Transcript

Sorry to wake everyone up there. Good evening everyone. Good evening councillors, and I don't think we have any members of the public here at the moment, but good evening officers as well. Welcome to this evening's Prosperous Communities Committee. The meeting will be webcast, so please speak clearly into the microphone after pressing the button to switch it on. After I have turned off my microphone, please remind me if I don't do that. I think we all know where the location of exits, toilets and refreshments are. In the event of the fire alarm being activated, please evacuate the building in an orderly manner through the nearest door and follow the fire exit signs on the sides here. The assembly point is the fountain at the front of the Guildhall, adjacent to Costa Coffee, and if anyone requires any assistance in vacating the building, please inform officers as soon as you can. There are no members of the public here, so I can leave that bit out of the announcement, but yeah, thank you. So, right, first item on the agenda. Apologies for absence. Do we have any apologies for absence this evening, please, Elle? Thank you, Chairman. Yes, we have apologies this evening from Councillor Lee and Councillor Mrs Rogers. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Public participation. So we allow up to 15 minutes for public participation. Participants are restricted to three minutes each. Do we have anyone participating this evening? We don't, Chairman, no. Okay, thank you. So moving on to the next item on the agenda. Minutes of the previous meeting. So here it's to confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Prosperous Communities Committee held on the 23rd of April 2024. Can I have a proposal, please, Councillor Bealy? Thank you. And a seconder, Councillor Young. Thank you. And a show of hands? Are you all happy with those? Thank you. Those are confirmed and I shall sign those minutes shortly. On to the next item on the agenda. Members' declaration of interest, declarations of interest. Members may make any declarations at this point, but may also make them at any time during the course of the meeting. Are there any declarations at this point? Okay, no. Thank you. Now on to the item five, which is the matters of rising schedule. So this is where we're setting out the current position of previously agreed actions as at the 24th of May 2024. Pass over to you, Ellie. Thank you, Chairman. As members will know, this document is for noting. I have no particular comments, but I'm happy to take any questions if there are any. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions? Okay, so those are duly noted by the committee and we move on to our public reports for approval. So first one of those, progress and delivery quarter four report, and we're on pages 11 to 68 here, and the summary of the year-end performance of 23-24. I'd like to pass over to Claire Bailey to introduce this item. Thanks, Claire. Thank you, Chair, and evening, everyone. So following approval by management team last month, I would like to present to you the progress and delivery report, which sets out the performance across the council for quarter four, covering the period January to March 2023-24, including performance improvement plan and the end of year report. The report then will also be presented to CP&R committee at the end of the month. So the first thing to mention for clarity is this is the last report, which includes the measures from 2023-24 reporting period. So the measures approved by CP&R in January rolled out in April and will not feature in this report until the quarter one report. So onto the overall summary of council performance, that's page 17 of your pack. So as you can see from the graph on the top left of the page, quarter four performance reports 83% of all measures either exceeding or within agreed tolerance of their targets. This is a slight reduction compared to quarter three, which reported 85%, which in terms of numbers equates to one measure difference. So similarly, in terms of those measures reporting below target, quarter four has a 2% increase from quarter three, reporting at 17% compared to 15%. If I can draw your attention to the performance improvement plans, which are on page 21 of your pack. Before I run through the measures in the performance improvement plan, I would just like to update committee that management team have requested an additional report to be taken to June management team meeting to do a review of all measures which have a performance improvement plan in place. So myself and Darren are working on those with all relevant teams in preparation for that review. So looking at the measures, we've added back in this quarter the recycling rate, which is an unexpected given garden waste collection is only resumed in March. So this measure is due to come out following quarter four as the measure will be annual going forward to take into account the seasonal fluctuations we see in this measure. The DFG measures remain. Again, the position in the report is clear and it is not expected that the performance of these measures change given the budget position and the focus being on lobbying for the fair distribution of that funding. Market stalls. Following the introduction of the antique market during quarter four, Saturday market stalls hasn't reported below target, but I have left in the performance improvement plan to keep that there. So I'll jump in ahead a little bit in the report in addition in the market section on page 47 and 48. There is a table there which provides a full breakdown of stalls and traders over the quarter. And also following Chair's briefing, we've included graphs which show the impact of the antique market and the number of stalls and traders there. So I think it does make it clear in terms of where the numbers are coming from. Services held at Leefield Crematorium, that's moving on to page 22. The target here is being reviewed to reflect national trends subject to business plan approval and the target has been set up for 24/25 with seasonal profiling in place. Local land charges. We have reported a clear picture here that we do not expect the service will return above target despite the target being reduced from 40 to 30% for 24/25. So a request here has been sent to a number of local authorities requesting information to be able to benchmark with the plan to feed that back to you all in the quarter two report when it comes back to committee. And council tax collection rate. As you can expect, there's been a great deal of information provided due to the measure report and below target at the year end here, so the position again has been made very clear and the pressure on the budget this created has been included in the report. The collection rate has improved from quarter three to quarter four and whilst the single person discount will have affected the collection rate in the short term, this was a positive piece of work which saw 420 residents have the single person discount removed. So the next part of the report breaks down each portfolio. So that's starting on page 26. So looking at change management, ICT and regulatory services, we've got 19 out of a possible 22 measures reporting above target. The measure below target relates to local land charges, market share, council tax and NNDR collection rates. So council tax collection rates and market share are included in the performance improvement plan, however NNDR reported amber in quarter three and dipped below target during quarter four. Tracking this currently is reporting above target in April and May, so we continue to monitor that measure. And we've got all measures within the finance, business and property services portfolio on page 36 are within target. Homes and communities portfolio on page 38 see both the DFG measures reporting red, both of which continue to be included in the performance improvement plan and two measures above target which refer to long term empty properties as a percentage of all housing stock in a district and number of households placed in lease temporary accommodation. The operational commercial services portfolio on page 42 sees eight of its 12 measures reporting above target. We've got one amber which is referred to relates to the Saturday market stalls and the three measures below target relates to average number of market stalls on a Tuesday, recycling rates and services held, all of which are included within the performance improvement plan. So the final portfolio is planning regeneration on page 52 which sees all measures continue to report above target with nothing further to add there. Do have a brief summary of the end of year report. I'm happy to take a break or just if there's any questions at this point.

