms of our staff base at stations as well. So they undertake safe and well visits and also the other teams that undertake safe and well visits are our specialist partnership officers, so they will work with adults, social care, local authority care agencies and other teams like the local area coordinators as well within the communities to make sure that we're getting the referrals that are coming in and we're able to target those that are most vulnerable within our communities. To support that activity, we are at the moment recruiting some additional staff to be able to support the booking of and making sure that we're able to target those safe and well visits as well. So in terms of being able to enhance the processes to support the delivery of the staff that are doing it, then we're putting those processes in place as well. And do you consciously look for frontline staff who may be coming up to retirement but don't want to retire altogether but can't continue their frontline work for maybe this sort of activity? We have the opportunity for staff that are coming, you know, that are retiring to look at if there are other opportunities within, particularly within our community prevention teams and being able to take on roles. In terms of our sort of grey book members of staff, our operational members of staff, those roles are all operational, so being able to undertake those operational duties are really important to make sure that we've got resilience in those posts, but there's always that opportunity to be able to look for other opportunities. And also we do have people that have retired that will then come under our volunteering arrangement as well that can assist with our safe and wells. Thank you. Catherine? Thank you. Just following up on Keith's question about the safe and well visits, in the data appendix, so I'm looking at page 268 here, we've discussed the number of safe and well visits is currently below the target you'd like it to be. But I've just noticed you've got business safe and well visits, which are green, but you also said that other fire and rescue services don't provide the business safe and well visits. And I just wondered whether, you know, to be frank, why are you doing business safe and well visits, which perhaps you don't have to, when your other safe and well visits are red rated at the moment? Just tell me about that. Thank you. I think in terms of the business safe and well and the safe and wells, it's really important to make sure that we're targeting to those individuals that are vulnerable in our communities, but also working with the businesses within our communities to be able to understand the risks and potential risks as well to our firefighters. There's a bit of a balance in terms of making sure that we can undertake those activities. You will note, however, that in terms of the business safe and wells, the number that we are looking to achieve, and I purposely say that because we're not really chasing a target there, you know, it's the numbers that we're trying to achieve, is much lower. With the safe and wells, we're really keen to make sure that we're undertaking the activity that's dedicated to those that are most vulnerable in our communities, and that's reflective in terms of the activity that we're looking to complete. And then, as I said, we want to make sure that we still undertake activity that's aligned to businesses within our communities as well. Jan wanted to come in. More or less a question, Chairman. My division, West Yule, has two of the largest social housing estates we have of Longweed and Waters Edge. Well, one of them alone is over 1,000 people there. My question now is, because I know it well, is that we've got lots of people who are getting older and not wanting to move particularly, but I've not heard of anyone, say to me, oh, the fire service have been around and they're going to do this. I haven't heard a word from anybody. So I'm pleased that we seem to be doing it, but I'm just concerned that I've got a huge contingent of probably 2,000 homes of social housing where a large number are older as well. And I just wonder, are we prioritizing these areas where there is a large number that need help? Because I usually work very well with Epson Fire Station, but I haven't heard of Dickie Bird about this, so some reassurance would be good. Thank you. I think one of the activities that we've started to do more recently has been warm calling, so that enables us to look at those areas where we think that we do need to be targeting our safe and well visits, and that enables us to be able to generate some more safe and well visits. That sometimes is a challenge to get the referrals, to get the generation of the safe and well visits, and I'd absolutely ask yourself and other members of the committee today to make sure that they're promoting the safe and well offer that we do offer to residents within Surrey. So any opportunity I will take to make sure that we're promoting it as much as possible, but we do work with other agencies to make sure that we are able to identify those where we do need to be targeting, but that interaction as well in terms of the local understanding of the communities is really helpful too. Thank you. Yes, because I asked you earlier how do you interact closely with Surrey Social Services, so I'm guessing that's one of the other agencies. I think what would be helpful after this meeting is if you could get an email sent round to all of the committee with the details of how, well in fact to all 81 councillors, saying how we can promote the safe and well visits within our local communities. I think that would be helpful. Kevin, did you want to come back? Yeah, this was on a previous comment. I just couldn't get in quickly. I think Lizzie mentioned about the cause of concern and the reinspection, and I think the bit she didn't sort of raise was some of the comments made by the Inspectorate, which was about showing a clear commitment from the senior management, the drive, professionalism, and how they've driven the improvement plan. I do think we should be recognising that, and Mark mentioned about the actions yet to commence, and myself and Lizzie have had numerous conversations. One of the things we do is on the improvement plan, where it's yet to commence, we actually put a commentary why it's, so we don't just use, because there's nothing worse than saying yet to commence or in progress. It means nothing at all, so there is commentary and it will link to the action why it hasn't commenced. So, just to give you the reassurance, it's not just terminology to commence in progress, it's really Pacific why. Now, Mark had a question concerning business safety audits, pre-question, is business safety audits one and the same thing as business safe and well visits? No, okay, I think, ask your question Mark. Thank you Keith. I think that needs to be clarified. Thank you Keith. I noticed that business safety audits actually appear, is a new appearance I think on this document, to say reference new, and it is red rated. There's no comparable benchmark, so why is it red rated with no comparable benchmark and what are the options to improve it? Thank you, so for clarity in terms of the business safety audits, the business safety audits are aligned to the risk based inspection program that Lizzie mentioned earlier. The business safe and well is a, I suppose a slightly less, well it is, it's a less intensive approach in terms of understanding what the risk, the potential risks are. So the fire safety audits are much more detailed and they'll be aligned to ensuring that we're delivering fire safety audits against our very high risk and high risk within the risk based inspection program. Particularly making sure that they're done on an annual basis. So in terms of target setting, target setting would be aligned to that, so I need to check the back of the report in terms of making sure that we're clear around, you know, why it's red against, why it's red against target. One of the things that we recognized and it was highlighted through the inspection as well, was around, you know, the challenges of having competent fire safety inspectors in place. So one of the main focus to enable us to be able to enhance our performance has been ensuring that we've got competent fire safety inspectors which requires a wealth of training. They have to have a level four diploma in fire safety regulators which isn't, you know, takes time as well to complete and is quite specialist. There is, there's a national challenge in terms of being able to, you know, recruit into those places to get people into those fire safety inspector roles. But we've done really well, we've currently got 12 which is an increase from what we've had in previous years and we're continuing in terms of the learning program so that we can come up to full capacity. So we're not quite yet at full capacity in terms of the fire safety inspectors, but that will align in terms of us being able to deliver against the target that we've set and the target that will be there as well going forward. Thanks very much. Stephen, you have a couple of questions on staffing matters, can you roll those together? Yes, thank you Chairman. You're right, a couple of questions on staffing. Firstly a general one on what the current state of recruitment, retention and morale is, let's say that's a general one, but a more specific one on sickness absence which still remains a problem I think. How do Surrey rates compare nationally and why does Surrey have a problem in this area and what more could be done to address it? In relation to the status of recruitment, retention and morale, our last culture survey, we've carried out two previous culture surveys and the last one that we carried out which was reported in 2022, showed an improvement in our culture and the feedback from staff which is that morale is improving across the service. We've also been working with all of our staff to embed our core code of ethics which is our values to make sure the right behaviours are being exemplified with each