Transcript

Hello, everyone. Hello, welcome to this meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee on the 5th of June. It's the first meeting of the civic year, so the first item of business is the election of chair. So, the chair of the committee has to be an opposition Councillor. Please can I see a nomination? Councillor Meade. Please can I propose Councillor Andrew Beane. >> Thank you. Is that seconded? Councillor Wilson. That's seconded. Are there any other nominations, please? OK, could I have a chair of hands, please? Thank you. That looks like everyone. Councillor Beane, over to you. Congratulations. Good evening, all, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. I'm very much for that. Agenda item 2 is appointment of a vice chair. Could I call for nominations for a vice chair, please? Councillor Smith. Do I have a seconder? Thank you. And any other nominations? No? Can I move to a vote then for Councillor Aitman? All those in favour? Carried. Agenda item 3 is apologies for absence and temporary appointments. Do we have any? Sorry, my colleagues, just checking something. We do have a couple of apologies, Councillor Poskitt, and I believe she's been substituted by Councillor Jackson. Also received apologies from Councillor Smith, who is the executive member for one of the items on the agenda. There may be others. >> Councillor Walker, is there anything else? Councillor Leverton is not here and Councillor McBride is subbing for it. In that case, can I move on to declarations of interest? Do we have any declarations of interest? If there are any that do come up as we go through, do please let me know and we will update as we need to. Thank you. Agenda item 5 is minutes of the previous meeting. Can I sign those as a correct record? Can I have a proposer? Thank you. Can I have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Crouch. And all those in favour? Thank you. Are there any matters arising from those minutes that people would like to know about? I think the only two that I've got down is that we were awaiting two updates. We've had the update from finance, which I believe is on your desk. The five-year land supply from the travellers, we are still awaiting that information, so we'll carry that one over to the next meeting. Thank you. Announcements from the chair. Just to remind you that we are being live-screened, so do please speak into your microphones clearly and if they start to crackle, it's sometimes with the equipment that's near it. So if you could keep the equipment and the microphones separate, it does help sometimes. We're not expecting a fire alarm, so if it does sound, please evacuate to the car park. And the only other thing I need to remind you of is yet again we are in pre-election period, so please just think about what you're saying before you say it. Thank you. Agenda item 7 is participation of the public. There is none. None. So we'll move on to agenda item 8, which is the approval of the upgrades to the CCTV. And I, since I'm understanding, I'm handing over the cats to introduce this. Thank you. Right. Good evening, everyone. So CCTV. WODC owns and operates a public open space CCTV system consisting of 63 cameras, which 23 are in Whitney town centre, 25 at Marriott's, 11 at the Woolgate and 4 in Carterton. And the system is monitored at Whitney police station with staff employed by Thames Valley police. But our review in 2018 showed that the system was obsolete and required repeated camera maintenance. There were all sorts of issues. So we're now taking the opportunity to address a whole range of issues in order to bring forward a modern, efficient and cost effective CCTV system. So firstly, we've undertaken a review of all existing camera locations. So that in Whitney, I think two cameras are being removed, six relocated and there'll be three new locations. And also the coverage will be extended is proposed to be extended to Chipping Norton with five new cameras. There's also an upgrade to high definition digital cameras. And we'll also be proposing to join Thames Valley police's CCTV partnership with a CCTV command suite in Abingdon for Oxfordshire. So that will involve us transferring all our CCTV assets to Thames Valley police. And they will henceforth assume full operational responsibility for the system and its ongoing maintenance. So in terms of finance, the estimate is that this will produce an annual revenue saving of around £60,000. And the funding formula would be that 50% of the ongoing costs would be met by Thames Valley police and 50% by local authorities. And those contributions would be calculated for local authorities contributions be calculated by considering the percentage of total cameras for each local authority and also the community safety partnership funding formula. And that part works better for West Oxfordshire because we get some of the least benefit out of the community safety partnership funding formula because we're a comparatively low crime area. And so it works for us to have a slightly less contribution towards the cameras. The other issue which we're addressing at the same time is the local funding formula, which was completely inequitable in the past. So I think, Carterson provided £10,000 per annum for four cameras and Whitney, for example, £10,000 per annum for 23 cameras. So the proposal is that that will be shifted round. You'll see a table in your pack which sets out the proportions to be provided by each local authority, sorry, by each town. And that's sort of commensurate to the number of cameras. You'll see that what's being proposed is to use the capital, in terms of capital cost of upgrading, those £300,000 set aside in the 2019/2020 budget for this. There's £255,635 left for that, so it's proposed that that be used as part of this exercise. And because, and that would also potentially be a bit of a shortfall, but potentially £55,000, that might be covered by some other funding bot, but we're suggesting that that, potentially the council should meet that cost. But all in all, we think it's a really positive, really positive step, so we end up with a much better, more efficient system on a much fairer basis within West Oxfordshire, and a fairer funding basis, and a more competitive funding basis outside. So, obviously if you have any questions, then Mr Barges is here to answer, and I can also possibly help. Councillor Simpson, did you want to start first? Yes, once all the equipment is transferred to the police, do they have complete control, and if they decide to move some to somewhere else, does the council have any say in that? There will be a partnership board which runs the arrangement, so I think decisions like that, as far as I'm aware, would have to be agreed by the board. And if there were agreements, for example, that there should be new cameras in some places, or some cameras removed in other places, then the funding formulas would be agreed and adjusted accordingly. I think I would add to that as well, you'll see in the recommendations there's a delegation to the interim head of legal to formalise the agreements, and we will ensure safeguards are put into the agreements to make sure that assets that we transferred within West Oxfordshire aren't moved elsewhere within Thames Valley partnership. So we're capturing the agreements, I'm going to get an assurance that we'll continue to get value for money from the partnership. Thank you, I was going to ask a very similar question, but slightly differently. If there's a requirement or desire to