Thank you, Claire. There's loads of information in there and I think it's well presented. Did you want -- what we're thinking of doing really is maybe going through each -- if I just flip through each thing so that we're not talking about all the different things and going backwards and forwards, we don't have to do it in any great depth. If we did it like that, it will enable people to look through the report and just comment as we go. Would that be okay? Do you want to do the last bit of it or should we do that at the end? Do you want to finish it then? Okay. Sorry. You finish it then, Will. Thank you, Chair. So, yeah, obviously like I've said, as we've come to the end of the year, we also do provide the end of year report. So that is on page 60. So I was just conscious this might be the first time some of the new members have seen this element of the report. So the report here just provides a summary of all the measures and the performance over 2024 -- sorry, '23-'24. Jumping ahead. One point to make is that '23-'24 did have eight additional measures compared to '22-'23. So they're not like-for-like in comparison and such. And in the introduction there, it's a round-up of the year. It's the work that's been undertaken or underway and also just included the important linkages there that this report and the performance work has in general with our corporate plan, just to make that point. But that's all I have to say on that. So I'll pass over for any questions. Okay. Is the committee happy for me to do that, then? We're thinking of starting maybe on page 21 on the performance improvement plan. Yeah, yes. Yeah, Councillor Young. Yeah, thanks Claire. Again, a thorough report and welcome to that. Just a couple of points. The DFGs, which have been on the Council for 30 years and I think we've been talking about DFGs for a good 20 years, which frustrates the life out of me. We only deal with the second half of the process, the first half of the process, which I dare say is a further 120 days to complete or more is the responsibility of County Council and during the assessment process. And then it's transferred to us to do our half and I still feel really frustrated in terms of yet it takes a year, over a year to get from start to a finish on what should be a very easy process for somebody in need in terms of avoiding them going into hospital or to support them coming out of something like residential nursing homes or to keep them living and maintaining, living in their own properties in the community. Now, we've argued this case time and time again and we got to a position where, and it says in your commentary, until the budget position is rectified and the time is taken to complete the adaptations will continue to take longer than 120 days. While I accept that, I think it would have been more useful for the Policy Committee to have an understanding in that commentary. So obviously there's been some work done from officers in terms of actually trying to argue for a better deal in terms of the formula coming out of that Better Care Fund. Where are we at with that? Because obviously there has been some discussion and it has been useful from a policy perspective to understand clearly we didn't manage that in the last financial year so we're unlikely to see any improvement all the way through this financial year now. So just a plea really in terms of the commentary from our Office of Feedback, what's been done, what progress has been made and why we're still not bringing this back on track. And I suppose you could repeat that down quite a number of them but that's just an example. I don't think you've got the answer for that tonight and we've abused that one as an example. We've discussed this numerous times. But it would be more useful for the Committee to understand in terms of when is that likely to be sorted out. I know there's a county-wide group on this. I know there's some forceful discussions gone on from West Lindsay's offices but it still seems very unclear in terms of how we're going to improve the situation for our local residents. Which is pretty poor really. Okay, that's it. Okay, thank you. Sally, would you like to come in on this? I can do. Councillor Young and I absolutely take your point that it's incredibly frustrating. The forum that we have is the Housing, Health and Care Delivery Group for having that officer member conversation at a strategic level. Presently across Lincolnshire, as we've discussed many times, there's a huge amount of unspent better care funding available for disabled facilities grants and the Housing, Health and Care Delivery Group has to be the forum where we continue together to bang that drum. Because until we can bring in the required level of funding, we cannot physically make the changes to bring that number of days down. I know we've debated and discussed this long and hard and not all adaptations take that long because some are much quicker. Obviously there are more complex ones but it's going to be really interesting politically where the distribution of funding for DFG sits as well moving forward and I think we're well placed to lobby appropriately nationally for a fairer share of funding. We've asked inside out, we know the impact that this has and I think it's one of those things where we need to continue to say the simple matter here is the funding formula means our community that requires DFGs is massively disadvantaged in Lincolnshire and if that funding was shared more evenly, that would not be the case and it should be in our gift to resolve that together. So we'll have to continue to bang that drum but I honestly can't sit here hand on heart and say we're going to be able to resolve this really quickly so it will be one where we can do that but equally we can add more commentary in about what has been done because there's been a huge amount of work done so that's definitely something we can improve on. Thanks for that Solly. So who has the discretion around this? Is it the County Council? Because if it is the County Council we've got a part to play in terms of doing that lobbying I suppose. Yeah, absolutely, ultimately. The Better Care Fund, the strategy behind investing the Better Care Fund is in the gift of the county. From a DFG perspective it's actually quite a small proportion of the Better Care Fund and then we're a tiny proportion of that and so it's continuing to push that message of the impact that that's having. Okay, thank you. Yes, Councillor Bailey? Just from my understanding, Councillor Young mentioned that it's in two parts. Would it be worth, when you're reading this, to have some information in relation to when West Lindsay have received the information that they've needed from County Council to then progress further with the DFG adaption so that we could, I know it's creating a bit more work, but to break it down so that we knew from the point of which it is our responsibility because the County Council have done their bit that we can then move forward on that. I don't know if that's possible or not. Just to make it clearer so that we can know exactly where we are in relation to the work that we need to do. Yes, I know exactly what you mean because I mean really it's not clear, is it? What are we in control of and what are we not in control of? And I think we have got County Councillors, you know, sitting around the table and so we have to sort of try and work out the best way of making some progress on this because it's clearly been an issue for quite some time. Does anybody want to add anything else on this particular point? We can certainly look at the way in which that's split. This indicator is our piece of the puzzle if you like, but we've got lots of information and intelligence that we can share with you to sort of help you see that bigger picture as well. It's no problem. Okay, so no more on DFGs. The next one down, we've got operational and commercial services, the markets. This is quite a pertinent one. Whilst we've got data and we've got data further down the report as Claire indicated, I think it's a tricky one to pull something out because we've started the antique market at the end of March and the general feeling was it was going very well, not going quite as expected, but going very well and was clearly very, very well received by members of the public and the businesses that are already in the town and the other storeholders. And through no fault of our own, I think MA check antiques for personal reasons have decided that they needed to pull out, but we've been talking to existing storeholders, for instance, the fruit and veg store that is the, you know, the store that is constantly there. And he said how, in fact, we've spoken to him today in the marketplace, it's been the Tuesday market today, and he said how, you know, fantastic it's been in terms of their profits and certainly going into some of the shops and the cafes and the other little antique shops all are reporting on that Saturday. The footfall has been much increased and there's been people in there going into the shops and it's been very, very positively received. So I think we have to say thanks to Harry and Mark for getting this started. And I, for one, know Councillor Young feels the same, I'm very, very sorry that they've had to step away from this. But we are getting messages that there are still quite a few storeholders that would still like to come here on a Saturday. And I personally feel and I felt for some time that antiques in Gainsborough marketplace, there's a future for it. So I think going forward, I'd very much like we're going to be, we'll be discussing this on the market development group. And I would hope to see if we can try and sort of attract some of those people that would still like to come and build on that as well. There are clearly hundreds of people that do this and sell this sort of stuff across the district, ranging from very high-end stuff to sort of more the sort of car boot stuff that we all like looking at and selling. And when we're clearing out our garages and stuff. But I think it's hugely popular and I think I'm really glad that