Transcript

Transcript

[BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] As you know, the Drop the Island Planning Strategy went back to Cabinet to consider by decision of full council. Ordinarily 28 days would have to be given 28 days notice for that, but wasn't the time to give that notice because full council had sent it back sooner. So I'm just required to give that announcement. You all know then, obviously the Island Planning Strategy went back to full council and was approved. So it's slightly historic. Item number two minutes of the last meeting held on the 12th of March 2024. Do I have agreement to sign those minutes? All those in favor? All those against extensions. So that's carried sign those minutes. [BLANK_AUDIO] Item number three, declarations of interest. Are there any? Item number four, public question time. We haven't had any written questions. There's no one in the gallery, but I understand, Councilman, you've got a question to read out from a member of the public. Please, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. This was raised at the Save the Military Road meeting at Alilite Pearl on 28th of April 2024 from table three. The question is, when will the upgraded consultant report agreed in the February 2024 budget regarding options to save the military road? Specifically, the child to freshwater base action be available? I suspect on the written response for that. I don't know if there's anyone in the room who wants to say something. Yeah. I'm Michelle Love, the new service director for Highway and Community Protection. Sorry, what was the question? And I'll do my best to answer it. Yes, please. The question is, when will the upgraded consultant report agreed in the February 2024 budget regarding options to save the military road? Specifically, the child to freshwater base action be available? There are papers online. It came to neighborhood and regeneration scrutiny committee last Thursday. So the most up-to-date information can be found on the website related to that scrutiny meeting on Thursday 2nd of May. The consultant, there is a working group being formed and that is currently looking at three options. So when those options have been agreed, then obviously we will update the information. So the answer I guess in summary is the most up-to-date information is available and as soon as that changes, we will make that available to members. Thank you. Chair, can I, given it was a question from the meeting and could I ask that that that written answer is sent back to them because I don't want to be the messenger all the time. And I think Councillor Nick Stewart is the one who is managing that process and that saved the military road convening of their meetings and indeed of the new committee they just formed. Yeah, if you can hand that note over. Does it have the name of the public on it or okay. Thank you. They think there are any more public questions. So we'll move on to agenda item five progress update pages 13 to 14. Okay. Actually, Councillor Jones Evans has given her apologies is not here so I can't ask her now routine agenda item on Kingston Marine Park, which is when we'll get heads of terms agreement in relation to that project there. Alex means you're being pointed out from the room. If you're online and would like and have any update on that, that would be helpful. But, you know, don't feel you have to put you on the spot there. It's the heads of agreement for Kingston Marine Park. Do we know how close we are to getting getting a group, those agree heads of agreement signed. It's being handled by, can you hear me first of all. Hello. Yeah, I can hear you. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It has been. They've had some further discussions with the particular group. Property services are handling the discussions. They're still no further. Well, they've done the heads of terms. They have draft heads of terms and they are working towards a date, but we've yet to confirm a date. It has been somewhat slowed up. I think as you've possibly been told in the past by the strikes that they were having on the in the film industry across the world, but we are advised that we will be getting a date shortly. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. Also, the leisure centres review, which is an item that's been here for a long, long time now. Is there anyone in the room or online? You can give an update on that. Well, I can. I'm happy to give an update as it's in my, my area. I wasn't going to come to the meeting, but as I've dialed in for the right handboard stuff a little bit later. The report has been prepared as we speak. We are going to do an end of year report so we can do the whole of the financial year. So I'm waiting for the financial data to come through with that so that we can bring a report to a future committee. I can tell you at this stage that the, the figures look very encouraging. The income is back to the levels. It was pre COVID, which is very good news. I think for any, any leisure facility across the country. The only issues that we are seeing presently are, as I think we're all aware, we've seen a very large hiking utilities across the course of the year. However, we did a grant. We applied for a grant for half a million pounds from sport England this year and we were awarded that so we don't have a particular issue this year. So the figures look quite encouraging. The only issue for next year is what we think the forecasted utilities are likely to be for, for the leisure facilities that we manage. We don't yet know that yet. So we're waiting for some work to be done on there. It does look like that to the utility bills are going to come down quite drastically. But we haven't yet got a forecast for the full financial year for next year yet. But some, some quite positive things in there, I think. I can't cancel the quirk. I understand that the report for the future of the leisure since has been completed, and I can understand that you want to issue a report