have additional cameras in additional places, will that be driven by us or by TVP? And the second question, if I may, about finance, have all the councils in the Thames Valley area signed up to this, or are we one of the starters? And what happens if others come on board? We are one of the starters. I shared with my colleagues the fact that we were bringing forward a report to executives, so they've updated me on their position. They are all at a similar stage but slightly behind, so some are taking reports in July, but everybody has signed up in principle and are now seeking those formal agreements. In terms of new cameras, I can't recall the section, any party can request new cameras, so that could be asked as a district council, it could be a town council. Thames Valley police will do the relevant checks, privacy, impact assessments, et cetera, and if it's deemed there is a need, the requesting party would have to meet the capital costs and then it would be folded into the funding formula that is described in the report. Have we talked about the applying for additional funding from the Safer Streets project and the Safer for Women Night Fund? Because I understand there are funds available to allow CCTV cameras to be placed in certain places within conurbations within cities and towns. Have we gone about thinking about tapping into those resources? Because you've talked about a shortfall of £50,000. Is it worth looking at those projects and applying for additional funding through them to meet any shortfall and any future costs that we may incur? Yes, I would draw members' attention to section 4.7 in the report, item B, which is exactly as you're describing, awaiting the outcome of a bid to the Safer Streets Fund. This is linked to violence against women and girls. It's a project that looks at Oxford City but then looks at the satellite centres where people travel from and need to come back home to in relation to the night-time economy. So we're awaiting the outcome of a £25,000 bid to that project and we will continue to try and secure external funding wherever possible so we don't spend council money. Councillor Wilson? Yes, thank you. Just a quick question, about two if that's okay. The first one was just in regards to the time scale of the camera changes. I just couldn't spot that. I appreciate it soon. I just wondered if there was a more precise time scale in regards to the changes and the moving around of the cameras. And I also just wanted to clarify, sorry if it is in the report, if there was a fault or issue with any of the cameras, how soon Thames Valley would inform us of this fault and then of course inform us that it had been fixed as I presume we would want to know. Yeah, so in terms of fault reporting, there is a county-wide maintenance contract in place. It's got performance measures in there and again, with say with the formal agreements, we can ask for regular feedback in terms of the status of cameras within West Oxfordshire and I'm sure we get to hear of it if they are inoperable. Sorry, Councillor Wilson, remind you of your first? It was just in regards to the time scale of the actual cameras and the changes and everything. Yeah, so on the assumption that the Executive approve the approach and also that Thames Valley Police are willing to be the lead on the procurement, I would look to mobilise this in the autumn and complete, certainly within financial year, hopefully within calendar year. Councillor Smith. Thanks. It's just a little detail question that you can help me with. In 5.12, you've got the total projected expenditure on CCTV for this council, the £64,785 and in 6.5, the totals on the top line there are £3,000 less for each. Is there an obvious reason for that? Apologies, yes, the correct figures are in 5.12. What I did at the last minute is actually, because this is a bit of unknown, put £3,000 headroom in there, I haven't flowed those figures through to the table at 6.5. My apologies. Just to follow up on that, will they be on cost to the various contributors then? Do you anticipate they will flow through in proportion to that, to 6.5? Yes, that would be the suggestion. I've spoken to each of the town clerks who have given in principle agreement to this and are looking forward to take it forward to their relevant town councils for ratification. Councillor King. Okay, I've got four questions. So the first question is, is Carterton Town Council in credit if they've been paying £10,000 for four cameras for umpteen years? I'll let you answer that one first before I go on to anything else. I would have to say no, I'm just pleased. I've had the opportunity to finally address that inequity, which I have to say I didn't put in place in the first place. Okay, I'm confused why we were paying the same amount as Whitney for a lot less cameras and we weren't getting anything else for that money. So just where has that money been absorbed into? I can probably help with that. Happy to take it offline though. But in broad terms, the arrangements with Carterton meant that the images needed to be transferred back from Carterton to Whitney. And there's a huge cost associated with that. Whereas in Whitney, we installed fibre optic cabling around the town with a grant from the home office in 2002. So it just meant that the cost of CCTV in Carterton was a lot higher than it was in Whitney. I think I would add as well and thank Councillor King for his support in doing this. Current year, we managed to cut Carterton's contribution from £10,000 to £5,000. So we made the step towards it. And then obviously, just seeing the report moving forwards, it will be a lot more equitable. Okay, thank you for that. When is the CCTV likely to go in so that we can start seeing the benefits? And also, is there a timeline for when the TVP will review whether or not it's okay for us to add more cameras? So I think the timeline, as I indicated, is hopefully start the process in the autumn for completion. So within certainly within financial year, ideally within calendar, yet certainly for upgrading existing cameras, I think it'd be more challenging for Chipping Norton where there's infrastructure work as well. But the upgrades should be able to be completed fairly quickly. And if there is a you said there's a period of review, if TVP were to add more, if the Carterton town council requested more cameras, what's the review time to have those? It will be ongoing. So a review request to come forward at any time would be considered and if agreed, installation is just the funding form will then just be amended accordingly. And then my final question is, does this improve the response time for TVP to get to Carterton if there was something major? Because it's now going direct to TVP rather than via Whitney as a hub to review the CCTV. I would probably have to ask TVP to answer that. But given that the Whitney police station is TVP staff already, I think the fact that the partnership model will bring additional resource to the monitoring, I would certainly hope the response times won't go backwards. I can seek that assurance from TVP if you wish me to take that away. I would just add that one of the reasons this has been put to us is that the new hub would have much more continuous monitoring. It would be better staffed, better resourced and it should be almost sort of real time monitoring going on, so that if it could be that something was spotted immediately and reported to the police. So that's how it's been explained to me anyway. Councillor Simpson, do you have a