we had a go at it. And I would like to thank Harry and Mark for getting started. I'm sorry it didn't see it through to October as we hoped. But hopefully it's given us a lot of opportunity to talk about what stalls we need in the market, what covers work well, the layouts that work. And I think going forward it might be, you know, it's been a real opportunity to look at something very positive for West Lindsay going forward. Does anybody else want to add anything about the markets? Are we on this item? So I think the numbers, it's hard to gain a lot from the numbers because we've been doing something completely different on there. But does anybody want to add? Councillor Bunny? Thank you. I'm interested in the football figures. Do we have any monitoring? I know we do in Raisin have some cameras or whatever which does monitor the football by the day. Would it be possible at some stage to have that information so that we've got the measure of that success? Because I think from what we're here people have been coming in, it's boosted taking. It's also important to see what's there so we can use that to boost in further promotions of the market. I think I'm sure Sally will be able to answer the question. From my point it's visually very obvious and we've had a new coffee deli open down there. And today I noticed there were plenty of people sitting in there. So all of a sudden we've got a place that people want to come, they can wander to the market, they can grab a coffee. Which was the basis of trying to regenerate the market square as a coffee culture in the market square. Sally do you want to come back on that as well? Well can I just come and say I appreciate the visual side and I understand the opening up. But actually when it comes to the future selling we've all have lost that visual side. And that's why I think it's important to have those statistics that we can use for one week after another. So you've got a picture of what has worked. Can you come back Sally? I mean we were putting something in place for that one day. Yes we have. It's been tricky actually. Harder than you think to get accurate footfall data. The counters are now live and they're in a testing phase. So we will start to get better data on that and we will be able to share that with members. But they're still being tested so it's not quite ready to share with you all yet. But yes it's in progress. Okay anybody else would like to talk on the markets or? Okay going down the list. I think I'm going to keep on to these headings otherwise this will take rather a long time. Anybody else on that particular paper? Should we go down to change management ICT and regulatory services performance summary? Anybody got any questions on this section? We've got measures where performance is below target for at least two consecutive quarters. Local land charges market share and council tax in year collection rate. Councillor Bunny. Thank you. I was going to bring this up if we got to page 32 but it is to do with council tax. I am concerned to hear that our actual monies coming in are down. That is a trend that is unfortunate. We can all understand why it's happening but I do think there's got to be quite serious piece of work done on that. And I know it will come up in other committees as well. Because actually if we do not get that money in and the decline continues it's going to cause a lot of financial pressures on the council as we go forward. So it's something we must not say yet it's gone up by a bit over the quarter. It's looking at the trend over a longer period of time which I think is important now. Okay thank you Councillor Bunny. Officer Nova do you want to come in on that or? Yes I will. Is it your? Yeah my area thank you. Thanks very much. Yes just to come back on that as well Councillor Bunny is that yes we're doing a very detailed sort of deep dive now in terms of the current position. What's predicted and also how we then balance collection and recovery. Looking at arrears as well as what supports required because it is that juggling act in the sense of being able to cover all those bases. But it's really important as well to stress that we did complete the single person discount review towards the end of the financial year. Which has left us in a really good position for this year but didn't in fact benefit hugely in terms of that for the end of the year. But we are doing a really big deep dive looking at all areas so that we can then have a very thorough action plan. Quite rightly as you say we can take control of it rather than it taking control of us and make sure that we've got the direction and communicate that with you all as well. So that goes into MT first of all. Okay thank you. The next section down is on benefits it's a shorter section that looks as though it performs on target. Nobody for that. Environmental protection. That's looking okay. Please if somebody wants to particularly ask a question. Food safety. Quite good keeping on going then. Housing and planning enforcement. Any questions on that? Councillor Paterson. Yeah thanks Chairman. It's not really a question it's just to do with the number of flight tipping cases attended. 39 in Q4. It would be really interesting to see the figures with the increased stiffness of the penalties we decided to dish out. It would be interesting to see how much of an effect they make. Because I mean 39 is outrageous isn't it? It's just disgusting. But it would be interesting to see if they are going to have some sort of effect or not. Yeah. Adi do you want to comment on this? Because I think we do really good work on this. I know some people report it and we respond very very quickly and I think the team have got to be thanked for that. I think they do a great job at getting out quickly and picking this up. Do you want to comment on this at all? Yeah. Thanks Councillor Paterson. Yeah that's actually nowhere near the number of flight tips. There is a lot more than that but the way we operate is the operational teams go out first and if they find any evidence they leave it in situ. And that is when the investigation teams and that's the number we've actually found some evidence at and done some more work on. So the actual number that we go and pick up is a lot higher than that. And it will be interesting to see how the increase in fines impacts on the rates. Thank you. How are we getting on with the fines? Because is it quite rare to get that evidence? Or have we had many fines recently? I just take it away. No, no, no. No for the fines. The first indications that we had actually were that people paid instantly on the higher charge. So that's a very early indication. So it looks like it is good news that it's having that effect in the sense of that people aren't, you know, they're trying to pay immediately so that they're not incurring any greater fines. So that's actually a good indicator at the moment for us. What we'll do is we'll make sure because obviously it's early days yet in terms of seeing that coming through. We'll make sure that within the commentary we keep that comparator in there, Councillor Paterson, and make sure that that is there. But it was, I know certainly with glee that we had that payment was made very quickly, which is exactly what I believe that you wanted to happen. So long may that continue. Okay, thank you. Anybody, any more to add to that? Yeah. Thank you, sorry. Just for clarity going forward, so one of the new measures for 24/25 will include the number of fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping offenses as well. So we're going to bring a full suite of those fly-tipping measures, and that will feature obviously from quarter one. Thank you. That's really useful, I think, isn't it? Yeah, thank you. Right, we're on to page 31 now, which is ICT. All looks good there, any comments on this? Page 32, local land charges. We've got one red in there, which is market share included in PIP. Can we just have a bit of an explanation for that? Yes, I can take that, yep, I can take that. From a market share perspective, we're doing, as we've mentioned within the PIP, we are doing a bit of benchmarking to see, particularly with those authorities that have also had the transition to HMLR as well, because obviously we've done that within this year, just gone, to establish where their market share levels are to see whether we've actually got it pitched at the right level, and then what other work we might do with that. What I do want to mention is that we've had sustained high performance in turnaround times. So where we did have that struggle over 18 months, two years ago, not only have we achieved that and kept it around the two days or less or same day turnaround, we've maintained that throughout, so there's no issues with the actual service delivery. The market share was quite an aspirational figure in terms of for us to maintain, and it's proving quite difficult in the current marketplace to gain that, which I'm sure you all can understand. But we'll do the benchmarking, we'll make sure that comes back in in Q2. So you're saying that searches are being turned around in the same day? Same day. Same day. I think that's incredible. That's fantastic, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next one, licensing. Any questions on this? We're on page 33 now. No. Page 34, council tax and NNDR. Okay. Have you already spoken on this, Nova? Yeah. Okay. Page 35, systems development. Anybody