other, with our partners and obviously as well with our communities. We've spoken before in Select Committee around our engagement with staff and the importance of that engagement with staff. All members of SLT continue to go out and do face-to-face engagement with all of our teams within the service, so that's both our operational and our non-operational teams, to understand any views, any concerns, to clarify any issues that people may have but also to ensure that we are making change as a result of that feedback and we report back on a kind of 'you said we did' basis on a bi-monthly basis as a result of all of those engagement sessions. That has been really positive and really helped to take forward change across the service. There are lots of other avenues for people to raise their views as well, so we have the Surrey County Council Poll Surveys, exit interviews if people are leaving the service. We've got new ideas forms that people can complete if they think something will improve the service. We also have procured a new Speak Up service which is a confidential and anonymous service which allows staff to report any concerns that they've got to that service. We also have a leaders forum as we've spoken about earlier where all our managers get together once a month and we've actually got one tomorrow and we discuss, they have input to new policies, to new changes and the inspection improvement plan is one of those areas that we've discussed in detail with our staff because obviously we're all together delivering it. So we're doing as many different ways of engaging as we can to ensure that we're taking that culture and that improvement in culture forward. In relation to recruitment, the attrition rates are currently stable, so some time ago you may remember we had a lot of people leaving when London Fire Brigade advertised, we haven't got that now. We've definitely stabilised, people want to be with us, some will obviously leave for their own reasons. But in our support staff we're just seeing a slight rise in people leaving. But that could be due to obviously good opportunities becoming available but also we've got a large transformation program that across Surrey County Council that will impact our support staff more than our operational. And in all of these and all ongoing issues, what would you say now is your relationship with the Fire Brigade's union in Surrey and your discussions with them? Because I know that a few years ago it was pretty rocky. We have a really good relationship with the union now, it's a professional relationship so we meet with them both informally and formally and we both agree that we will disagree at points in our relationship because we've both got obviously our own areas that we want to take forward. But the Fire Brigade union have been involved in actually our culture journey, they are part of some of our project boards, they have been involved in videos to staff, myth busting videos, culture videos about how we're working together to improve the service moving forward. So it's a good relationship but we're always very conscious that we obviously need to work hard at that from both sides. Can I just come back on the specific issue of sickness absence? Yes, of course. So our sickness levels are slightly higher than the national average when we compare to other fire and rescue services, but majority of the sickness that we're reporting is long term sickness and we're obviously taking actions individually with people to help them to return to work. To assist that approach, we have most recently put in place an offer for all of our operational staff which is Benenden health membership, which is a private non for profit organization that all of our operational staff can access for both physical and mental health support. And we're hoping that having access to this service will help people to return to work quicker than they would have done previously. But it is something that we consider a high priority and we're monitoring on an ongoing basis. Thank you. Well, I can certainly endorse if it needs it Benenden health care. My wife and I have been members of that for some years and have found it very helpful. It's not private medicine, but it does give you access maybe to doctors a bit quicker if there is a delay. So I think Catherine has a couple of questions. Thank you. I know that your current approach to recruiting is on a fixed term rather than a permanent basis. And, you know, just because you talk about how that impacts your ability to recruit and especially your fire safety officers. And then I've got a second question about a bit of the report, but let's do that first. So in relation to the fixed term, so I'm sure you'll all be aware that due to the level of change management occurring across the council, which I mentioned earlier as part of the transformational programs. All directorates are required to scrutinize requests to recruit for non frontline roles. So our operational frontline roles are not included in that. This has resulted in the majority of roles being agreed on a fixed term basis that have become available as the transformation activity rolls out across teams. Having fixed term roles in place avoids kind of financial liability for the council. Currently these controls, as I've said before, do not apply to our operational staff. There is a risk that it might be harder to recruit good staff. However, our experience to date has been that we've had a really good level of applicants and the applicants that have applied have been really highly skilled to our vacant roles. So we haven't, that risk hasn't emerged as yet. That's great. What is the fixed term by the way? Is it, does it depend? Are you talking a year or? It depends on the role, but it's under two years because once somebody is two years, they then become permanent. Thank you. My other question was, we're looking at page 273 of the data appendix, and it's just basically, you've got a line in here for disabled, and you're currently on 8.9% and it's red, but the average for England is 5.9%. So I wondered why you decided it to be red. You know, setting that against the other, the ethnic minority and the female things is just of interest really. It seemed to be a little bit hard on yourselves. It's a bit of an apology for me really because it's not very clear in the report, so sorry about that. The reason why it's red is that when we reflect it against the county profile, the county profile percentage is 13.8%. But it's not clear in the report, so we'll make sure that we rectify that and make that clear. I've got no other speakers that have indicated. Could I just ask if there are any other comments or questions from any members on the camera? Thank you, Chairman. It's actually a slightly separate issue, but I just wanted to raise it while we have the service in the room. So the Grenfell Tab Phase 2 report is due out in September, and I just wondered from our perspective if you're anticipating there will be any lessons learned on sort of, you know, we can take that away from, because obviously it's going to focus very much on the London Fire Brigade, but if there are some lessons that we can pick up and learn when those recommendations are published that we can take away, I just wondered if you had any thoughts or views on that. Absolutely. So whenever any reports are published across the country, we always will prioritise those, and we will put them into any of our improvement plans that we take forward for all of our services. It's been the same with any of the reports that have been published nationally in relation to culture. We've taken those, taken the recommendations and ensuring we're building in for our service. Okay, thank you very much, everybody. I've not heard during the discussion any specific points that we wanted to formulate. Would we be happy to simply note the report, or are there any other comments that members have? Okay, so I will agree that we note the report. Okay, well, thank you very much indeed to everybody for attending, and it's always good to see you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, welcome. Our next update is from your funds sorry, pleased to see Denise Turner Stewart, the deputy leader and cabinet member for customers and communities, Jane last, the head of community investment and engagement and Samantha Mills, the lead community investment advisor for your fun sorry. This report provides members of the select committee with an update to your funds sorry, the community grant program, and it is always good to see you and to have an update on this important program. Could I invite maybe Denise to kick off, and then for Samantha and Jane to add to any introductory remarks. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much, and I think that's all I have for this evening, and I think several of you around the table have beneficiaries in your divisions and have seen, you know, firsthand, the impacts of these projects are having on the ground. It's been very helpful to have your contributions around the environmental benefits that were encouraged from this committee and I think you can see especially through the small projects fund but also some of the larger projects that those benefits have been significant, and having attended a number of these ceremonies and opening sessions. The joy and the gratitude from the communities which you've, as I say you've all experienced is wonderful and to see how we're combating social isolation, supporting mental health and well being activity. And just looking at the recent football tournament we've all been watching you know we have invested heavily in number of sporting provisions, which have immensely benefited particularly people from all ages and demographics so that whole inclusion prevention and protecting the most vulnerable through prevention has has been realized, wait to hear your questions. Thank you. We do firstly with the the large community projects fund. First question is from Mark. Yeah, just for clarity because I think I might have got this information a couple of weeks ago, when we had a separate meeting on something else. So just talking about the large projects. My understanding is that the absolute amount of funds available for that is 42 about 42 million. So what I'm taking is clarity. What's the absolute budget now because it's changed. How much have we spent actually committed, whether it's completed or not. What's in the pipeline, because I still got a couple of people in my division who are asking can they apply. How much is uncommitted. Okay, you're going to test my maths now. So we have got about 43 million in total of that 20.5 has been approved so far. And another 8.1 million is set aside for the your funds are a small fund, which leaves around 14 million left to allocate in the pipeline, or from the pipeline, the pipeline itself is around 3536 million but growing all the time, and we've just had three or four projects come in which Sam was telling me. Have come in over the last few days so we'll be adding those to the pipeline as well. Just to say they're within the pipeline projects come in and tell us what they think that they're going to ask for that's not necessarily what comes to fruition. Once they've gone through all of their you know their project submissions, and also not all projects in the pipeline will come through to us to full submission either. So I'm clear so the total fund is 43 million, and that is for both large and small. Okay, of which we have spent about 20 and a half million. And then you've got to allow the 8.1 million for the smaller projects. So that's, that leaves about this you say about 14 million. And we have projects that have come in that we're assessing at the moment. How much of that 14 would they take. I'm trying to work out actually how much is physically uncommitted, where, where we haven't got applications in there being considered recognizing that not all of them may be approved. I'm trying to look for what pot of money is there that nothing has been applied for yet. So it's a tricky one so we've got we've got 14 million unallocated, but we have several submissions at the moment that are being scored, because they've got to that that stage and they will come to advisory panel in the next, you know, couple of months, you know, July or September. The 35 million that sitting then in that pot is off the pipeline is spread between people who've come in with ideas so very early stages projects that are great ideas but aren't moving forward for a variety of reasons because there's maybe some trickiness around leases or planning permissions or whatever, and others that will progress more quickly than the ones that we've had before so it's very much community led. So what we do is we try and keep in contact with those in the pipeline, so that we can keep assessing where they're at and we're doing that work again we did that work in December to just go back to everyone and see where they're at we're going through that again. And in the meantime we are talking to people as we, you know, as they're sort of developing. There's mention of this 35 million with a lot we've got 42, we'd spent 20 and a half. The small projects is 8.1 at least 14 of which there are things that are being scored. And then all of a sudden, we've got this mention of 35 million and I'm confused what that is. So, through the process people come to us and they raise ideas with us, they go through a process with us of us talking to them maybe inviting them to full submission, and then coming through and full submission that can take months. And in some cases actually, it's been years for some of those projects and that's why they might not come to full submission. We track that and we total that up and the value they give us at the beginning might not be what they actually ask for, so sometimes it goes up but sometimes it goes down as well depending on what their project. So we're just tracking that, that's our sort of like, that's our what can we see on the horizon, and us tracking that then coming through to allocate to that 14 million that we've got. Got 14 million, you've got projects that have already been submitted, they're being tracked or maybe that could, could total 35 and you are still accepting new applications. Okay, thanks. I would add to that, on the coming out of the pipeline, there's one group in my division, which had applied for something that might have cost between a million and a million and a half pounds, which this week decided not to pursue that, but to look at what it could do, alternatively. So, I'm sure there will be other examples, people have applied, because this is a good idea, but it doesn't actually then come to fruition, for whatever reason, Denise. Thank you Chairman, just in addition to that point we have had about 30% drop off rate so there is quite a lot of fluidity in the actual applications, it is a phased process so depending on the, you know, how late that into that process they are, they can sometimes actually just decide to actually it's not for them, and they will sometimes not notify us of that so they appear to be in the pipeline when actually they've stagnated and they're actually they're having a change of heart. I think we also have had, I think at least one application where the funding has been awarded but actually they may be changing their, their arrangements so again, that would be something that the officers would support and that would result in an adjustment. Thank you. John. Thank you Chair. So, in general terms, have there been any issues with the project or monitoring any of the applications or, you know, that are both that have been approved, and those that are waiting in the pipeline. No. So no, I mean the relationship we build with the projects as they come through is helping us to actually have that rapport with people and for people to talk to us about when issues are cropping up, or if they want changes, you know, to happen. They can talk to us and we can sort of, you know, work through that. I think the, the only real sort of trouble that one project has had so far in completing has been when their main contractor pulled out very towards the end of the project and actually they rallied around and got the subcontractors and others to help and they still completed the project. So, we haven't seen that. We're not saying that won't happen, and there will be changes and I think Denise just referenced that there is a project at the moment that we've awarded that are thinking about, you know, what they might want to do and they might want to change. But we try to build that flexibility in as well and that, you know, that rapport and that relationship, so that we at least know what's going on. Andy. Thanks, Chairman. In paragraph 13 of the report, you tell us that 16 of the funded projects support resident SLs 1 and 2, which are the 20% most deprived in the county. I just wonder if you think that is good enough, actually, in terms of, you know, no one left behind policy. And, but the other side of it is that doesn't perhaps explain the whole picture anyway. It's probably more useful to see it in terms of the funding that spread rather than just number of projects. So, I think it would be helpful and it would be helpful to see it across all the SLs, not just 1 and 2. So, I think a more complete picture is necessary. So, that's the first point. So, it's difficult to comment without seeing the actual money figures. But perhaps 16 out of -- you'd have perhaps hoped at least half the projects would be directed towards the really deprived areas, the general feeling. The other thing is, can you explain how you prioritize support for the most vulnerable communities, because they're the ones least able to apply in terms of having resources and skills in that community. That's a clear problem. Do you prioritize supporting the more vulnerable communities when they're making applications? Before you answer, also Jan wanted to come in. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, it really is following on from Andy, because I'm absolutely livid. Because last April when they said all members now 50,000, I thought right, I was in the local council office, we sorted out exactly what I wanted. What we needed, because we've got in Epsom, we've got my area, has the highest number of under fives. It also has the lowest number of car ownership. I can give you all these figures. It just comes down to a big area of social housing with low income, young people, and nothing to do virtually. And it's no good saying to me now, ah, is it community led? These people, we had a lovely community centre with people that would match them together and we would talk about it. It was then closed for about three years in all, and we had people down there guarding it and goodness knows what else, it was ridiculous. Anyway, it's got to a point where it virtually died. We took away the youth services, so we have one night a week for all of these. Now, you've got to put yourselves in this position that you may be having just enough money to live, that's fine. But you don't have that extra money to give to a young child to get a bus into Epsom, 20 pound or whatever, or get some food or go into cinema. So my argument was I designed this beautifully with other officers and recreational people who knew what the people, they took people down there. We had a lovely scheme and hey ho, what do I get now? I can't believe it. I've been 20 years as a councillor and it's defied me, this one. It seems I haven't got a community group proposing this. Well, no, they're all too blooming busy going to work to pay their rent because it's all rented. And they don't have lawyers and solicitors and people perhaps of a different educational level, but they are all hardworking people and they need our help. And just as Andy said, this is why I'm so fervent about this, we should be saying forget the rich, they'll sort themselves out. They always will. They've got their lawyers or solicitors. What we've got to concentrate on now is those who haven't. And in my case, my division has got Longmead and Watershead on it, which is the