second question? Well, two really. One is what's the IT security? Because obviously you must have a server where the images are all stored. The other thing is has TVP done any quantifying of the benefits of the system? So the recording and storage is all covered by the Commissioner's Code. TVP is fully compliant with the Commissioner's Code. So I think that element is probably covered off in section 2 of the report, I think it was, whereas actually I've asked the question is there a continued need for CCTV before we advocate spending in excess of a quarter of a million pounds, we need to establish is there a need and I think the case is quite compelling at section 2 within the report. Has it been quantified at all? I know there's a general thing about all this is really good, but are there any figures about so many crimes where they were helped by the CCTV or anything like that? I'm sure there will be some, but I would have to request anything specific. Councillor Clements, do you have a question? The capital expenditure doesn't seem to be broken down particularly anywhere, so it's around $300,000 for a 63 camera, so about $5,000 per camera just under. Do you have any breakdown of where that cost goes? I'm assuming that includes installation and routing and all the rest of it. I do have those figures, I didn't go into that level of granularity in the report, but happy to circulate them. You're right, for existing cameras it's going to be virtually the same, obviously Chipping Norton is a new installation so there's one-off capital costs that will make that figure slightly higher, but we can certainly break it down by town shopping centres and the new cameras at Chipping Norton. I think probably the headline one is how much are the actual cameras, so it talks about different grades of camera HD ones. Is that a fairly minor chunk of the overall capital expenditure? Is the most of it infrastructure or are the actual cameras quite expensive? The actual cameras are quite expensive. It won't be, every camera will be the same, but based on some of what we call multi-sensors, there's actually four cameras within one, some of the pan/tilt/zoom, but you're not far off, we've bought a figure of £3,000-5,000 per camera. I'd like to say thank you Andy, I know this has been a long time coming, because it was definitely on my agenda when I was leader, so it's been a very long time. Really good report, really great that it's come to us, can I just propose that we note it and let it go to Executive. Really sorry to prolong it, but from the chair I've just got one recommendation that I'd like to make, and that's in 4.7, where we've got the safer street funding that's not due until November. Is it possible to move C and D up, so if we can get the money sooner, then we can start sooner, or would that affect the fact that we're asking for a grant? It's just that if Thames Valley Police have got the money and they say yes, then I'm quite happy for them to spend it, or the Town Council, rather than waiting until November. I think that's a fair recommendation, so would you say bring C and D up and potentially B could become, does this Council underwrite that cost pending the bid? But yeah, I think that's a good recommendation to put forward to the Executive. Are you willing to amend your recommendation? And second? Thank you. Any more questions? All those in favour of that recommendation then please, thank you. Agenda Item 9 is the Service Performance Reports. I'll hand over to the Leader to introduce it for us. Thank you, Chair. It's good to be able to report overall very good performance of nearly all the service areas actually exceeded their targets, and that included the numbers of visits to leisure centres. We've got a new figure on that, it's not as great as we thought, it's slightly less, but I'll leave our officer to clarify that for us. The official land charge search times, processing times for Council tax support and housing benefits, but the ones which were not so good were FOI requests answered within 20 days and the percentage of household waste recycled, which there is a reason for that. But overall, the Council remains committed to further improving its performance and service delivery and actively investing in the development and implementation of automation and self-service options for customers. And so I think I'm going to leave a hand over to the officer to just actually sort of talk about those couple of areas and anything else that needs to be highlighted. Thank you. So the first one is just that there's an updated cover report and Annex C printed out as the packs contained a data error within them. So the pack on the website has since been updated. The visits to the leisure centre were reported as being over 330,000 for the quarter. However, after querying with the service and provider, the figure was incorrect and should have been 200,000 visits, which is still 20,000 over target. Still a good figure. Some highlights on the progress and actions for the corporate report include the viability report for the community infrastructure levy charging schedule has been received and is under review by officers with the draft schedule expected to be presented to the executive in the coming months. All 23 properties acquired through the local authority housing fund have been completed with the exchange process finalised and allocation of the properties currently in progress. The executive approved the updated carbon action plan in March and a document redesign is underway before publication on the website. And under the hug to scheme, 15 homes within the district have received grant funding for energy efficiency upgrades. Some highlights and service performance are better than target. You've got processing times for council tech support new claims which fell below the 20 day target for the first time in three and a half years with a cumulative yearly average of 19.5 days. Customer satisfaction remains high at 99% against a target of 90. Percentage of planning applications determined within the agreed time scales remain above target for all application types, sitting between 75% and 97%. Number of missed bins per 100,000 collections has decreased to around 81 against a target of 110. And 99% of land charge searches were completed within 10 days against a target of 90%, which is the first time since quarter one of this of last year. Some service performance that's not quite hitting target percentage of council tax and non domestic rates collected. So council tax collected sits at 97.7% and non domestic rates sits at 97.5% compared to a target of 99%. There's been a consistent upward trend in collection rates over the recent years, and they are reaching nearly reaching our pre pandemic levels. So that's a good, good thing. 