got any questions on that? No. Finance, business and property services performance summary. Property services. I'm scanning through this now. Homes and communities performance summary. Home choices. Okay. So number of homeless and approaches with positive outcomes. Did you want to comment on this? Pardon? Yeah. Okay. Right. We're on to page 40, homes for health and wellbeing. So here, the average number of calendar days from DFG application to completion of work. So we've already spoken about that, haven't we? And referrals completed with 120 calendar days. That's fine. Communities, operational, commercial services, performance summary. I think we've discussed the markets which are on there. Building control, crematorium. Services held included in PIP. Councillor Bunny -- sorry, have I gone past? Okay. Leisure. Councillor Bunny. Thank you. I notice that LE 103, which is percentage of customer reporting satisfaction, is green at 94%. It's well over our target of 75%. But I am concerned that we are hearing messages about the state of cleanliness and conditions at the Gainsborough Leisure Centre in particular. And whilst we've got a green there, I do think it is important that we are aware that there are issues. And so obviously there is a degree of dissatisfaction or dissatisfaction, and I'm interested that that would not come through looking at this particular KIP. And I'm aware that officers are aware of that issue as well. So I think it's just something we might need to look at on how we report back on that particular issue. It's something which we've mentioned many times in this Chamber. Does anybody want to come? You can recognize him. Yeah, thanks, Councillor Bunny. We are aware of those issues regarding cleanliness at the Leisure Centre, and officers have visited on a weekly basis and taken action under the contractual arrangements with SLM. So we hope to see a sustained improvement moving forward. Sorry, Councillor Bailey. Thank you. I was interested in LEIO 6 and 7. Obviously there's quite a dramatic decrease in the amount of outreach sessions that have been held, which is my first point. But then when you look at the outreach users, does that mean that six sessions have - there's been 161 people over six sessions that have attended, rather than 188 people over 17 sessions? I just wanted a bit of clarification on that. And what were the reasons for the dramatic drop in outreach work, please? Thanks, Councillor Bailey. I think it's a reflection that there was quite a number of outreach sessions happened in Quarter 4/22/23, which had really, really low attendance. So they've been concentrating on the ones with the higher attendance, and that's why the numbers look high, but there's less events, if you like. Do you have any information about that, what they might have been? I mean, I don't expect to be specific, but roughly. I don't share. I'm happy to bring it back now. I don't have it to hand. No, okay. It is interesting, though. It would also be interesting to know that if it's six over a quarter, is that from Gainsborough and Market Raisin, or is it just one of them? Because actually that sort of breakdown would be required. I'm pleased to see the number there, and I understand about cutting out, which doesn't work, but there is an opportunity for expansion there, I would have thought. I think in relation to this, though, it is really important that whilst we're looking at numbers, and that is one measure, we're also mindful of the fact that some activities cater for quite a lot of people, like football, for instance, and other sports which are really valuable, like say netball or walking netball. You might have fewer people taking part, but it might be hitting a different group of people. So the numbers, whilst they give us something to talk about, aren't the only thing that we should look at, I don't think. But thank you. Anyway, yeah. Thank you. Sorry, just to come in, and I do try and I'm just detailing the report in LEI 06 and 07, some of the outreach work that they do in terms of the one you link and share the pockets and sessions, the junior activities particularly. So that's what's provided from everyone active, which I then detail to offer some context around those figures. So, yeah, it's made up of some of those larger volume activities, but thank you. Sorry to be speaking again, but I'll be just interested, you mentioned one you link and share and so on, some of these are partnership organisations alongside everyone active. So it's really that breakdown which would be quite interesting to know what the everyone active staff are going out and doing, and what everyone active are using other organisations to go and do. And the more you bring up these things, and I'm certainly taking Councillor Rowling's point about the number of activities rather than the number of participants, six does seem to be rather low for a quarter for two sports centres and partnership organisations involved as well. So I do think there's a bit of work which will need to be done about that. Whether that is here or when they report next to OVU scrutiny or not, I don't know. But I do think we need to look at that, because clearly everyone active, sorry, activity, health, wellbeing are priorities for this council, the county council, the government and everybody else. I think it's important as well because when we put in place the last agreement about leisure, which was for 15 years, that this element of it was very much replacing the sports development that previously existed. So it feels as though some of it has sort of faded away a little bit and we're doing a little bit. So there's a bit going on, but really the idea was that that was supposed to fill the gap. You know, we didn't have a sports development officer, so the leisure centres were doing that outreach work. And it's clear that there's quite a gap there still. So I think it's worthwhile still looking at it anyway, so thank you. Any more on this? It goes back a little bit about one of the other comments we're making. What we're getting here is some information which doesn't always match up to what we're getting at other organisations. So sometimes you can sit in a meeting, say, OVU and scrutiny, and hear all the artwork that they're doing. We see here statistics, yes, it's there. But actually, when you start drilling down, it's not necessarily as accurate as we would like to see. Or even, are we actually getting the true picture? Now, I know it's not necessary for us tonight to do all that, but it's something which does need to be done on a regular basis. Otherwise, we will just get that drift and we'll see a green spot, oh, that's good, and move on. Because actually sometimes those green spots are to do with our targets or to do with what happened the year before, which might not have been satisfactory in the first place. I think in the next couple of months, we're going to be bringing some work around the sports strategy back to this committee as well. And I think then it will be easier to align some of this. It's not just about numbers, it's about what's going on, who's it hitting and all that sort of thing. This will change, won't it, anyway, with that work coming on board. Anybody else? No more comments on that? Next page, we've got a lot on it, is markets. I think we've already talked about this. You can see all this data in front of you. It's looking as though there's been quite a lot going on around the markets. Some new markets coming on board in this last quarter, or not new, but fairly new, the vegan markets. And we've had the other things, like we've got the farmer's markets and crafts markets, and I know that they've got a young trader's market arranged fairly soon. So a lot of work going on around this. The numbers, again, don't necessarily reflect all the work that's going on or how popular those are. But I think it's useful to see it. Does anybody want to add anything to that? No? Okay. Street cleansing. That's all green, we're all happy with the street cleansing. Trinity Arts Centre. Yeah, street cleansing. Councillor Bailey. Yeah, I'm just concerned with the figures of the small van and the transit van load. I know the tip is not our responsibility, but is there anything that we can do in relation to putting pressure on the county council with regards to the tip? Because it looks like there's the issue around these small vans needing a permit. I know it's free, but if people can't be bothered to do all of that and it just seems very high from the small vans and transit van loads. And is that down to the fact that the accessibility to the tip is the issue there as opposed to anything else? Councillor Young. Yeah, I think Councillor Bailey has raised a good point. However, the Gainsborough site has increased the day now, so it's open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. So it's only Wednesday, Thursday it's actually closed. So it's enclosed two days out of seven. I suppose we could put pressure on in terms of trying to actually increase those additional two days. But from what I'm informed, Tuesday is very - not used that much anyway. So possibly, but it's something from a county council perspective we could do. I don't know what - Mr Selby's got to say about that. But from a county council perspective, I think they've actually tried to actually increase the number of days on site. I don't know about other areas. Take household waste and business