on how the leisure sends the come back to their reasonable state of financial affairs at the end of the year. I don't see why one report is actually delayed the other. There are two separate reports looking at two separate things. And it seems that we're just delaying this. It's two years ago since the report was commissioned a bit more probably. And I'm pretty sure that it has been around and kept secret for quite a long while now. And we seem to have this sort of thing of unnecessary secrecy. And I can understand if it's got bad news in it, you want to have the results saying it's better than it was predicted. But I really think they're two separate items and we should actually get released as the report as soon as possible. Any further comment on that, Mr. Minnes. I'm not really. I think, you know, the report, the information has been there for the entire time. You know, that's the kind of information that's available financial performance of the election to be in there an entire time. The longer obviously you wait, the better that it's very difficult to predict what things are likely to end up being in advance. So the longer that you allow things to reestablish yourselves, the better quality of report you'll get. I think there was always a view that we wanted to get past the three busiest months of the year, which were January, February and March. To give us some decent forecasting. So I think we've got to that stage now. We're waiting for the close of the financial reports, which normally occurs around about the 20th of the month, so around about April. So we're just waiting for those reports to be finalised and the report will be ready for your future committee. Thank you. So item number six, the committee's work plan. So the full plan and the work program. Obviously, our next meeting is in June. And it looks like we've got to get agenda there with crossover operations. And the decision scrutiny on the adoption of the new part of a master plan, supplementary planning document policy framework, annual review, and that partially performance and monitoring report that would normally come for June. But I understand cabinet's going to look at that this week. So that's unlikely to remain in our June meeting because cabinet will have seen that. You can see it there. There's issues on July meeting. I can't identify anything on the council's forward plan that we haven't put on an agenda of interest. Okay, the only matter I would raise and normally perhaps it wouldn't be something for corporate scrutiny, but is the traffic regulation order review. So the areas of rice and fresh water, shelf lead yarmouth have been reviewed for in the main as I understand it. Double yellow lines. That's caused a certain amount of consternation in the area that I represent and I wonder if that could be something we could look at simply as an information exercise really and to find what if any of the. Points raised by the community have been taken into consideration. So that's for decision on the 30th of June, isn't it? So you'd want to see that coming for our June meeting. Or at least the 11th of June, I suppose would be all right. Yes, yeah, the committee happy with that to go on the agenda. Yeah, seems to be nods. Yeah, Councilor Churchman. I'd just like to make the point just keep painting yellow lines. Does not solve any traffic problems whatsoever. It just actually creates more. I was going to say you'll be able to see. Are those views in June, but you'll need to be substituted here Vanessa to come back and find anything else. In which case we will move on to item number seven right hand board. So when the agenda was put together, we'd envisaged the chair of the board. Stephen Holbrook envisaged that he would come and make a report to this committee on the progress of constituting the board and putting together the relevant documentation from government. The board hasn't moved forward with great pace, not least of all. As of last Monday, so Monday a week ago, the full board hadn't technically been approved by government. So I met with Steve Holbrook last Monday. And we agreed that it would be more beneficial for him to come to this committee and make a fuller report in June. By which time. Many of the documents will be in the consultation with the public as well will be in in draft form and he will be in a position to seek views and take questions from this committee. In the meantime, I said I would give a brief report on my conversation with him, and we also have Chris Ward of 151 officer in the room, and he has circulated a note, which is very helpful actually and and sets out the council sort of call. But if I just quickly give my summary so as of a week ago the board, the board members have been invited to join the board those successful applicants. A meeting has been held between the chairman and the members of the board, and they met a deadline of I think something like the 1st of April in order to provide those names to government. At the moment, it's on hold and they're just waiting approval for the next stage, which will be a small round of funding to then go on and can solve the public and deal with a strategy, a published strategy of how the money is going to be spent, certainly in the early years. I also had a conversation with Colin Rowland, who said that the appointment of the 2 councillors to the board will be dealt with again at full annual council. So next week, as appointments to outside bodies in the normal way. So there would be a vote of full council on 2 councillors that sit on that board. That's probably it from me. I'm going to now invite Chris Ward to maybe summarize his paper, which I think is very helpful, and it might be helpful actually to the town board members to see that for a version of that note. Mr Ward. Thank you chair conscious that I wasn't asked to prepare a paper but thought it might help frame any discussion or questions that you may have. So I set out a paper on a just on a few on a few pages which sets out that clearly