234 affordable homes have been delivered during the financial year compared to the target of 274. There have been delays in handover of the properties due to third party work scheduling, which has meant a pushback of delivery in the properties to the early part of this financial year. And then percentage of household waste recycled sat at nearly 52% against a 61% target, but a yearly recycling total of 56%. The lower recycling percentages for the quarter are mirrored across the county with increased levels of contamination reported. Further work is being done to analyze the data to find out where the problem lies. However, recycling rates are still within the top quartile compared to all English district local authorities. So that's always tour of it. So any questions? Do we have any questions from members? Yes, all right. I could ask a couple of questions about the action tracker. The I think it's the second third page, the recruitment of strategic housing development and the laboring manager. I wonder if any more detail could be given about that and if we're in any case able to kind of progress our strategy of delivering houses ourselves in the meantime anyway. I don't have an update to hand unless... We do have. Yeah, I can help. Apologies. I don't know the gentleman's name, but the appointment has been made and that individual has started. I can provide those details after the meeting. He's Michael David. He's got a name now to a person and he has actually started it really well. We're very confident that he's bringing something new to the council that we didn't have before in order to actually deliver successful outcomes for this council. So for the first time this is something significant. So we're hoping for great things. So we'll keep you updated on that. Okay, great. That's good to hear. On the sort cross section it says the SQW consultant's work completed and sent to members steering group. I can't personally remember seeing this. Could I perhaps be given a bit more information on that and who the steering group is? I can try, yes. It's not the local plan member working group, so there is a separate steering group. I won't try and name every representative, but as I understand it, it has been circulated to that group. I'm sure Andrea Clenton, who's the garden village programme manager, would happily provide it to anyone else that wants to see it as well. So if we can perhaps make a note of that as a request, if you'd like to see a copy, we can get that sent through. The third question on section about sites for charging points. I wonder if any more information could be given on the delays for electric vehicle charging points. End of page

1. It gets crazier. Did you have some questions? Yeah, on page 34 of the report, right down the bottom, it talks about the ongoing scope and content of the local plan, referring to green spaces and long-term maintenance, etc. It talks about, obviously, the SDAs, large SDAs. Is it worth reviewing that? Because there are medium SDAs which come up which have green infrastructure which needs to be looked at and maintained. One of the things I'd like to see, actually, as a review by officers, planning officers, to look at the maintenance, at the council taking control of maintenance of green areas. Because as we know, developers sometimes don't do what they promised. They employ management companies, and the residents end up footing a bill which they can't really control each year, because maintenance contractors can put it up each year. So there's this lack of control. I'm very concerned about this. So is it worth us looking at that issue again and going back to officers and planning and saying, Can we have a report that the council commissions to us taking over the control of maintenance areas in large developments, in medium developments, in small developments, so it comes under our remit and it's not left to a public company that can sometimes rinse the residents in that area. Certainly, we can take that away and look at that issue and see how we can actually address it. I want to come back to self-mention on that. When would you have a time scale? When would you start to implement that? Because I think it's relevant because of the five-year land supply and all the other things that are coming on board. So this is going to become an extremely big issue for lots and lots of residents. And what I don't want to do, because you said kick down the next couple of years and we don't do something about it, it's a really important issue. We'll come back with a timeline and actually look at the issue and how best to actually unpack that, because I can't give you tonight because you only just raised that. But clearly it's an issue. But I think it's best that we take that back, officers, to unpack that, to see what the issues and implications of doing that are, so that we can look at that as a report going forward. I just wanted to reinforce that point. It's already a big issue of the last 15, 20 years or so if a major development hasn't been adopted and the charge is anywhere between £200 and £600 a year per household to manage green spaces, in a fairly, in a way which is often pretty stale for nature. Noted. Councillor Simpson. I think it might be worth looking at community land trusts so that the local people have a say in things. Oxfordshire First, I think it is a partnership or something, they've got a good set-up and want their advices to get involved early rather than leaving it until things are finished. Councillor Smith. I'm looking at the corporate strategy action tracker. Did the Windrush in Whitney Lottery bid go in in May? Chairman, I don't think anybody on the panel knows, so we can come back to you on that, please. Chairman, can I just come back on the electric vehicle charging? I think the update is quite concise. It clearly is quite a complex partnership with town parishes and Oxfordshire authorities. This is stage 2 of the electric vehicle public charging point, so I think what it's saying is there is a six or eight week delay. In my experience, actually, if that's delivered, then that's a success. So yes, there is a small delay, but there is mitigation in place to manage that delay. On page 48, it talks about the HUD, the Home Upgrade Grant. Obviously, that grant ends on March 2025. Do we have any plans ourselves as a local authority to keep the homes energy efficient or is there anything coming on the pipeline from a government or from a civil servant, civil service? Again, I think it would be helpful to provide members with a more detailed update. What I can say is that when government grants and third party grants are made available, then we publish the information about those on our website and in various e-newsletters that are sent to residents and businesses. Certainly, if there are local grants available, then we publish those as well. We publish information about those. I think I received an email from the county council suggesting that I independently went back to the county council with suggestions where this grant could be used. So, maybe there is a disconnect there. The county council was saying that there was room to spend more of this on more houses and asking for suggestions. Unless I quickly read the email incorrectly. Do you want to forward that email and then I can take it forward or one of the executives can? What I would say is that this is quite a fast-moving environment and there are a number of grant schemes made available. Some of those are through the county council and some of them through the district council and others are directly with the government. We do try to track those and we do try to make both members and members of the public aware of those. Just on the last part of the update with the pleasure figures, I noticed about the benchmarking the undertaking of APSE. Is that the only source of benchmarking that is being pushed forwards or are we going to be benchmarking against other national schemes that aren't just public sector? If members of the public are paying mid-market prices, I think we should be aiming a little bit higher than other councils, especially where they are not competing against other councils, they are competing against private operators in Whitley. Currently we do just benchmark against