waste. Yeah. Sorry, do you want to come in? So Councillor Paterson, there's your true figure of the fly tipping incidents for that quarter, 320. So you can see how big an issue it is, although it has been reducing. I think I would agree with Councillor Young in that there's plenty of opportunity for people to use the HWRC if they choose to. It's open five days a week and people can amend their method of - I don't think it's because it's closed. I think people who fly tip will fly tip anyway, even if you give them a free access. What we could really do with some help from our county councillors is to get some sort of cross-border agreement with North East Links and North Links Council. The amount of letters I get from the MP that I have to respond to, then people just don't understand why they have to travel 15, 20 miles to use market raise and tip when they live two miles away from one over the border. So if there's some pressure that our county councillors can bring to bear at that level, that would be really useful to have some sort of cross-border agreement because it must work both ways. Well, with everything else, we have these reciprocal arrangements, don't we? If you live in the Lincoln Fringe in Netland, for example, you can go and use the swimming pools in Lincoln. Our residents aren't contributing to those. So I don't know why these centres are applying a different sort of way when everything else is reciprocal. We're going to North Links in Scotter. You know, those people come over here for different things. I think Councillor Bunny was first. I'll just take Councillor Bunny first. When we've got here single items, small vendors, that's just what's collected. That's an indication of something. Going back to your point about the cross boundary, I must have asked that question in the last three years at least four times, both in main council and at Waste Partnership. I have to say the answer from the Executive is always no. And when you ask why, you don't get a great deal of conversation in the Chamber. This is all to do with something to do with the reciprocal monies. We had hoped that if we went into devolution, that would be an opportunity to take it across, and it wasn't. And it seems to me that we do need to do a lot of pressure, and that is actually how that waste is then disposed of. I think that is the issue. It's not so much the taking it in and delivery. It's who then who pays for its disposal. And that is a point that I think needs to be examined, and I totally agree that we will continue pushing for that. It's just very frustrating when all you get from Councillor McNally is no. Councillor Bealie. Thank you, Chairman. I think frustrating is the word, because from the perspective of many people in Caistrian Yard reward, there is no logical reason why they shouldn't use household waste recycling centres in North Lincolnshire or North Lincolnshire, because they are physically much, much nearer. The reality is that so many residents work in those areas. Well, that's why they do their shopping, so it is in effect stuff from there that they're seeking to recycle. I would just say, and this is again, there's been an awful lot of discussion and lobbying to rectify that situation, but I would just say in support of the County Council, in support of the County Council, that they allow access to anyone to their household waste recycling centres without questions. The two unitaries will challenge and say, if you're not a resident of our area, then go away. That isn't always the case. It was the case during the pandemic, but anecdotal evidence is that fewer people are being challenged now. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bealie, for that. Any more comments on this bit of the paper? Okay, contracts management, waste management, do we have any recycling rate? Anybody want to comment on any of these? Please stick your hand up if you'd like to. I'm just whizzing through it now, planning and regeneration performance summary. Sorry, Councillor Paterson. Yeah, thanks, Chairman. I think it's quite astonishing figures again for the planning and regeneration. Considering it's probably one of the most complained about parts of a council, any council, it's probably one of the least understood by anybody, the law. And also, whenever you watch a planning thing or sit in planning, every single month a new policy comes out from someone. It changes all the time. So for the officers and the planning officers to actually deliver the targets that they have, with all that pressure and also everything changing around them every single month, I think it's quite an astonishing thing. But it's fantastic to see, and it really shows with the number of appeals allowed that our central linkage local plan is working, how good it is. But, yeah, again, for another year, they really are doing some outstanding work. Anybody want to come back on those comments? Okay. Next item, development management, progress and delivery measures, we've done that, change management ICT. Okay. Lots of information in here. And then we're going through to progress and delivery summary of year-end performance. Does anybody want to comment on any of these pages? Corporate health year-end performance, change management, finance business and property services, homes and communities performance, operation and commercial services performance summary, page 67. Have we been through this, Sadie? Have we done the average market stalls, Saturday market stalls, recycling rate, number of green garden bins sold, service sales? Do you want to comment on any of those, as the five read? Record holder. I think the only - I mean, recycling weight needs to be an annual figure, we know that. It's the seasonal trends, isn't it? And regarding waste being sold, in effect, it's 10 less than last year, that's all. It's the way it's graded, so that - we have no concerns with that one either, and that will change next year. So the only one we haven't touched on tonight, I think, is the number of services at the crematorium, which is below our business plan expectations, mainly due to the number of direct funerals that have been undertaken. During COVID, and that trend continues again now, and there is a new crematorium business plan which will come to committee in the next couple of months, with more - with those trends in the market reflected within it. Okay, thank you. Councillor Bunny? Yes, thank you. I was going to pick up the crematorium, but we'll wait until it comes there. I don't think this paper's been proposed yet, so I'm quite happy for it to be proposed as it's accepted. Okay, I'll just fly through to the end. Planning and regeneration, and that's it. So Councillor Bunny's proposing it. Do we have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Paterson. And sorry, I just thought Councillor Paterson first. Okay, all in favour? Thank you. That's noted. Thank you, Claire. A lot of work in there, so much detail. But it's good to be able to go through it, I think, and just ask those questions to sort of clarify. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes, isn't there? Yes. So, thank you. Right, next item on the agenda, the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy Refresh. So, Councillor Bunny, are you presenting this, or...? I believe so, thank you. So the recommendations are that the members adopt the updated 10-year Environment and Sustainability Strategy, noting the changes that have been made. Members agree that the Environment and Sustainability Strategy Action Plan will be assessed annually, as part of the annual monitoring report to ensure it is up to date and reflective of current thinking. And thirdly, members delegate authority to the Head of Policy and Strategy, in consultation with the Chair of Prosperous Communities Committee, to make minor editorial modifications to the strategy where updates to data or legislation occur. That does not fundamentally change to the core objectives of the strategy. Okay. Councillor Bunny. Thank you. Before we start, just on the waste centres, it does occur, of course, as we have used this argument, that actually, by going not across the borders, we are increasing the amount of fuel used and time, and that that actually is counter to the environmental policy, and that, I think, is an area that we will be continuing to proceed in our arguments to get that changed. Secondly, where we have got under the recommendations, I would actually just like to make a change, if that was possible, propose a change, and I will propose an effective current thinking. I think I would like to see that it is more than thinking, it is actually to do with progress and so on that has taken place. So if we could look at that when we come to the discussion. I think it is important that we understand that this is a strategy, I will come on to that, but again, against that, there are two further documents, the action plan and the annual monitoring report, which are presented to this committee later on in the year, and they will actually outline the details of what has been done and what is being progressed. But because we have got the linkage show coming up, it is true to say that, in fact, we have asked various people to put together a reel of the various projects that have been done over the year, and that will be available then and can be made available to members, I am sure, through the various channels we have got for us. As the chair of