biggest division actually with social housing. So I want to know why. And also this, we set up the whole scheme, we had it all designed, people came in, we had it all, and it came to 57,000. And then I was told, no, it's got to be 50. So me saying, well, we've got 50 next year, can't I carry the seven on? No, you can't. So that means you've probably got to take out the fencing and things like this. To me, can we not use a bit of common sense here? For goodness sake, don't just be jobsworthy here. Let's just say this is a good job for an area that has got loads of young children, people without cars. Let's help them. And there hasn't been damage down there that I know of very much at all. So I just don't understand why we're putting that blocker in 50 or die, and you can't use your next 50. No? Okay, so think of something else. Now I want this one done properly. So I'm now absolutely stuck between, what's it, a rock and a hard place? Don't know where to go with this one at all, because to me, it's a worthwhile scheme. It's something this county should be really proud of and deal with it, and then say to the youngsters coming up, this is what the borough, in conjunction with the county, have delivered to you. And at the moment, can't say anything. And I think that's quite sad that money's going to million pound projects, and all I need is 57,000, and I'm struggling. I find it the saddest. It shouldn't be like this. We should be looking after those who are less able and don't have the incomes. Thank you. So a few questions there for you, but also it is a subject that has been raised previously about community areas in Surrey which do not have, if you like, the volunteer infrastructure that a lot of our areas do have to be able to take advantage of this scheme. What about those areas that don't have that volunteer structure? Okay, so I think probably what would be helpful to provide a table afterwards that actually shows you the breakdown of all the deciles, and we could do that by Surrey deciles and by national deciles, so that would give you that split of both the money and the number of projects. What we've done with our key neighbourhoods, we've got the community link officers who are actually working in key neighbourhoods and will be in Epsom and Newell as well, looking at what they can do to support those key neighbourhoods. And one of the things that's come forward is that they have been supporting several key neighbourhoods with plans that they've got for their community areas and working out their need, looking at their engagement and coming forward. So they've been supporting the full submissions that are coming through from key neighbourhoods, and we've probably got about five of those coming through. We have supported Stanwell already. In Epsom we have supported the Epsom sort of sports project under the large fund as well, which is very near to the court ward. So that's how we're trying to support those, by actually going out there and to build that. I would say that although all projects don't necessarily land in the specific decile that is the key neighbourhood, a lot of them also are supporting those deciles around them that might be a key neighbourhood. So some of the projects that are, you know, are neighbouring our key neighbourhoods are also coming through, so we're seeing that, and we will monitor that and look at that as we look at the benefits and to draw that out, how that's helping our sort of key neighbourhoods as we go. And the last one, sorry Keith, could you repeat? What's the answer to the query about 50 this year, 50 next year, and whether they can be used in conjunction? Or 50 last year and 50 this? No, so what we've said is that the maximum project value is 50,000, so you can have two 50,000 projects but not 100,000 projects, and that's purely because the larger they get the more complex they get and they tend to then really they should come through the large fund process so that we can actually do the checks and balances around that. Maybe this is something that the cabinet member would like to pick up on. Where for a relatively small sum of money in a member's division, whether this could be looked at again or not? I'm happy to take that away to look at, but as you say Jane, the mechanism is already there for that quantity of funding that is required to be allocated. It normally needs some more diligence in order for that to be progressed, which is why it would be the large fund, but I'm happy for us to take that away and look at it. I just wanted to say to you, Jan, you have been heard because you've made this representation before quite passionately, and part of the reason why the small fund was not just created but then expanded was to ensure that every single division could directly benefit. And we've had a number of quite tricky situations for members where they've struggled to spend or they've had an obstacle or barrier to overcome, and the officers have bent over backwards to find a way forward. There is always that desire and that determination to overcome any of these issues, whether it means just adjusting something or looking at different criteria that can be considered for an application to qualify. So your representation hasn't gone unheard, but I do think it's important to not just set out how supportive the officers are, but actually some of the other beneficiaries, because some of the examples that you've given, actually we've got tangible evidence of very, very deprived communities that have been heavily supported throughout the process by the CLOs and by the team, and they've got successful projects that are being delivered, so it is possible. I understand that you do have a particularly challenged ward that needs more support. What I ask then, is there no way, because this scheme isn't ever going to be in the big scheme, it's only 57, and we're just 7,000 over, and now I'm talking about should I withdraw the fencing to bring it to 50, can I now say in the next 50,000 for next year, can I apply for fencing, because this is so ridiculous to me that I cannot ever make the scheme into the big scheme. It's not big enough. It's 57,000, and that is it. But the only way I'm going to get it with the scheme you've got now is for me to take away the fencing, which I don't know how to fund that fencing, if not, that's the only way I'd get it into 50, but it certainly wouldn't be big enough to go into a big scheme. But could I ask there then, is there any way I can use that fencing money to get the money for that to next year's 50,000, because it's only going to be the fencing for that skate park. Jan, let's come back and talk to you about that. Let's see what we can do to actually make it happen. So am I going to go away with a bit of a smiley face now? I mean, I haven't seen details of this particular application. If you had shared it with me, it would have been helpful. We would have found a way forward, but the funding you've got available now is available up until March of next year, so there's no changeover from one to the other. The funding is with you. It says there's currently a 50,000 limit on each application for the reasons we've set out, but we'll look at it. Okay, thank you for your help. That might be something that we just come back to in the end of our deliberations to ask the cabinet member to look at in terms of process. Catherine. Thank you. So I was going to ask a question about the CLOs, and you've already talked about them. I'm interested to know, did you have to do any particular training with the community link officers to help them support the communities access your funds sorry or, or, you know, just generally did they come with that knowledge sort of thing. So the CLOs are part of my service. So luckily, they work very closely with the with the investment team so they understand how your funds are is growing up we've done quite a lot of training about what your funds sorry is how the process works what we expect from communities so that allows the community link officers to go with that knowledge to actually be able to talk to people about what's required, the skills that the community link officers have is obviously the connections that they know about in the area. They know how to engage well, so they can help communities to actually do those parts of the process so it complements you know the process they're going to have to go through the other, the other beauty about the community link officers and the link with the your fund sorry scheme, and with other work in sorry County Council is that, as we track the benefits, if we do see any projects that aren't, you know, delivering what they hope to or expected to, or within that mental prevention work that we're looking at within the organization. We see some particular need that isn't being addressed in a particular area. We're looking for that the CLOs to be that link back as well. We're also the fact we built up that really good rapport with projects it's not just we hand the money over and off they go. It is a continual, you know, relationship through the process, and through the delivery and that's monitoring their benefits. We're hoping that we can actually grow those projects in different ways and support them to do more of what they intended to do in the first place, or to, you know, or to grow what they were hadn't thought of in, you know, in the first place. Thank you. And leading on from there. Could you talk about how you how you plan to evaluate and quantify the benefits of the projects, especially in relation to no one left behind well in fact in all the, the four aims of the council. And I think a formal piece of evaluation work is being commissioned. I think, and is that is that in house or is that external, and what the cost of that is as well thanks. We've been sort of trialing a few things really so as the projects come through we asked them what their benefits are so we know upfront what they're expecting to deliver so there's something about the team actually keeping a track of that and monitoring and then once the projects are up and running will