or try and benchmark against other councils, especially nearest neighbours that are meant to be sort of the nearest district councils in population and everything with you. But it is definitely something I can look into to benchmarking and see whether there are comparables there and it is something I can definitely take forward and see whether I can do. Thank you very much. Just on bin collections, I have been looking at the figures here but I am picking up quite a number of comments on the number of damaged bins that are reported, both the recycled bins, the food waste bins and often there is plenty of evidence after a collection round. I just wondered if there was any information being collected on the number of replacements that are being made and whether this is something that is increasing or decreasing. I can help with that. We have undertaken a review for exactly the reasons that you have outlined, not just the inconvenience to residents but the costs associated with replacing bins and we have done that in conjunction with the other district councils in Oxfordshire, so again we can benchmark the position against other local authorities and I am pleased to say that actually West Oxfordshire is in a better position than many of the other districts, so it is not unique to West Oxfordshire. In terms of the service level agreement that we have with Ubico, who is the waste company, from the 1st of April we started to monitor complaints from residents about damage to their bins. Now we accept that because of the age of bins they do become brittle and in some cases there is a genuine breakage. Other occasions can be that the bin has been damaged because it has gone into the lorry, again that happens and on other occasions it might be because of the way they have been handled. So we are just trying to get our heads around the actual cause of the significant number of requests that the council gets for new bins. Now some of that is related to new properties and we compare ourselves to Oxford City for instance where there hasn't been a level of growth that there has in West Oxfordshire, far less requests for new bins, but West Oxfordshire is very similar to Cherwell for instance. The vast majority of the bins that are being issued are for new properties but nevertheless we do accept that some bins are being damaged or they are old and end of life and we have to replace them. But we are just trying to get our heads around what does that actually mean and how can we improve that and tackle some of the issues that are arising from it. Thank you very much for that and perhaps maybe consider some incentives for the teams if the figures do prove that action is needed. Thank you. Anyone else or can I thank the officers for their report and move on to the next item? Thank you very much. Can we move on to agenda item 10 which is the Salt Cross Village Area Action Plan and handing over to the leader or Mr Hargreaves. This is a progress update. I'm going to hand over to Mr Hargreaves who has prepared the actual update for us, so over to you. Okay, thank you. Hopefully it's fairly self explanatory, the reports. I won't talk to it for too long, but just to sort of summarise the position, this is an update report for information just to bring you all up to speed on where we are at with the Salt Cross Area Action Plan. So just by way of a very brief recap, the local plan allocates the land to the north of the A40 near Ensham for a new planned garden community called Salt Cross. So the principle of development has been established in broad terms, but the idea with the area action plan is that that puts flesh on the bones and effectively provides the detailed framework through which future planning applications will be considered. So that process has been ongoing for some time. We've made good progress. The document that we submitted was examined throughout 2021 and 22 by the Planning Inspectorate and we got to the point of having their final report in March 23, which was great news because it said that the document was sound and could be approved subject to certain changes, so that was great. The downside was that one of those changes was a significant watering down of the policy relating to net zero carbon. So there was a flagship policy that said all the buildings at the Salt Cross Garden Village would be built to net zero standards. That was very well supported by the community and we were sort of very keen to pursue that. The inspectors felt at that time that we hadn't justified it and that that approach was inconsistent with national policy. So that was disappointing, but before anything could be done in terms of next steps, a third party sort of stepped into the breach and submitted a legal challenge to the inspectors report and that was heard in the High Court in November last year and the outcome of that was received in February of this year and to our surprise the challenge was successful and what that means is that the inspectors report in so far as it relates to policy two has been formally quashed and is no more. So the judge effectively concluded as you'll see in the appendices to the report that the inspectors had got it wrong, they basically made a mistake and quashed their findings. So what's now going to happen is that we've had a new inspector appointed at our request effectively, the examination has been reopened but it is reopened on a focused basis so it won't look at everything again, it will simply look at this one topic which is the zero carbon policy and we've got if you like a second chance, a second bite of the cherry to justify what we would like to achieve. So we are in the process of commissioning additional evidence at the moment, that will be prepared over the next few months, submitted to the inspector for her consideration and then we expect there to be a focused hearing session over one or two days, most likely around October time and progress beyond that really depends on how that process goes, any further changes that are needed and consultation etc etc. But I've included in the report just an indicative timetable to give you an idea, so we would hope to be at the point of adoption in the spring next year which I know sounds an awfully long way away but these wheels do tend to turn rather slowly in plan making terms, so yes that's where we're at but happy to answer any questions you might have. Yes we're leaving. Yes, there was a written ministerial statement wasn't there between the judicial review commencing I believe and the judgement being made and that written ministerial statement was on the subject which the review referred to, I just wondered how that was going to be taken into account and there may of course be a different minister by the time we come to the next hearing. Yes, all good points. Yes so there was a written ministerial statement published in December, so after the hearings were held in November the written ministerial statement appeared in December, probably the two were interrelated to try and provide authorities with clarity about what they can and can't do through plan making. So obviously the judge wasn't able to take that into account at the point the hearings were held but the inspector that will look at the issue now will be able to look at that and her letter that I've appended to the report is quite clear that in asking us to modify policy two and go back to her effectively with evidence and justifications for any changes to the policy that we need to do so in the context of that written ministerial