West Lindsay's Environmental and Sustainable Working Group, it is my pleasure to present you to our refreshed environmental sustainability strategy. The strategy is crucial in setting West Lindsay's priorities and direction for tackling climate change and building a sustainable future for the benefits of our residents, community and planet. Since the adoption of the original strategy in 2021, we have made significant progress in our commitment to tackling climate change and promoting sustainability across the district. We have achieved key milestones, such as establishing the members' working group meetings to provide oversight, input and direction, implementing a robust action plan and monitoring framework around the 10 key themes, adopting the decision-making tool, the familiar wheel that sits at the front of the committee reports, ensuring climate, environment and sustainability is considered in all new policies and projects, leveraging government money to enable energy-efficient savings and renewable technologies, for a range of beneficiaries and rolling out the small-step, big-impact communications campaign as we celebrate our achievements. We have also been publishing annual progress reports for transparency, accountability and to showcase our successes. However, as we continue to face the evolving challenges posed by climate change, it is essential that we remain agile and responsive in our approach. There are several reasons for refreshing the strategy now, aligning with recently adopted key corporate documents like the corporate plan and the pioneering central linkage local plan, both of which now place tackling climate change at their core, ensuring a clear green thread links our strategies and abeds sustainability in our business planning and reflecting on implementation experiences to date to involve the strategy to be more focused and action-orientated. The refresh strategy is designed to be relevant and meaningful for our residents, communities and businesses by setting a more focused set of strategic aims, objectives and measurable outcomes for each theme and establishing clear links between strategic priorities and on-the-ground actions that deliver real benefits. The strategy is now slimmed down and easier to read, with clearly signposted links to the action plan, making it simple to track delivery through the annual monitoring port so that we know where we are delivering and what we need to do more. After consultation with members, even the name of the document and variable and sustainable strategy better encompasses the larger number of co-benefits relating to this area of work beyond the connotations that the term climate change can bring. It is about delivering positive outcomes. The committee haven't taken their eye off the ball and progressed to net zero, just the opposite. Another significant addition to the strategy is the inclusion of medium-term carbon reduction objectives. After achieving 35% emission reduction since we started measuring in 2012, the member working group put it was important to have some commitments and tasks which provided focus to the authority in the medium term. These objectives align with the main findings of the Council's carbon management plan and include having a full, deep carbonized fleet, heating the gold hole using a renewable energy source and ensuring our buildings have carbon reduction plans. All have ambitious but achievable timescales and will include business cases that show a pathway to deliver fully costed carbon net zero estate. We will look to deliver efficiency savings and therefore cost savings to our tax payers. The Council set an example, but just as importantly, we will act as stewards, leading and neighboring communities and businesses to take on their own commitments. Because whilst the Council is an important leadership role, tackling climate change is a shared responsibility. We call on residents, businesses and partners' organizations to each play their part. There are many inspiring case studies we have recently witnessed across our district from community-led projects like the Toft Newton Village Hall, reducing energy bills to the creation of community orchards, such as the one at Great Limber. In the past 12 months, we have highlighted over 50 of these in press releases and social media posts. There have been numerous events and visits undertaken from community events like Wildlife in Your Backyard and garden events in Market Raisin to the member visits to the biogas and plastics recycling plant at Henswell Cliff. One thing that they have in common is that they demonstrate the power of passionate and committed communities and businesses working hand in hand with the Council to deliver sustainable solutions that benefit both the environment and other communities. I invite the committee's feedback and endorsement of the refresh strategy and the accompanying report, which outlines recommendations and next steps, such as publication, integration with business planning and ongoing action plan development and delivery, because ultimately delivery is what it is all about. In closing, I want to reiterate West Lindsay's commitment to the Net Zero by 2050 target and building an environmentally sustainable district. By working together with our communities, the refreshed environmental sustainability strategy provides a strong foundation for delivering on the commitment. Together, we continue to take bold steps towards achieving our goal, while simultaneously enhancing the lives of our residents and fostering thriving, resilient communities. Thank you, and as I say, I am happy to propose the paper to you with that amendment that we do current thinking and successes. Thank you, Councillor Bunny. Councillor Bealy? Yes, thank you, Chairman, and thank you to Councillor Bunny. Councillor Paterson alluded to the expertise that is built up among members serving on the planning committee. There are other examples within the council as well. And particularly with the environment and sustainability work, it does require real knowledge and learning and commitment. And I think one thing that is really important is that, and I am sure that Councillor Bunny is the Chairman and our officers, will take this message back to the group just to say thank you for all the work that they do. I wanted to reflect on what Councillor Bunny described as the slim down, the new strategy, and I think that is a superb document. Tongue in cheek, I would say the only improvement that I can think would be perhaps a picture or two of Caister in it. But it is, it is a superb document and it is, to me, it is eminently readable. It is one of those things that you pick up and you read it from cover to cover. And I think there are huge opportunities to engage with local councils as well, because they work at different speeds. But just to give them a flavour of what we are doing as a district council on behalf of residents, just to demonstrate the possibilities. But we have very much got a favourable wind in that, in my experience, awareness of the importance of the environment and sustainability and climate change impacts, that awareness is growing all the time, encouragingly, especially among young people. So, again, including the amendment proposed by Councillor Bunny, then I would be happy to second the recommendations in the report. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bealy. Councillor Paterson? Yeah, thank you. I would like to congratulate Councillor Bunny, the officers and the team and all the other councillors that have been on this. This is a really brilliant report. When I first joined the council, I sat on a green energy task and finish group, and I didn't know nothing about it, but it was absolutely fascinating. The two things I have got here that I wanted to speak about was theme six, power. We can only achieve a reduction if we are allowed to do things that we want to do locally. In 2017, I wrote to the then prime minister, Theresa May, and asked her about having solar panels or solar tiles on every new build house, and she said she would pass it on to a minister. Well, they have come and gone, and it is just a load of nonsense. But if we are going to be committed to, you know, reducing this, we do need to start using every single available space we have got, instead of building houses with slate tiles, we need to get these on the new builds. Plus, also, I mean, all of this comes at increased benefits to us as well as a council and to the government and to everybody, because if you have got some free power, you are going to cut out fuel poverty. Eventually, people will not have fuel poverty. They will be able to turn the heating on, knowing that they can afford it because it is free, because it is coming from on their roof. And then that has got to be a benefit. So there is a benefit there for everybody. And the other one was transport. Transport, we have got such a poor transport system in this county. We are the most underfunded county in the country. And if we are going to be serious about reducing our carbon footprint and getting people out of cars, the government is going to have to give us a fair deal, because we have got jobs creation in Gainsborough. We have got the cinema. We have got the Trinity Arts Centre. We have got the market. But if you have got a car, you cannot come here. By allowing us to have public transport or some sort of transport, we could increase the footfall. We