be going back about every six months to ask them how they're doing so to get those returns. We've also looked at how do you monitor the sort of social value and the benefits you're getting so we've done a piece of work with a consultancy organization have given us a bit of a logic model or a framework that we can use and some, some things that we that they have helped us to understand we can monitor as in terms of value not just in terms of numbers coming through but they know and the sort of the qualitative work we do. We're also looking at the social value tool that's being being looked at for the organization. And Sam has been doing some work actually looking at within all of their criteria, what would we use for YFS so that's going to we are going to be one of the pilots within that social value model. It's been commissioned but it's very, very reasonable, should I say it's not it's not an expensive piece of software at all it's something that's sort of come up from other county councils and being used across the country so we'd like to look and explore and are talking with others about how we do that, including voluntary sector and including our districts and boroughs to sort of say if we're using one tool across it would be really, you know, sort of helpful to do that. Yeah, so that so they're the ways we're looking to do that we're also hooked into the prevention work that's under the transformation banner so in we're now sitting in a WHP. And under that alongside public health we're looking at all of the things we do that are part of the prevention model, which might be directly, as in local area coordinators working alongside individuals but also our CLOs and the your fun sorry which is actually providing that empowerment to communities who are involved for themselves and build that relationship so we're also part of that model as well. So there's quite a lot going on in that space because it's quite a new space and quite a new area and there's not loads of evidence across the country about what works and what doesn't so we're, you know, we're sort of pioneering that with with us. That sounds really interesting, and, you know, be nice to be good to get updates on that. Thank you. Yeah, just following on from Jan's question earlier about the crossover or lack of crossover between the small and large funds. I've had an example where an organization would like to do something, maybe it's around 150,000 pounds for which they've already raised some money. I was perfectly happy to contribute something, you know, in the region of 1015 whatever 1000 pounds from the small fund, but I'm told, no, it's over 50,000 it's large fund, that's it. So, is there any leeway. It goes back to the cabinet member looking at what leeway is there are of that that being possible, you know, to contribute from the small fund to a larger project that is the large fund. So, what we don't want is to make it complicated in the fact that projects are spending different, you know, funding pots and different, different processes. What we can do is something discrete so if the, if the large project. If they want to deliver something as large project but there is something very specific and, you know, capital item that is part of that that you would want to contribute to we can do that. But I would encourage them to come through the large fund if it's over 100,000 come through it. If you're, if you're a million plus project, you're going to have a lot more checks and balances than if you're 100,000 project. So, you know, the team are very supportive, and we'll get them through. On the small funds. Well, the lot sorry the large fund Cameron, I think has a more general question. Yeah, thank you, Chairman, it's more observation actually. So I noticed sort of right from the start of the whole YFS sort of scheme that our communications was, it was quite good. I felt like we were getting the sort of comms out there it was going through the districts and boroughs. People were definitely seeing on social media etc I feel that's kind of sort of rained back a bit. And I just wondered if we could maybe be a bit bolder in our communications, considering this is obviously still going you know these projects are still going ahead, because I am getting a lot of questions from residents about Oh, is this thing still going to be operating what have you been delivering around the area. So I think, I think we should still be bold with our comms and I would like to see the same enthusiasm, let's say, with the communication strategy that we, we had when YFS was launched. Thank you, Cameron, I mean that's really valid point because I recall, clearly, the, the energy that was put into the launch and getting everyone's attention and now we're reaching that four year mark when we've got this wonderful array of county wide projects, you know an ecosystem, a network that is supporting so many residents and we've got a lot of the data back and the information about how how successful these projects have been we've got some fantastic images we've got plaques you know we've had ceremonies. I think it's really important to show that how, you know, as, as the, as the whole project delivers in expectation, you know, in accordance with the expectations that originally set out that we continue to repeat that messaging I did just have the conversation with our communications department this morning, we do put out our monthly member briefings but actually this is more external much more proactive and I think we really need to shout about the achievements because we kind of defied the odds I think in sorry having, you know, this was launched during covert, it was very slow to pick up and initially and we've sort of really made some, some great progress and we really need to celebrate the you know the sheer volume of achievement and delivery on the ground. I let Denise talk because I know she's passionate about this and she's always pushing our comms people to you know what can we do next and I think one of the things that we talked about only last week with our comms team was actually now we're starting to see some of the benefits coming through, we could start to theme some of the comms so it's not just about the individual projects and the launches and you know so that's where we've been, but actually starting to think about what we've done through your funds sorry to support mental health, or to support environmental projects so those themed comms as well so I think there'll be a comms plan coming through CJ that that talks about that as well, and welcome your comment on that. Okay, if we just move on to a couple of questions on the smaller projects and Richard, how pleased or even disappointed are you at the uptake of the small fund, because look at the numbers. I would be disappointed but but how do you feel about. So, I think, if you'd asked us last year it was, it was quite slow, and not a lot going on, but it's picking up. So I think we're pleased that it's picking up, but we have only got about 2 million out of the door, and we're very well aware there's 8 million to get out the door. And we've got to do that in this financial year, knowing that we've got pre election period coming up because of the county council election so if you, you know, we just had to pause while we did the pre election for the general election. So we are very aware of that and in the report we reflect that we need to look at what we have to do to make sure that we're safe within that pre election period. So, what we would love is that people over the summer counselors get out there and really start talking to their communities and get those applications into a sooner rather than later so get them in in the autumn, because the other thing the later they come in. If there are any issues with them, then, and we can't approve them, or we have to go back to the applicant and you know do that to him and throwing the more danger there is they won't get approved by that, you know, and end date of March 25. Thank you very much. Last question I've got a notification of is from buddy. Thank you. I think the small community projects is becoming more popular, in particular in my division. I get lots of inquiries and ask with the weekend fund on that positive note I want to ask you what are the reasons for this note, noticeable increase in applications being submitted over the last few months. And secondly, are there any early lessons learned from this increase to use the council's advantage to promote access to these funds. Thank you. So, I think that the increase has probably been due to the comms and the hearing of people about, you know, what's actually happening and the fact that the fund is there and that you can get money out so I think you know back to that communications piece, you start communicate and start to get on the, you know, the bandwagon and think, oh, actually, what could we do here. I think the CLOs getting out there I think we've also done quite a lot of presentations to charities at funding organizations to talk about the fun so the more you go on the the more evidence there is I think the more people are sort of thinking. I also think that when we launched, you know, we were very well aware it was the end of COVID so we knew communities weren't necessarily in that space of thinking about these sorts of things so lessons learned, I think you know comms, you know comms and getting projects to talk about their projects so it's not us. It's not only us are putting the comms out we're now seeing communications being shared from the projects themselves within their communities within their sort of trade magazine so that you know that that that news is getting out from them as well as us. Yeah, I have one follow up question. I understand you know the community link offices are working closely with the communities, they also asked the counselors. Are you tracking the application coming through the efforts of the community link offices. How do you sort of track, whether they are coming with the application submitted through the efforts of the CLO or the direct