statement, so that's what we're looking to do. The only slight caveat to that is that we are aware that it is in itself being legally challenged at the moment, yes, who knew, and so we do need to keep a watching brief on what happens with that process but for now we're carrying on as we are as if it is there in place until we're told otherwise. Thank you. Councillor Smith. So part of my question is very related to that because I would advocate for a two pronged approach given that it is undergoing legal challenge itself, the written ministerial statement and we don't want to have to be slipping our timeline to ask these consultants to rewrite their appraisal, not reflecting a defunct written ministerial statement, so I think that would be prudent. Just to complete what I want to say, looking through the things that we're asking the consultants to prepare over the next three months, it's reflecting the statement guidelines, looking at the viability assessments and the housing strategy advice and looking at any knock-on effect to the sustainability appraisal, so I notice going back into it a little bit because I don't know it chapter and verse obviously, the sustainability appraisal objective 10 is climate and so when it all got knocked back before the judicial review, there was a relook at that and it was still deemed that with the slightly lower expectations on net zero, there was still a really rosy outlook and a really positive impact on the environment but we've been told in the news today we've got five years to mitigate against 1.5 degree Celsius global warming, just because it's better than it would have been doesn't mean it's okay for us and doesn't mean we should be compromising when we've had a judicial review on our side, so I guess I'm strongly advocating that we take the written ministerial statement with a pinch of salt and make salt cross as net zero as originally intended. I think that's noted, thank you very much for that and I think that is the intention. Anyone else, any questions on this report? Councillor Walker. Yeah, thank you, I appreciate what Councillor Smith just said and it's all very lovely that we're protecting the penguins of the future but in reality this has been going on for many many years, meanwhile the council's failing to build new homes as we'll hear all about when we finally get that briefing on the five-year housing land supply, so assuming this all goes fine and dandy and the timeline is great, when a shovel's going to go in the ground and these houses actually going to be built? Good question, it would be worth if you can find the time to have a look at the phasing work that was done when we took the document through examination. I haven't got it to hand so I can't quote exact dates but at that point it was looking at commencement in 2026, us in first completions in the first half of 2026, we're now 18 months, two years on from that, so you can roll that forward to around 2028 I would suggest. And again it sounds sort of awfully long off in the future but we do know with large and not just garden village communities but any large strategic site, the lead in times, because it's offered an outline permission, there needs to be reserve matters, discharge of conditions, negotiation over a complex 106 agreements, et cetera, that the lead in time often is four or five years between granting an outline and actual shovels in the ground, so I suspect that's the sort of timeframe we're looking at in this instance. Anyone else or can I thank the officers for their report? Thank you very much for your time. And we'll move on to agenda item 11, which is changes to the customer telephone access. And over to Peter. Thank you, Chair. I'm here in the absence of Councillor Smith. The purpose of this report is in light of the declining customer demand, is to propose a trial that we've actually carried out becomes a permanent arrangement following the data that's been gathered. The trial of the reduced telephone access hours from nine to two to the public is approved. The concept and customers are continuing to shift to digital channels. And of course, the added bonus to this is that there is a financial benefit as well to the council as well as improved and more reflective services being provided and to more customers at the same time. And the net gain is £125,000 to each council, because of course, this is across Cotswold as well as West, so that will actually assist really in the efficiency of the council and in actually managing the funding we get from the council tax and the grants from government in terms of the overall financial position. I'm going to hand over to the officer who's done all the work with the team to accomplish really what has been a very successful trial. And really, the staff have carried it out with real efficiency. And actually, I think you can say a bit more about that. So thank you for that. So just over the period of the trial, there has been a complaint by a customer complaining on behalf of elderly residents that they but this was not withheld was not upheld, because there was no reduction in service, the telephone lines are still open between the hours of nine and two customers are still able to access the offices at all sites between the hours of nine and five if they wish to come and see us face to face. And if they wish to interact with us that way as opposed to digital, then they're perfectly able to do so. We've also got provision in place for an emergency telephone line, which is from two to five o'clock in the afternoon. So customers can report dangerous structures to us, they still can take homeless calls. And this is provision is in place so that we don't leave any residents in any dangerous or critical situations. We're also equipped to answer election calls as a priority when the need arises. So we're obviously stepping into that at this period in time. During the trial, we've also changed the working pattern of the customer services operators. So they this is to meet the increased telephone demand during the lunch period. So our officers are now taking their lunch breaks after two o'clock, just to enable the decrease in waiting times for customers who phone in their own lunch breaks. It's important to confirm I think, as Andy mentioned, that the savings to be realized within this report are if it's agreed by West Oxfordshire and Cotswold District Council because they are generic officers across the sites. Hi. Thank you. Councillor Wilson. Hi, thanks. Just a first question, if that's all right. On 2.5, and as you said yourself, it was mirrored with Cotswold District Council. And I just want to clarify, have the Cotswold District Council already made the decision on staying with these customer service hours themselves before us, or are they still in the process of deciding? Sorry. It's important to note that they've made a freeze on decisions during the election period, but verbally and informally, I've been informed that they're all very happy with the decision, and that they would be looking to make this permanent. So there would be a month's delay. If West were to agree, there will be a month's delay for Cotswold to come on board with that. But we do need to wait until after the election process. Sorry, just to follow up if that's all right. I don't mean to use the word misleading, but it does seem to have misleading. When this was first presented to us as a committee, we were told that it was very much our decision that we could decide whether or not we wanted to keep this, and we