it's the town board's responsibility to develop the low the long term plan. The town board to develop the vision, the priorities and the objectives. The role of an accountable body in that there is a body that when you're dealing with public funds needs to take proper ownership, have proper financial stewardship, ensure that there's the proper financial administration around public funds. So in that sense, the Isle of White Council is the accountable body in this instance. And they are responsible for ensuring the proper use of public funds. So it's the council's responsibility is accountable body to execute the plan. That's the terminology that's used in the in the guidance document or the long term plan guidance document that's been prepared by government. So I reiterate that is the low it's the accountable bodies responsibility to execute the plan to fund it and to execute it. So to provide the funding because the funding comes from government to the Isle of White Council is held by the Isle of White Council. All of the financial transactions will flow through the Isle of White Council's accounts, and it will be the Isle of White Council is the accountable body that will be responsible for submitting financial returns to central government. I've also taken the opportunity in the paper to set out some best practice around the accountable body function and the accountable body role. You may know that I, I have this role or had this role for the soul and local enterprise partnership so I have a fair amount of knowledge about what good looks like in terms of assurance around public funds and how accountable bodies ought to operate. There's five, there's this five principles set out in the paper, and they are the ones that have been determined by the professional professional body chart Institute of public finance and accountancy. They deemed to be those principles that should, that should endure through any accountable body relationship. So, I'll take those, I'll take those in. I'll take those individually. The first one is for there to be a proper agreement, if you like, and relationship between the section, one officer or chief financial officer, and the chair of the board to establish what effective governance and controls or to look like. And so that I can discharge my statutory responsibility for the financial administration of those public funds. That would be the opportunity for myself to be able to report back to that board itself in the event of any concerns that I may have around the use of those public funds. It's important that when decisions are taken by the board for the use of those public funds, just like they would be in a council setting that they are properly informed decisions, so that they understand all of the, both legal and financial implications of any of the decisions that are before it should be an internal audit plan. So, in, in this sense, most of the guidance that is written by government talks about a light touch approach around assurance, but that equally can be a relatively light touch approach around internal audit, but nevertheless, it would be a, it would be a useful addition to the process. And also that there are proper procedures around scrutiny and financial assurance. Yes, also I think important to recognize that in the government's expectation it's written in the guidance as well and I've reproduced it right at the back of the report. They talk about in relation to assurance three lines of defense. Two of those lines of defense are actually me, the chief financial officer, the first one being that I provide that somebody is responsible for the financial, the financial administration. Secondly, that I provide written, written confirmation that, that all of the necessary checks and the proper administration of the financial affairs have taken place in relation to the program. And I expect that I would have to complete annually and submit back to government. So, I hope that provides you with some information around the assurance framework that would, that would surround the towns fund. But clearly I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Ward. Mr. Churchman. Yes, will we are the authority in charge. In that case, will any of this come before the audit committee. Will it be subject to audit committee scrutiny and of course, annual audit by Ernst John. It will form part of the, the annual audit by Ernst and young, as it, as will any expenditure of the council because it will sit within the council's financial accounts. The extent to which you will have any real scrutiny over it will be much more limited. It's supposed to be a light touch framework. And so long as I can provide government with the satisfaction that the proper controls are in place. I think that's what the government would expect. But let's not forget that it's actually the town's board that will be made will be taking all of the decisions on the use of the funds themselves. I'm Councillor downer. Chairman Mr Ward. I'll ask it, who actually selects teams to have a team board is that a government or two teams have to apply for it. There was a, there was a government process and there was an announcement of those, of those towns board, but I think it was, it was undertaken on a much, on a more formulaic basis rather than an issue. It exists rather than an applications basis. And then the constitution of the town's board think as you've touched on earlier on is the way the guidance is written it's, it's for the chair to, or the independent chair to constitute their board in whichever manner they feel, but it has to be broadly community led, rather than politically led. Councillor Sping. Chair, thank you, Chair. I'm not sure this is really a question for Mr Ward or just a general observation. I, as were a number of members of the council were concerned when the appointment of the council representatives on the trade board were that item on the agenda was removed from full council. I think on the 20th of March meeting to the