could get jobs, which means less people on benefits, which means more people in jobs. We could create more growth in the town, and people could come out and really enjoy themselves. And of course, you would not feel, well, there is never an excuse for it, but anybody who uses any excuses, they have to take their car to go out because they cannot get there, and then gets caught drink driving. Well, you would not need to, because there is absolutely no requirement to drive if you can get to places. So it is a fantastic report, but we do need to see action from the government, whichever government it is, and more money, because the more money they give us, the more money they are going to save in the long term, and that is one of the things we need to bang on about. You have to spend to accumulate. Thank you, Councillor Passam. You are absolutely right. It is very complicated, isn't it, and there are pressures on so many elements of this. Councillor Carlos. Thank you, Chair. I would like to say I am very lucky to sit on this group. I would like to thank especially Councillor Bunny for leading it, and also both the officers, Rachel Hughes and Steve Lurie, who are so mindful and have got so much knowledge. Thank you. You have shared that with me also with my university work, and also to the Councillors on my right about this plan. There is loads going on, and we are all invested, and we are all, you know, swapping, sharing any ideas, even robbing them. I shouldn't say that, should I? But hey, you have got to share. Sharing is caring, and also I would just like to update that the group have been working on a flood-resilient package for residents, and that is going to be published in the autumn. So all I can say on behalf of everyone involved in it, I am very glad to be on board. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Carlos. Do you want to come back at all, officers, or you? Has it all been said? I think a lot of things have been said. Well, thank you for the report anyway, and thank you for the work that you have done on that, and thank you to the group for all the work that they have done. Is everyone happy there? So we have got a proposer and a seconder, I think. What do we need to do? So there was a proposal that recommendation 2 be amended, and I think, Councillor Bunny, you have confirmed that it would read, Members agree that the Environment and Sustainability Strategy Action Plan will be assessed annually as part of the annual monitoring report, to ensure it is up to date and reflected of current thinking and successes. So is that one additional word on recommendation 2? It has been proposed and seconded, because Councillor Beattie seconded that as well. Oh, excuse me, sorry, Chairman. If members were minded in agreement, I think you could do the whole vote as one. So what would enable us to actually see what we have actually done, which is one element that we were discussing earlier, wasn't it? Is everyone happy to include that amendment as well? Okay. So we are voting on the whole, the recommendations there as they appear on the paper. Okay, proposer and seconder, all in favour? Thank you, that is unanimous, and thanks, Officers, for all the work you have done on that. Thank you. Okay, Item 6, Annual Progress Report, UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Okay, Sally? Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Members. The paper for your consideration this evening provides an update on progress with the delivery of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund program, which began at the start of 2023 and is now in its final year of delivery. UK Shared Prosperity Fund was part of the government's flagship levelling up agenda. And in West Lindsay, we were allocated £2.7 million from that fund, with a further £795,000 from the Rural England Fund. This fund was designed to replace European funding, post-Brexit, and councils were required to submit an investment plan which set out how the funds would be invested. We completed this work in the summer of '22, signed off by a concurrent meeting of this committee and our Corporate Policy and Resources Committee, and followed by the sign-off committee of three full business cases for each of the investment themes, which you probably already know are supporting local businesses, communities in place, and people and skills. At section 1.4 of the paper, members can see the full list of the 12 interventions that have been funded, and some of you were able to attend the recent full member workshop where officers presented a detailed update on each of the work streams. Expenditure on the program is reported each quarter, alongside a narrative for each of the interventions. And as you can see from the detailed finances included at the end of the report, spend of UKSPF and the Rural England Fund was at about 38% of the total grant at the end of the financial year. With the majority of expenditure profile to be achieved in this final year of delivery, as you would normally expect in any grant-funded program. At section 2.2 of the report, the contracted monitoring requirements are set out. We report quarterly to government, and I'm pleased to report that no issues have been raised throughout the program, and our most recent year-end report has been signed off. Government are happy with our progress. In terms of some headlines from the program, Appendix 3 sets out the outputs achieved to date. It's worth noting, obviously, there are still over three quarters of delivery in this final year to go. But even so, six outputs are above target, 12 are on the way to achieving their target, with nine of those outputs still waiting to commence. Of those nine targets yet to commence, some of the interventions are planned to start this year, for example delivery of new walking routes. One of the elements we've struggled with is recruiting to the green spaces officer. That's been really challenging for us and has held up some of the delivery. We do have a new way forward with bringing some contracted resource in to achieve that for us. In particular, with the supporting local business outputs, we do see a time lag with converting the applications into outputs and into payment of the grant. And with other interventions in delivery and awaiting formal completion, and also documentation awaiting receival from grant recipients. So there is generally that bit of lag in seeing those outputs coming forward. Appendix 4 has been provided as a visual oversight of the geographic spread of funding being distributed across the district. Some members will remember that one of the key aims of the program was to ensure that communities and businesses spread across the length and breadth of West Lindsay could really benefit from the outputs and outcomes of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. And as you can see from the slides included at Appendix 4, this has been pretty successful to date with those dots appearing all across the graphs. Lastly, Appendix 5 sets out an infographic. I feel really conscious that articulating how these 12 fairly complex interventions are delivering is quite challenging. And the infographic is designed to provide a hopefully fairly visual snapshot of that progress to date in March 2024. The process of developing the project ideas, creating the full business cases, and establishing this whole program has provided us here and our communities and our businesses with a huge opportunity to pilot and test different approaches to delivering outputs and outcomes at our community level. And in particular, associated with the priorities in our corporate plan. Over the next 10 months, we'll ensure that we focus on the remaining delivery that we're due to see happen. Presently, there's no funding certainty beyond March 2025, as I know you'll all be aware. Nationally, many areas are struggling to spend their allocations and we are part of a whole range of networks to keep up to date on what's happening elsewhere and to gain ideas and insight across the program. And in reality, it's been really challenging to establish such a broad program, essentially from scratch. As we progress throughout this year, we'll continue to deliver, as I've said, but we'll also be monitoring really closely the outputs and outcomes and importantly, as a team, reviewing the lessons that we've learned and the feedback we're getting from businesses and communities. So whilst the future of this work's uncertain, we'll continue to develop our thinking around what the future of UKSPF could look like here in West Lindsay. The process of developing our investment plan, we think, worked really well with significant member, partner and community input and it would certainly be my recommendation that we follow that comprehensive approach to any future funding opportunities of this nature. This paper recommends that members receive the final program evaluation in due course and that together we develop options for the future as soon as more certainty is known regarding how any future funding program might be made available. I'd like to take any questions this evening on the paper and the information in front of you. Okay. Thank you, Sally. Councillor Bunny. Thank you. Just got three points really, if I might, but the first one is to do with the Greens Bases Officer. Clearly, I think when we first discussed that, that was going to be a two-year appointment. I see we've now gone on to the