communication social media posting or however you promote this, your funds are small community grants. I don't know that we ask people where you know where they heard about us I know that's something that you know you often do in marketing I don't know that we asked that. We definitely know where community link officers are supporting and we will know that that's in key neighborhoods just because they're talking to us and telling us that they're supporting or they'll give us a heads up that the projects are coming through. It's a good idea to track you know sometimes you know it's a referral. I mean if the counselor is referring or the CLO they have seen on local magazine or social media, do you think we can track it so that actually then you can perhaps you know take those information into creating your promotional strategies. Yeah, certainly I'm going to get Sam to check we don't already ask on our application form but it's something we could add. Lance, you wanted to come in. Yeah, two questions. So I think this time last year when we were setting up the small fund, we did ask whether there should be some focus on greener futures activity. And in my area I put solar panels on a roof, which is good for my area. Can we get feedback on how many of the projects or how much of the funding has gone to greener futures projects just get a sense of how that worked or otherwise. The second I guess is more for Denise, which is this project, the whole program feels like it's coming to an end in the terms of the funding is there's a finite amount of funding and there's projects still coming in. I guess I have a concern that projects coming in now, especially on the large side, are going to hope to get funding and the funding may or may not be available, subject to capital constraints on the council. Has any been thought and given to how you end this scheme, or whether you expect it just to continue forever. So on the greener futures Yeah, we did, we can definitely pull out that that's part of our sort of benefit tracking and I've already been providing some of that information to the greener futures board just as a sort of, you know, a regular update to them so we can definitely update that and share that. Denise, do you want to take the second? Thank you. And just on the small green projects, we did initially put out a piece of columns that was worked up with greener futures just to give examples of what those projects could look like so we have tried as much as we can to, to, to nurture those and as Jane said we will definitely be theming the, you know, the list of projects and the images and everything that goes with that just to demonstrate what has been achieved. And with regard to where we are currently and I think it's, I think it's, it's interesting because Richard you were saying that actually the run rate for the small projects, you would have hoped it to be greater, and we've used those monthly sort of toolkits to members to encourage that spend but obviously that's a different because it came in later that's a different situation to what we've got with the large projects fund which is obviously far greater but has been running for a lot longer. And I think where we are at the moment, we're not looking to, to actually close the scheme. I think we would actually like it to potentially continue into the next Council but that's a decision for the next Council, but we are very mindful of the pipeline of applications and we are making direct contact with every single one of those which is quite an arduous exercise because as you understand some of those applicants aren't sure where they're going yet and we have to give them time to make up their mind about what they want to do. I think that piece of work will be completed by the autumn. So we will have a clearer picture of how we're going to manage the fund going forward, I think it's reasonable fair to say that at the moment it still is on a first come first serve basis because there are so many variables with the way some of these projects, go through the system and as, as you've already clarified Jane some of those small, small, large projects actually go through quite quickly and it's great to see them awarded so actually we won't want to hinder the opportunities which Jan you've very, you know, particularly set out. For those projects to still come through whilst there is a fund available but we are monitoring it very closely. Thank you. I think we've had quite a good session on that so thank you all very much. If we can get the drafts of the recommendations up on the big screen that would be great. We welcome the difference YFS makes in delivering a wide range of community projects, particularly in designated neighborhoods and notes the contribution this makes to supporting the most vulnerable in society, ensuring no one is left behind. Secondly welcome successful introduction of the small community projects fund, which ensures all communities throughout sorry benefit from YFS investment and supports the efforts of officers to target members and areas, which have yet to take up the fund, or have used the lower proportion of funding recommends renewed focus on communicating the impacts and benefits of the YFS scheme so that residents understand the difference. The council and counselors are making investing in their communities. Now I'd like to suggest an item for and that is to pick up on our point to ask the cabinet member to review any flexibility in terms of the allocations for the small project funds, as has been raised by Jan this morning to see what flexibility, even if it means a cabinet member decision to make that policy a bit more flexible in what might be the last year or so of this fund. Are there any other. Yes, Catherine, is it possible please to perhaps to welcome the work being done to establish a county wide measure social value of money spent. I think there's a huge potential there, or words along those lines, and look forward to hearing more something like that. Any other comments, you've got the previous one that asking the cabinet member. Yes. Okay. Last pick away at this, it is just concerned about new project, especially large projects because I know how much resource goes into creating a project. So if you have new projects coming up now, you know, spending a lot of time and effort with an anticipation that money will be available, knowing it might take a year or 18 months to come to fruition. Those projects do need to be made fully aware that the council may not be willing to fund it depending on changes. And I do think we need to cover that somewhere. Yes. And I think that Denise has referenced the issue in that, how far beyond next May, the fund is going to continue, or what resources it may or may not have will be the decision of the next council after next May. So maybe if we can sort of just ask the cabinet member to ponder on the point that you've made. I think that would be as much as we're able to do at the moment, because the decision will be next council. No, fully accept that point. But my concern is that, say, these projects are setting up now with anticipation that funding would be available when it may or may not be. Four years ago, it was very clear 100 million was available, everybody could set off with great enthusiasm. You know, somebody setting off with great enthusiasm now needs to be told that it may or may not come to fruition. That's my only point. Jane, do you want to come back on that? So just to come in. So when the projects come to talk to us and they talk to us about their ideas before they sort of launch into the process, we are being very clear with them how much money is left. And we have been doing that since we reduced the budget in November, December, or the likelihood of the budget changing that. So they are aware. Thank you. Thank you, Lance. So we've got the recommendations there up on screen, including the additions. There are no other comments. Could I ask for those agreed? Agreed. Okay. Thank you all very much. And to the Orphan Surrey team as well. Take a couple of minutes to change over to utilities and Jonathan. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks very much. This item is an update on the implementation of plans regarding the utilities. Please welcome Jonathan Holly, now deputy cabinet member for strategic highways, the game keeper turned poacher from this committee and also Lucy money, director of highways. Welcome back. And we have, I think, online Carolyn McKenzie there, Carolyn. Microphone. Yes, I'm here. Thank you very much. Okay. Now the purpose of this item is for the select committee to hear a verbal update regarding the work underway to implement actions and improvements, following the committee sessions with energy and water utility companies. So I'll first invite Jonathan Holly to give a verbal update and then invite either Lucy or Caroline to chip in as well. Thank you and good afternoon, Mr Chairman, and may I say it's a pleasure to be back amongst friends, and it is rather different to be on this side of the committee room table but I am delighted to be present, and thank you very much for an opportunity to provide you with a verbal update on the work carried out particularly in relation to the establishment of a streetworks task force, which meant for the first time on the second of July. Now further to that meeting Jonathan the scrutiny officer just asked me, are you happy for everything that you are saying, and that we are discussing to be in the public domain. Absolutely, Mr Chairman, thank you. I just wanted to check. And could I also take this opportunity to thank Lucy and also Caroline who have joined us this afternoon, and all three of us are happy to take questions now on the second of July, the task force met for the first time. The purpose of that task force was to tackle and reduce congestion on the network caused by utility companies at that first meeting, we agreed terms of reference, and in particular we agreed five key areas of focus, better coordination of roadworks across sorry. These are roadworks implemented by