consternation of a number of Councillors. I'm also concerned by the failure of Councillor Jordan on that occasion to declare an interest. I'm also concerned by the failure of Councillor Jordan to answer the question who appointed the chair of the board. Well, in fact, as I understand it now, it was himself together with others in a, in a committee, but he failed on two occasions to answer who had done that. And the next day, rather it would seem in return for having appointed, if I may say so, the chair of the board, Councillor Jordan was appointed as a quid pro quo. Now, I'm extremely concerned that if this committee is going to be open and transparent and deal with large amounts of money, this should be looked at. I thought it was going to be looked at today, but clearly it's not. Would it be looked at therefore at the full council next full council meeting, or will it come before corporate scrutiny before it's too late. I would challenge, for example, whether or not in these circumstances, the inclusion on the board of Councillor Jordan or of the chair has been appropriately made, or should be appropriately or should be continued. I mean, I'm happy to reiterate what I was told in my meeting with Colin Rowland, and Bob Seeley the MP was in that meeting Monday a week ago. Colin Rowland said the appointments to the town board will be made by this Council at annual council in the normal way, when it deals with appointments to outside bodies. So, that should sweep up the concerns that you have Councillor Spin without me commenting on them. That would be a fresh set of appointments. So, whether Councillor Jordan and Councillor Lucione were validly appointed or not at the previous full council meeting, next council next week will make appointments, and that will cure any problems. If it may be different Councillors are appointed, it may be those same two Councillors are appointed, but it will be a matter for a full vote of this council in the normal way to the appointment of an app to an outside body. And that was what Mr Bowman told me Monday a week ago and Bob Seeley on an online call. Will that include sorry the appointment of the chair. No, so again, the appointment of the chair was done through a process where there was an interview panel, the leader of the Council was on that interview panel. And as was, and I don't have a comprehensive list, but I know the police and crime commissioner was on that panel. I think Mr relevant himself was on it. And there was more than one interview, more than one applicant, and a decision was made, and an appointment was made and Mr Holbrook was that the person who was off of the appointment. I've seen and I've taken quite an active interest. I don't see any issue with the appointment process of chair from what I've seen. And Council leader. Just to clarify on that. So, I believe what was just said previously by Mr ward is that the guidance is for the chair of the board to constitute that board. But now what we're saying is it will. All Council will be doing part of that by. So this is in relation to the two councillors. So there are certain positions on the board that have to take place. So the member of Parliament's automatically on the board, the police and crime commissioner, or their nominated representatives on the board, and two members of the local authority, the local authority being obviously the qualified council, the council, the paper that was put to full council on the 20th of March, set out the criteria. The guidance and comments on the guidance. And that paper said that that full council meeting would elect effectively the full council would vote for its two councillors. As we know we're all there. The paper was withdrawn on the last minute. I won't go into the detail of the conversation that was had Colin Roland was absent. I think it was on leave at that time. He is reiterated to me very clearly know the process should have been council making its appointment, because they're councillors, just because they're councillors, the independent chair is free to make his appointments of all the other roles. But I have to say, it's been more than just him from what I've seen there's been a process stolen partners has been involved has been an application process. So it hasn't been quite as arbitrary as it might sound from from what I've seen. So was there a councillor hand up here before I go to, so I'm just going to go with the committee first. So, councillor red drop. Thank you. I was just looking at the agenda for the next full council. That's not listed on the appointment. So maybe that's something that we should chase. Yeah, I'm I need to start earlier to actually council has been pointed out so I will go back and clarify. Yeah, thank you. Somebody's pointed out that Chris Potter, you're possibly wishing to speak. Thank you chair. Now, just simply to reiterate that we've taken on board the need to add the issue regarding the selection of representatives to representatives for the Isle of Wight. Councillors, you're rightly indicated. So there will be amendments to the papers issued so that members can indeed select by majority vote. The two white councils, they wish to serve and put forward to the right town town board. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Potter. And I just go to Mr means, who's also on line with his hand up. Yes, yes, thank you, councillor. Yeah, that was a very good update that you gave. I can just tell members as of today, which is a kind of this hot off the press that de luck have approved now. The next stage of funding for the town board in terms of the revenue funding to set up into all the public consultation and then to do the next stage of the process. So that's coming today. Okay, thank you. That's that's very helpful. Thank you. I'm going to go to, um, councillor spink and then councillor cook. I appreciate that. If the agenda for the next meeting of full council is amended, then we will have an opportunity to elect the two representatives of the council on the board. I remain concerned, I have to say, and I do think it's a matter that corporate scrutiny should look into I remain concerned by the fact that it was removed from the agenda on grounds which now seem to be agreed were not justified. That councillor Jordan, failed to declare an interest felt to declare that he had taken part in the election process when he was asked, who elected the chair, he failed to answer that question on two occasions. And failed to inform because he must have known that he was going to be appointed for very next day. I think this is something that corporate scrutiny should be looking at. It's not just a question of who we vote for. It's a question of why were we given the various information by the monitoring officer. Why was it withdrawn. Why is it now being reinstated. In other words, the acceptance of incorrect procedure. Why did councillor Jordan fail to behave in what I would suggest was an open and transparent manner. Those are all good items in my view for corporate scrutiny to commit to consider. I think councillor speak, they sound more like sort of inquiries. And I'm not sure this committee is here to sort of conduct an inquiry. I hope the committee is satisfied that however that item was withdrawn from the 20th of March agenda for council. The issues, problems, concerns are now being addressed addressed by bringing it back to annual council for a vote. And if there was anything that wasn't done correctly, whether that, for whatever reason, it will be done correctly. And so the problem will be solved. If you have any concerns around the council lead its conduct. I would suggest it's a matter for you and him and for you to ask him those questions, but I don't think it's a matter for this committee to set up an inquiry type investigation into. Chair, although I did think that you had thought that it was and that indeed, councillor Jordan was going to attend today. I shall certainly ask him about it at full council which he may find more embarrassing than if we did it here but there it is. You can rest assured I'll be asking him. I'm fine. Please do. I think in his absence it would be difficult today anyway, but I'm satisfied that the process that is going to happen next week at full council is the proper one. And therefore if there were any problems they will be dealt with by that vote next week. You may want to get an opinion from Mr Potter but my understanding is that it's inappropriate for allegations of which is a standards to be looked at by a committee like this, that should go through the monitoring officer, maybe the monitoring officer would like to confirm that. Mr Potter and then I'll move on to the next question I think Mr Potter. Thank you chairman and thank you councillor quirk. Yes, any allegations of breach of the members code of conduct. If there are any have to be in writing and have to be referred to me, at least in the first instance, as indeed any sort of concerns best addressed through that route which is laid down in under the localism at 2011. Thank you chair. Councilor Kirk. Thank you. A couple of quick questions first one for Mr means. Good news is moving forward and the news from D log does this mean that the town board itself is now ratified and can meet. And my second question is for Mr ward. The town boards in as we all probably aware the town board in itself is not a legal entity, so cannot employ staff directly. And at the moment, all staffing is going through by town council. I just wondered if there has been any progress on the framework for that and how that's going to work moving forward essentially, you know, making sure you get our money back on that. Thanks. So, so that was a question directed. Well, that, I don't know whether it was to Mr means or Mr ward, but whoever would like to answer it, please do. The first question was for Mr means, just asking if the news from D log means that the town board itself is now being ratified. And can it now meet as an official capacity because conscious of time, you know, we've already lost a month and we've only got to August to get this done. And the second question was regarding our staffing and by town councils role in that and how that will help the process for my town council to be reimbursed for staffing and how, how the finances for that will work, given that the town board is not a legal entity. Yeah, I think whilst we've heard today that the money has been agreed, we haven't had it fully ratified yet, which is a little surprising, but we still are waiting that. And obviously we need to appoint the two councillors to the board anywhere for council. So, I don't think the full constitution of the committee is quite there yet, but you are very right, we need to move this on an alarming pace because all the information has to be in by August. And the longer this goes on, the more difficult it becomes to get that information in on time, and back to D log. Okay. Council is waiting her hand. So it's only it's not really my, my business is, but I have had an email saying that waiting for confirmation from D like with the membership of the town board and I first want to thank you for your patience. We have now had that confirmation. Okay, are you saying that's different information to this demand? So Alex, I've had an email saying it has been ratified. Okay, well, I haven't, I haven't had that so I can discuss that with you, but I think obviously the agreement of the two members hasn't been made yet as it so the, the, the actual board isn't complete until that's done. And Mr ward, is there anything to say on the use of a right town council staff to support the board? The one thing I can say with certainty is that we received the £200,000 on Friday, just gone on Friday the 3rd of May. So that is for the development of the long term plan, there was 50,000 received prior to that. So long as there's a there's agreement in there's agreement in place, there should be no problem in terms of reimbursing whoever's providing the support, but