weren't going to be influenced by something outside. And obviously now we're being told that the Cotswold District Council are happy to go with it. So if we did then turn around and say we don't want this, that obviously wouldn't work. So I'm a bit confused on that one. No, I don't think it's misleading at all really. I think basically we knew at the outset this was a shared service across the two district councils. The fact that we're talking about a month here or there is neither here or there. And as has been said, the verbal indication is that they are looking to do the same as what the executive is likely to do next week on the basis of actually this report, which actually is a really positive report. And it's really sort of a bit churlish to actually sort of suggest otherwise. I mean, I don't speak for Cotswold at all on this matter, but I kind of think that we've got to actually take an undertaking that's verbal at this stage and actually trust that the benefits of the report as we've seen it will actually be followed through. I mean, there's nothing to actually suggest otherwise. Councillor Meade. Yes, sorry. I was going to mention the same thing as Councillor Wilson, but I will go on to say that as much as you are saying that this is a successful thing and that you've only had one complaint, what you haven't done is come back to any of the members and done any form of consultation with the members, because I can tell you for certain that I've had more than one complaint from phones not being able to be answered after two o'clock. I have a lot of elderly residents in my ward, as I suppose many others have, and many of them don't have access to any digital form, and they have to rely on a community bus to get them into Whitney to go to the town centre shop. So I think it would have been quite nice if you'd sort of consulted with members to see what our feedback was as well rather than just assuming that the one that you've had that didn't get followed through was it. On the doorstep, that does happen to have come up several times, and once people realise that it's a saving of their money, they're quite happy and they say, well, that's not much, just nine two of two is fine, I couldn't ring again in the morning. Councillor Clarence. I mean, if we take the board as rent, is it possible there's a third way to have your cake and eat it anyway? Because if there's only three calls per day on average after 3pm, if more than 75%, more than two thirds of those are homelessness related, is it not possible to make the same savings and put in place a telephone hunt group where people still call the main line and you assign a selection of officer lines internally where that call will roam until it gets answered, rather than go nowhere so that it can be picked up by a human being and given and passed on to the correct person. Those people are here anyway, and how much would one phone call across all officers particularly impact service levels for the most of the year? Clearly when it's election time it can be much busier, is that not a third way potentially where it could go? And we use it commonly where I work at Oxford University, where you have a central line that people call, and the call simply roams the internal lines until it finds an answer. And then if that's not the right person, they can get you to the, they can connect you to the right person. If it's only one call between those hours, really, practically, that's the saving and the service. I think the figure is around the emergency line, so the emergency line has less calls obviously between those hours in the afternoon. With regards to the other calls, there would be more calls in the afternoon, which would, you might get a planning person that's answering a phone for a council tax officer who wouldn't be able to answer any of those queries. But they can certainly leave messages, they can leave emails, and then our officers, as you say, are still available in the afternoon. They make extra outgoing calls, so they're still able to look if the information's urgent. They're certainly ringing them back in the afternoon as they're still working in the back office. I think the reason that we've got so few calls after two o'clock now is because we're very carefully restricting the services that people can access after two o'clock. So as Michelle said earlier, it's basically outside of election periods where we'd get the phones on from two till five for that. Outside of that, it is just dangerous structures and homelessness. And you know, to be able to achieve these savings, we've had to reduce our staffing levels. So thankfully for the customer service manager, but we have quite a high turnover in customer services, which is normal for any organisation. So being able to, when we get a vacancy, just recruit two. So eventually, we'll have very few resources available after two o'clock. No, slightly. I'm not suggesting you retain those resources. I'm suggesting if the telephone calls are reduced to such a degree after two o'clock, that they're no longer particularly significant to warrant those resources. Could the phone calls not be allowed to go into a group where you call the main line and that call, if there's anyone dotting around, will have to go into the main line? I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But I think it's potentially a third way which is worth an additional trial, even if the other councils are not. But the resources won't be there after two is the point I'm making. Sorry. Maybe I'm not being clear. So it's not because you're expecting a frontline resource to answer the call and triage the call to the right person. You said about what's called a hunt group where the frontline phone automatically goes into a group of other telephone lines where it bumps around until it gets answered on one of the other call internal officer lines. It's not the main telephone line that's being answered by somebody, but that will still be the point of entry to the queue system, if you like, for people wanting access to services. If the telephone calls are so small, I appreciate there will be an impact on officers' lives. I'm not trying to make belittle that. But if the volume is so small, surely those calls could be allowed to come into the main line and not be triaged by a human being, but might be allowed to come through into a group of other nominated telephone lines. I'm not going to come back again. Yeah. I think what's happened is the calls after two have – because we can still see where calls have been attempted, and we know that they're reducing. They're reducing because the word has got out and we've done comms around you can't call after two. If we changed that, that would increase back up to what the levels were previously, potentially. And then we'd be left in a situation where we've got the same number of calls over the same period of time, but with significantly reduced resources. No, I've got nothing to add. Yeah, I'm just going to support what John's been saying. And I think if you'd have asked that question 20 years ago about having a hunt group where planning officers in the back office could pick the phone up, I'd probably have agreed with you. I think having a front end and an operating model where customer services can guarantee picking the phone up and dealing with the inquiry in a robust way that can be audited is absolutely the model the council should be adopting. Moving to a model where it moves into a hunt group can be frustrating for customers, because actually