these utility companies, a commitment to joint commitment to work collaboratively to minimize disruption of the works for residents, improved public communication by utility companies and improved on site signage prior to works commencing throughout improved methods of sharing of information, including online mapping of planned utility works and critically from my perspective, clearly defined escalation routes, so that we as an authority can quickly hold utility companies to account when needs be. Now, those terms of reference were agreed at the first meeting of the task force, we had nine different utility companies represented, including SES SGN cadence. The UK power networks Thames water, and also to representatives of these fiber companies, Virgin Media, and two, we agreed we would meet again on the 26th of July. And at that meeting, we're going to be focusing on a number of critical areas for the task force, which is how to practically improve communication of our own works but also works carried out by the utility providers, how to improve on site signage. This is both our own signs but also signage improve signage provided by the utility companies, immediate works communication, because it's one thing to communicate works that are planned. But what we see all too often are utility companies arriving on site, unannounced under the guise of those works being emergency works and that is where we have this disconnect that we need to tackle. Planned works communications, and also how we better map these works so that the public can more readily and easily obtain the information they need about the works being carried out near where they live. So the next meeting is on the 26th of July, and I will be attending that meeting, one of the key outcomes of the deliberations with these utility companies is an acceptance on their part that there needs to be political oversight of the work of this task force. Again, we'll meet again on the 26th of July, and with that update Mr Chairman, I will ask Lucy followed by Carolyn to provide any further input before happily taking questions. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, so, um, I just wanted to provide a bit of an update and the progress, the team has been making outside of the task force work itself. We've been tracking improvements in our performance and reviewing our performance, particularly since the task and finish review last year. We now have extra offices on the ground we have increased our ability to inspect works happening on this on the ground so we've got more coverage across the network. So that's increased inspections by at least 20% and on those that are worse performing, and even more so so that's encouraging. We've also seen a reduction in works, and also a reduction in work durations, so the average time for works. We've seen through effort to challenge, and I suppose scrutinize some of the requests coming in to apply a bit more pressure we are thankfully seeing that pay positive effect and durations coming down. So obviously very specific to different works, but overall that's a trend we are encouraged by. So, we carry on as a team, trying to improve our processes and, you know, introduce new ways of working, and that will carry on as the task force progresses, and we get small corporations more agreement through closer working with the utilities at that level. Beyond that we are looking at other aspects that we can introduce or enhance to look at the overall congestion picture cross sorry recognizing our network is extremely busy and this is about helping to manage congestion rather than remove it. We are, you will actually be where we have attempted lobbying, a government on some of the legislation which we believe, you know, hinders us as a local authority, perhaps, to provide the best service to our residents and we'll continue to do that and we're looking at what more opportunities we can do the task force and cabinet member representation to reinforce that lobbying, but as I said, overall, we have been seeing improvements on the ground which is helpful we're really encouraged by the task force engagement from the utilities and hope alongside the deputy cabinet member to really make good use of that for the longer term. At that point, I'll hand over to Carolyn who can cover some of the aspects around the environmental side of things, Carolyn. Yes. So, just for a strategic update. We've now met with all the individual water companies from a water side of things. And they're all very positive and wanting to work with us on individual projects so we're just drawing up a number of opportunities about what those projects could be, but they wish to work jointly with us. They've also accepted and will attend our flood and water partnership group, which looks at surface water flooding and drainage issues to do some of the more day to day stuff as well. And we had Thames Water at the last meeting, and it was a really positive meeting that we had. Next, we've talked to the water companies, and especially SES and Water UK about having a more formal memorandum of understanding, which does most much of the items that the congestion task force does and looking at how we communicate, how we better work together, how we work together around messaging around environmental issues, so it should tie in with what's been mentioned earlier on. Water UK, the national body, are hoping to roll this out nationally, so they're quite keen on helping us get this agreed in Surrey as a test pilot, which is good. In addition, as part of our county deal, we have the local environmental improvement plan, and one of the target goals within that is water quality and water, that is in the government's environmental improvement plan. We have discussed this with DEFRA and with the water companies, and we're hoping to focus in on water specifically to see what we can do in the local area to influence works and work going forward to be much more sustained and longer term. In addition to that, we have met with, or I've met with the Regulators Alliance, which is a group of regulators who are looking at infrastructure delivery across the next financial period, and there's about £30 billion available for water and environment infrastructure to be put in, and they want us to be involved to see how that gets spent and the direction, so that's a positive. And I think that's probably all for now. We're looking to have a further meeting in September, bringing all the water companies together. In terms of energy, again, some really positive meetings, lots of individual meetings with the energy networks. They're quite different in what they're looking at. However, there's been some really positive meetings around individual projects. I floated the idea of an MOU with those utilities, and it's been, in principle, seen as something to pursue, but it's a little bit more with the energy networks, it's a bit more still developing as to how we work together through local area energy planning. Thank you, Karen. In a moment, we'll be looking at how frequently we would like to have updates from Streetworks, and also looking at the completion of our programme regarding the other utilities in this work programme. But that's a very useful verbal update from all three of you, just to bring us up to date on what's been happening. Are there any questions from members? First of all, John? Thank you. Very pleased to hear about the pre-work that will be taking place around roadworks, signage, information readily available. Have we had discussions with the utilities around afterwards post-works? Because we still get a lot of problems with signage that is left up for months, and we also have their equipment, whether that's barriers, road closed, road divert signs, still being left on the highway. Given the amount of grass growing that we've had, some of those get buried, thrown into verges, into bushes and things. So is it an area that we are, or will be, can we talk to them about post-clearing up the site after they've finished? Thank you. Thanks for raising that. Leftover signage is something that has been covered, and unsurprisingly, the utilities are convinced they don't leave signage and TM on the network. It's always somebody else. So we have invested some time and refined our process with our highways term maintenance contractor in terms of collecting their signage because there have been issues with that as well, particularly post immediate attendances. It's something that we will feed into the process and I expect the deputy cabinet member might want to add something on that, but if there is a link on the Surrey web page to report leftover signage if you're not already aware, members, to report it, and we will collect it through the term maintenance contract, at the same time as working with the utilities to highlight, we're collecting to highlight whether perhaps not performing as they anticipate they are. We are trying to collect more information of who the owners are so that we can spot some trends and have some targeted conversations and also one of the point on the lobbying was to ask whether we could put more pressure on utilities to kind of name who those bits of signage or TM belonged to. So, you know, it was easier for us to deal with the end of day so various things understand the issue. Thank you, Lucy and john absolutely recognize that problem I think we've all suffered from that and so have our residents repeatedly. What I would say is that the agenda for the next meeting the task force has been released, it will take place on the 26th of July, and one of the items on the agenda is to focus on signage on site signage. So signage that's in place before during and of course immediately after the works are completed. So you have a commitment from me john that I will specifically raise post work signage clear away at the meeting on the 26th of July. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, it became very clear at our site visit that we get a huge amount of disruption from so called emergency works. Do we track by utility companies the volume or frequency of the so called emergency works. And if we do, can we use that to pressurize them to give us a commitment to reduce the volume and frequency. Yes, we, we do know that information, and I can share with you at the moment, the water companies are by far in the lead in terms of emergency works. So, we do have that data we're collecting that as a dashboard and we'll use it in the task force meetings, but also outside of that to highlight those issues to specific companies and understand what the, you know, what's happening there whether it is genuine emergencies, or whether they're it's just an approach that they take you know what they categorize as emergency might not be the same as what we categorize emergency but yes we do have that, that data, and the plan is to use it with a bit more bigger particularly through the task force meetings. And just to follow on, Richard from your question. I'm looking at some data that speaks very much to your concerns planned works over the last 12 months, this is electricity, gas telecoms and water are at manageable levels, but there has been an increase in immediate work activity by the electric electricity companies the gas companies, not by the telecom companies were actually the data shows that's been less emergency interventions by them over the last 12 months, but as Lucy says, concerning the, the number of water company interventions under the category of immediate has shot up in the last 12 months. So that is something absolutely the task force is looking to grapple with. Catherine. Thank you. Are there, are there any benefits to the utility companies of, of coming to the, to these meetings that you can that you can identify, because it seems to me that we are levers to get them to do what we would like them to do, are perhaps dependent on lobbying and perhaps being able to increase fines, maybe, but I'm just wondering, do you identify any benefits for the companies that can pull them into the meeting rather than, you know, force them to do what we want? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it varies, varies probably across the sector. Some of them are more concerned about their reputation than others. And so, actually are genuinely interested in getting the comms right not, not, not getting caught in reputational issues, perhaps others less so. I think that there probably is other opportunities like there are cost savings to them to engage you know if we can work together better on advanced planning and coordination and collective working they can save money on lane rental, for example, and other benefits, and there's probably a more wider strategic point in terms of, I can see Carolyn's got her hand up, but just in terms of the strategic planning and the kind of access to that resource and resources in general in the future are a challenge for some of those utilities so it's of using that leverage I suppose in, we can help, if they can help with this, then actually we can help them solve another problem elsewhere but it might not be quite so directly related to the, to the highway bit but Carolyn might want to come in. So, yes, in, there are various ways in I think, but not, not comprehensively across the piece. Carolyn. Yeah, from a strategic environmental point of view. Yes, there are quite a lot of benefits for the, especially the water companies come to the table not not as many yet for the energy networks but for the water companies they've got some very similar targets to ourselves around nature recovery, around B&G, around carbon, so they've got some quite strong environmental drivers or will have those coming up, and they're being pushed quite a lot to link more on these agendas at the local level. So I think, certainly from what I've seen that they're really keen to link up and deliver jointly, because I don't think they can deliver all of what they want to do without being in partnership and that's quite a few, few of the water companies have been saying we've been told to work more in partnership, or they want to work more in partnership. And so I think there is a real benefit to them, especially when it comes to things that they have to do on the other side of the agenda so around reduction in water use. So getting people to be more efficient with their water use. They don't need to work with us on that, because they don't necessarily have all the levers we have. So, yes, I think there are benefits. If I may come in as well, Mr. Chairman, just to say that we will recall as a committee, those private sessions we held with the water companies and the energy providers and my sense was that their promise to collaborate was genuine, and I saw that at the first meeting of the task force. From my perspective, they see value in communication and resident engagement, learning from us, understanding our methods, and I think also they see a benefit in the support we might provide in that space as well. And then at the first meeting of the task force, there was some discussion around their own programming. So these companies developed their two, three-year, five-year plans going forward, and to follow on Carolyn's point, I think it's right that they see us as partners in helping them develop some of those plans as well. So they see value in collaborating with us. We see value, of course, in engaging with them constructively, but be it no doubt that there's also a stick element to this as well on our part. We want to do what we need to do to hold them to account, but at the same time, we want them to play their part. We want them to be stakeholders around the table, and that's the approach we're taking. Okay. Are there any other questions? Budhi. Thank you, Chairman. Sorry, just touching upon the signage we spoke about and following up from John's comments as well. At the moment when residents see this signage, Sutter County Council get a very negative publicity because they think all the utility works are carried out by Sutter County Council. Could we ask the utility companies we spoke about the signage actually put their logos, if it is Thames Water, does Thames Water work? Otherwise, every time I get maybe a number of emails to say that that's happening, that's your work, it's not our work. Can we be a bit specific in terms of what they put out on the signage and include their logos to say that this is Thames Water or Virgin Media, whatever it is? Is there something possible? Thank you. Yes, I think that's the ambition, and I know the deputy cabinet member will want to talk more to that. The reality of that happening every time is perhaps a challenge for some because lots of the companies have mixed variety of subcontractors, and so cascading that approach consistently feels at the start right now as a bit of a challenge. However, that's a question to pursue through the task force. What we are doing, though, recognizing that that is a challenge, is looking how we can make our own works more prominent. So we, if by default you like most of our works, are more clearly signed that there are. We have some new highways branding, which will hopefully make that stand out, and that's being introduced at the moment on some of the maintenance schemes. We'll roll that out. So perhaps in the shorter term we can make our works clearer, but absolutely work alongside the ambition to ask utilities to do more. Some are willing and some might feel more able, but not whether wholesale is possible, I'm not sure. So a combination of factors. Yeah, absolutely. Lucy is correct in her comments and her assessment there. And one thing to add that onsite signage is an agenda item at the next meeting of the task force on the 26th of July. One other idea, of course, is for us to develop the signs that Lucy has mentioned to also say these works are not being carried out by this council, that perhaps we could also seek to develop so that one way or the other, the public are very clear that we are not the authority responsible for the particular works that you are concerned about. Thank you, both of you. Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. We've got a couple of draft recommendations. One is to agree regular updates and reports to the Committee on progress regarding streetworks and on improvements to the strategic engagement with the utilities. And it's suggested that we have a six monthly update and the next one to be programmed in February of next year. And the second point is to agree a timetable for completion of the utility work stream that this committee has been engaged with, including the final sessions with utility providers and others. And it's suggested a session with the utilities in the digital utilities in October and the rest of the work streams be completed by the end of this financial year. Are there any comments or would that be agreeable? OK, thank you very much, indeed. Both Lucy and to Carolyn and to Jonathan, in order to just deal with some admin items before our final items, we're going to have a brief adjournment and then sort out the speakers for the next item. Will become obvious. I'd like to deal with item 10, first of all, which is the recommendations, tracker and forward work program. Are there any comments that any members have on the forward work program or tracker at all? If you could look at that and let me know, that would be good if there aren't any comments taken as read. And also item 11, just to confirm the date of the next meeting, which is the 15th of October. And the reason for taking those out of sequence is that the executive director has advised me on the next item regarding grass verge cutting, that a number of the points of discussion will be covering contractual arrangements with individual contractors. And I'm therefore going to ask the committee to go into part two for this item, which is why I've taken those other two public items now. So it is proposed that under Section 100 of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information under the relevant paragraph of part one of schedule 12A of the Act. Do we agree going into part two? Okay, so that's the end of the.