there is obviously within the guidance it talks about that there's it would be advisable to have secretariat support for the town board itself. I don't know if that's what you're referring to, but where they commissioned that from is obviously a separate matter. Yeah, I'd be interested as well about the decision making of who they go to to start and provide support. You know, while you're who would choose to ask for staff from right town council as opposed to all of our council, but maybe that's not a question that could be answered in this room. Councillor Lucionni. Because I was at that first meeting and john Jones asked that question and so it's a temporary thing for the first three months I think it was. And when, when whoever revisits that then they'll look again is when the money's come through so it was it was looked up for a very temporary time, so that the work happening in the background ready for coming to the first ratify meeting. I hope that helps. Thank, thank you. I've got to have had a handout from Councillor JOHNSTON for a while. Thank you, Chair. I wonder if the monitor officer could just clarify exactly what the process is for nominating people for the right term board ready for the 15th of May meeting. I think see. Councillor JOHNSTON, you just talk about two Councillors here we're clear that that's all we're talking about the May meeting. Mr. Potter. Just to clarify, it'll be a matter of either white houses to decide on their decision as to who the two representatives would be put forward to be voted to serve on the right town board so in effect it's in members hands as to who they wish to nominate and who they actually agree upon. Thank you. No nominations on an I and a vote at the meeting. There's no formal nomination process. So what you were getting right there that anybody, any Councillor can nominate any other Councillor. Yeah. I'm Councillor Churchman. Yes, I'm just concerned about the town council and the town board. Is there actually a set thing, Mr Ward, whereby the town board has to be separate from the town council, it has a division been indicated because I find it a little bit worrying. If you start mixing the two, whether it's staff or finances or anything else to me the town board is there for one reason to spend 10 million pound. I'm concerned, if there is an overlap between the council, the town, right town council and my board. Thank you. Yeah, the town board and the town council entirely separate. And I'll read, I'll read an element for you from the, from the, from the guidance. It says town boards should be community led institutions that build civic capacity in the town with the local authority or an alternative organization such as a community group, providing a secretary at function. The local authority will act as the accountable funding body. It goes on to say, we encourage local authorities to help empower the town board and realizing this role and driving forward a community led vision for change. This may include providing advice and support on legal duties like impact assessments to help leaders with non public sector backgrounds, navigate those requirements, they may be less familiar with. They may just come back and say, thank you, because that state's quite clearly the position so that everybody here and the public now know exactly how it should operate. Thank you. Thank you. We shall move on, but one more question from Councillor. Just with Mr ward if I may thank you for that. I'm slightly confused because you can be both the member of the board and a member of the town council. So the separation is not in the sense of personnel necessarily. I can only comment, that's true, but that's the same of many organizations, but that is true. I accept that, but in saying that the two are independent of each other, if they contain the same personnel, they're not as such independent. I just wanted to back clarification. Okay, that just as there are for council meetings, for example, there's proper requirements for registering interests. If necessary recruit recusing yourself from matters that would be on agendas, and they have to follow the same governance regime as if it was a normal council meeting that that you would be more with that you would be familiar with. Thank you, we will move on. Item number eight, pre decision scrutiny draft health contributions supplementary planning document pages 35 to 72. We've all have the opportunity to read those. Are there any comments on them. A councilor quirk. In principle, it all looks, they sound, don't have any objection. However, the way that it's funded, the calculations I do have a problem. It's assuming that every property has 2.09. So, one of the properties recently approved in Benbridge that go for £950,000. Five bedrooms, or with a one bedroom flat that could be under £100,000. That seems an inappropriate way to calculate it. I don't know if there is a government guidelines as to how you have to have an average, but if there isn't, it would seem much more sensible that you assume. There is one resident per bedroom. So, if you have a 1 bedroom track, you pay for 1, if you have a 5 bedroom house, you pay for 5, and that seems a much more equitable way. And to reflect the pressures that it's likely to put on to the health system. And it seems particularly inappropriate that there's a difficulty for people getting on to the housing level, but you unfairly put weight on the, those younger ones who are trying to get in. And actually, there is a section in this that says about protected characteristics, ages of protected characteristics, and I think it's unfair on age. In fact, thank you, Councillor, that's a, that's for an interesting point made on that. I don't know whether there's anyone to answer that from a technical perspective. It might be Councillor fully us slightly in the front row there. It might be the way it lands, but you know, don't feel you have to provide information. You know, I appreciate you being put on the spot on the 10th of