possibility and I understand why. Will the agency work, will that be just for this current final year, whereas in fact previously it could have continued? That's my first point. My second point is thank you for including the maps and the infographics. I think that's a very useful thing and something that perhaps we do need to, when we've done it before, it's been very successful and perhaps we do need to bear that in mind for more of our reports, like environment, et cetera. But looking at the maps, which is the point I've got, we talk about the distribution, I understand. I also realise that there's a density of population and numbers of population, but looking at them, there does seem to be areas of the map, quite large areas in terms of physical space, where there doesn't seem to be any money going in. And yet those villages are told that they will get, you know, and I'm really looking at, I suppose, down the A15, sort of you've got Bishop Norton, one side, Glentworth, Blyborough, and Ingham, and it varies a little bit, but it does seem to be that bit in the middle is not gaining much and one would hope that in future that something might be done to help those smaller communities there. And also that when you've got the community facilities fund and things, those things can be done. But sometimes those smaller villages don't always have that opportunity to put into that which some of the bigger towns or bigger settlements have when it comes to writing bids, et cetera. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bunny. So a couple of things there. In terms of the green spaces officer, as we're having to move to the model of bringing in agency resource, it will cost us a little bit more, but also funding has to be all expended by the 31st of March, so it can't physically go beyond that time, unfortunately. What we are doing with that, though, is bringing in the conservation volunteers, so we can invest now and see some of that benefit go beyond March 25, if you like. So a slightly different way of doing it. Do you want to come back on that before I answer the others? If I could, and this is nothing against the conservation volunteers, but I think those of us who might lie in the outback of West Lindsay are fearful or note that most of the work they do, which is good, is actually on the western side of the district and not over on the east or the south. And I appreciate it's not just Gainsborough. It could be Saxebe as well. But I'm glad to see them being used, but are they going to extend their sphere of influence outwards? So it really comes back to what I was saying about these gaps where there isn't support. Thank you. I'll take that back and just look at exactly how the conservation volunteers model will work, because I don't know exactly how that will be spread wider. In terms of gaps, actually what's quite interesting is we haven't yet launched the final piece of this in terms of that capacity and capability neighbourhood development fund. And actually that's where we see some of those smaller settlements we do think will come in, because if you cast your mind back to the business case around supporting our communities, that whole concept was about those areas that are perhaps not first past the post to put a grant funding application in, because they haven't quite yet got the skills to be able to do that. So we're really hopeful that when we get this fund launched, hopefully later this month actually, we will start to see some of those smaller parishes that we don't necessarily engage with quite yet coming forward for this fund, which will be almost like the precursor to get them ready to start developing bids up in the future. So we have got one eye on that. I'm hopeful that when we do a six-monthly update again of these maps, you'll see some of that spread a little bit further. Some of it is dependent on, particularly from a business perspective, those applications coming in as well. So we're all the time trying to improve that. But I think we'll start to see that change slightly. If I could just come back on that. A lot of these smaller parishes, as you know, will meet, say, four times a year or six times a year. Some of the parish meetings who could also benefit from this might only meet once a year or when there's a significant planning application in their town. And it's those communities I think that we should be trying to get to, and I think there will be quite a lot of work involved in getting information to them. After all, a clerk who is in a bigger area might be working 27, 37 hours a week. In some of these areas, they're working four hours a week and actually probably doing more than that but not getting paid. So it's very difficult for them to pick everything up. And as for parish meetings, well, they are very effective over what they know, but they don't always get the information, and I hope that we can address that because not all the parish meetings, as far as I know, are registered in West Lindsay because they don't claim money on precept. I think you're absolutely right, Councillor Bunny, and hopefully we will be reaching out to all our members to help disseminate that information once that information is ready to go live. So Grant and the team will be really aware of trying to get that out as best they can, but any help, gratefully appreciated. Sally, you know, page 115, UKSPS, supporting our towns and villages intervention at one point. Can you just give a bit of clarity to that map there? Because that's one where we seem to have quite a bit of space in the middle, and it looks as though probably some of our most affluent centres around that. Can you just add a little bit of clarity about what that's about? I have to say I like the maps, I like the graphs, I like the information. I think it gives an interesting, you can look at it quite interestingly. Thank you, yes, so supporting our towns and villages was all about taking the interventions down to the level below Gainsborough, essentially. So if you cast your mind back to when we were coming out of COVID, the government launched the Welcome Back Fund, and that was all about funding interventions in places like Gainsborough to help communities, to help retail come back to life, essentially, and manage in a post-COVID world. And that was really popular and really well received. So what we did with the 1.2 Part 2 was to take that down to the next level of our towns and villages. So this wasn't designed to cover all the smaller settlements. Ultimately, this was designed to cover those settlements that had a core village centre with a number of retail premises. So I think there were about eight or nine of those places like, like Scotta, like Welton, like Dunham, like Saxilby, that tend to miss out when funding is driven to those slightly larger towns. So this particular intervention wasn't designed to cover all of those smaller places. It was those community hub areas, those community retail spaces, particularly, that do serve a slightly wider population. So that is why that plan looks like that. Okay, that's really useful. Thank you. That's added quite a lot of clarity to that. Councillor Bunnings, do you want to come back again? Yeah, it's just a little lesson learned there, because as I understand it, not all of that money was spent by those councils so that it's then come back and gone up a layer, whilst obviously these market towns will benefit from that. I do wonder whether we really do need, we could have actually gone down a layer and spread it around. And I just feel it's that bottom layer tier, which is what I've been mentioning, I think does need recognising because they did miss out on that. It wasn't a great deal of money, I appreciate, but it's the principle. Absolutely agree. You know, there's lots of ways you could cut the cake, certainly. And I think when we get into evaluating this, some of the activity that we've funded might not have delivered the best outputs and outcomes, actually, and we'll want to learn those kind of lessons. So what this particular intervention does is give us a really interesting, different way of engaging with our communities at that level. And if we could roll this out even further, that would be a huge success as far as I'm concerned. Okay, thank you. I think that's really useful, so if we can just wind that up now. Ellie, is this whole report just for noting? So note the progress and then the committee receive an evaluation of the programme in line with the government reporting requirements at the end of the programme. So is it just for noting? Okay, do we have a proposal to access report? Councillor Bunny, a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Fleer. All in favour? Thank you, and thanks for reporting back so thoroughly, Sally, and all the work you've done on this on the team. Thanks very much. Okay, final thing on the agenda tonight, the work plan. Okay, does anybody want to have any comments on this? So what's coming up for the June meetings? July? Okay, anybody want to add anything? No? Okay, that concludes the meeting then tonight. Thank you, everyone, for coming along. We've had some very interesting discussion. Thank you, officers, for all your input and the work you put into all these papers, and thanks for the cross-party support and discussion we've had on all these issues tonight. tonight, it's much appreciated. Thanks very much.

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