they get passed from pillar to post. And so actually the approach that the council's taken is to ensure that people are clear about when they can call, and dealing with the high-risk, high-complexity cases like homelessness, like dangerous buildings, making those available 24/7. So that's the kind of strategy, if you like. As I say, I think 20 years ago, hunt groups worked very well, but in a complex local authority environment, there aren't many authorities that are now operating like that. Thank you. Can I suggest we move on? We've got a report that says that we've got higher satisfaction levels. We've saved a whole load of money. The decision's going to be made by the exec next week based on the facts, and I don't think there's much more to say. Anyone else? Any other questions? Or can I move on to the next item, then? In which case, can I thank officers for their report? And we will move on to Agenda Item 12, which is report back on recommendations. There are none. Before I move on to Agenda Item 13, I'd like to move to Agenda Item 16, which is the date of the next meeting. You'll see on the papers there were two dates there, the 17th and the 15th. Unfortunately, the 15th is no longer available, so the date of the next meeting will be the 17th of July, just to make that clear before we move on to the -- are we happy to agree that? Yes. Thank you. Can I move them back to Agenda Item 13, which is the committee work program, and there is a new copy on your desks for the work program. So I just want to make it clear before we move on to the next one, what we've just agreed is that Wednesday the 17th of July will be the scrutiny meeting, Monday the 22nd will be the executive meeting where they take some of those recommendations, and then Wednesday the 24th will be the full Council meeting. So it will be a much shorter period of time than we normally have, but those are the dates because of the general election. Can I ask -- are there any questions on our current work program or anything we want to look at? Yes, I wanted to ask a question about the last item on page 150, and I did inform the Chief Executive. I was going to ask this question. Can we be updated on the process that Upland Subcommittee have requested on a report on the fact of the World Heritage Site buffer zone, which was requested back in November? I wonder if we can have an update on what progress that particular thing has made. So the version of the work plan we're looking at is the paper one on desks? Are you looking at page 150 of the main pack? The last item. So I think the reason -- one of the reasons we've given you an updated work plan is because there are some items included in error in the version in the pack. So page 150. Page 150 on my version doesn't have items on it. Sorry on the online version, but you're looking at the paper hard copy, aren't you? It's not on ours. It's not online. Yes, as I say, that's an old version of the work plan and some items were included in error on that. So we've given you an updated work plan. I don't have that in front of me, but if we've got a hard copy of the original pack -- there's no officer to do that. I'll ask officer to reply to you in writing. Sorry, I don't know anything about that. I'll have to follow up after the meeting. Councillor Simpson. Is there any updates on IT performance coming at all? Can I ask what you mean by IT? It would be nice to have an update on their anti-scamming type things and also their services to members. I think there was an all-member briefing on cyber quite recently and we'll still have the recording of that. There's nothing on your plan at the moment, but that's not to say that you couldn't request an update if the committee was minded to. If individual members have a particular interest, I'm sure Phil Martin will be happy to provide that information if there's not an appetite for it to come to this committee. Yes, since we're in a pre-election period and in the spirit of scrutiny, can I ask what arrangements have been made about the Executive Member for Planning and Sustainable Development for the upcoming executive meeting and for this period? Just for this period, I just checked my emails. I haven't had a notification, whole council-wide officially, so I just wanted to let the committee hear what the arrangements are. No, the Executive on the 12th has the area action plan with his name next to it on the work programme. I know it's no biggie, because I know if he just sent apologies, you could still have that executive meeting, but I didn't notice anything officially stated about the status of the executive at this time. I've got a microphone, I think I can answer that. The executive portfolio for planning and sustainability currently sits with the leader during the pre-election period, so the work plan and the full plan have all been updated in recent days to reflect that. Anything else on the committee work programme, or can I move on to the last one? The only thing I'd ask before we move on to the last one of the committee is that you will see that it's a very short time period, and actually the paperwork was still being updated Friday for this committee, and I'd just ask that if the paperwork for all those things could be sent to members as soon as possible, as up to date as possible, so we don't have to keep re-reading it all, it would be a great help for me. And other than that, can I move on to agenda item 14, which is the executive work programme, and are there any questions or comments on that? It's not necessarily on the work programme, but you mentioned that the executive meeting is moving to the Monday, the 22nd. Is it still at two o'clock, or are we mixing that up as well? Because obviously we've all put dates in our diaries and taken time off of work for the whole year, and now you're moving the goal posts. Do you want me to – I think the rationale for the meeting being moved is around the sensitivity of certain papers being published during the pre-election period. You've got the public review coming in July, number of staff are affected by that, and keeping with the original time scale would have meant staff being consulted on what's going to happen to their jobs a few days before a general election, which they're going to be working all night on, and it was felt that that wasn't appropriate. So we've moved some meetings back to ensure that that consultation can take place as soon as practicable after the general election, and then we can start publishing papers for Scrutiny, then Executive, then Council. Councillor Smith. I apologise, Chair. I thought we were on Executive agenda item with my previous question, but I do have another one. I just want to put into words how keenly I'm anticipating the SIL report, and I don't want you to slip any further, so it's in your capable hands, Councillor Graham. Any other questions on the Executive Work Programme, or can I call – sorry, we've got one more item. Can I move on to agenda item 15? Agenda item 15 is a nice and easy one. With the recent changes for the elections, we have a member from this committee that has now moved to the Executive, so can't sit on the Working Party, so we are one member light for the Labour group for the Working Party on the leisure and wellbeing. Is there a member of the Labour group that wishes to join that group? Councillor Ayman. Thank you very much. Are we happy to agree with that? Thank you. Any other questions, or can I draw the meeting to a close? Thank you very much for your attendance, and see you in July.