question. Don't feel you have to provide an answer if you're unsure, but please go ahead. I'll have a go. I think the issue is it's about methodology being used in order to assess and how we, how we look at those, how we look at those housing contributions. Again, I am not an expert on the methodology being used, and could I request that response goes back to James Brewer, because this is his day to day things. From my point of view, it's a great policy to have, because it means that we can get something a little bit more out of developers to support our health services. I think one of the things that I've heard quite a lot, probably more from our communities than from Planning Committee, but residents are always saying, well, you know, our infrastructure isn't good enough to be able to cope with more homes. And this is a way of addressing that. So we've been out to consultation. We've had feedback and I don't think anybody's objected to, to that, to that information, but going back to your initial question, Chris, I can't answer that because I don't understand enough about the methodology being used to be to ensure that the appropriate funds are being being justified. Thank you. Thanks for that. I mean, it feels like Council quite that should for maybe this committee's comment on the document. I would like to add a question, please do please. The other thing is, there's a limit to how much you can put pressure on developers in terms of one of six agreements, and there's a consequence that if you take money for this, you do take money away from the potential for providing for parks or. Those are the main reason. So there is a limit to what you can do, because if you put too much of a burden on it, it affects financial sustainability of the development. That's that's grounds for appeal, and if you go to appeal, you lose all of the 106 agreements totally. So is that's an operational consideration on the on the decisions that flow from this. Are there any other, can I cancel a spin. Thank you, Chair. It's made clear in the paper, but just did I made for attention to it that the money will only be as it were towards the infrastructure, so the physical building. And the real problem, I think, in many cases is actually not lack of physical premises, but lack of sufficient doctors and nurses on the island. Staff. So I'm not sure I don't want to call cold water on it, because in essence, it's a good idea, but I'm not sure really how effective it's going to be. What will happen, for example, to say, for example, a building is extended. And then it can't be we can't get any staff, what will happen to the extended building. I think you're absolutely right. This is a plan for before the infrastructure rather than to extend buildings to have more GPS. I think we all like to have more GPS. I think more GPS more nurses, more dentists for the island is something that is really important. What we have is, again, there's a lot of this is optional. You know, you can't ask for a contribution from a developer. If you don't have a policy in place, this is a starting point to allow that to happen. So again, there will need to be discussion with the circumstances that are being being addressed, and we take things from there, but it is a starting point. And it's a policy that is created. Again, it might be worthwhile. You know, I know that we have other counties that are doing exactly the same Hampshire, for example, Somerset Devon have this policy in place. And it would be quite interesting to find out how they can improve things. You know, you've got to start somewhere and this is an opportunity to do that. Thank you. The other thing is this and it made a question that I have is this and it may be that you want to refer this, but that is my understanding is that the provision or absence of the provision of health care is relevant now. There's a material planning consideration when planning committee or for that matter, an officer takes a decision. And I see you nodding, because up until now, the often the advice given to planning committee is that the absence of medical facilities is not a material planning consideration, and does not justify refusal. What has, what has changed. Why is it now a material consideration when a week ago it wasn't. Thank you. I think the basis is on having this new policy in place to be able to give us more scope to be able to negotiate this with developers. So again, I'm looking at the risk management section. Of the report on page 41, which says the main risk of not adopting the health contributions SPD is that the local planning authority will not be able to use the guidance within this document as a material consideration when determining planning applications. That is the point that we're at at the moment. So I think it's important to to realize that and to be able to know that this actually allows us the opportunity to be able to get more out of that developer. The developer contributions. Thank you Paul. I may well write putting a written question to James, just to clarify, because it does seem to me that's now a material planning consideration that has a significant effect on the way in which planning committee approaches applications. It's important that that's clarified that it's both a reason for granting and a reason against granting if there are no such facilities, which is a major change. Thank you. Councillor. I don't think I saw it in the papers, but I'd like Mr Ward to just give me the assurance that this isn't a slash fund that goes to surgeries. This is something that will be held by the Council and then paid out. When they're actually building the stuff against proof that the building is actually going up. I was concentrating on something else at the time of the discussion so she could repeat the question, Councilman, but I did again. We're talking about money going to practices to expand because of the pressure of a new housing estate section section 106 money. But this money doesn't just go to the practice that they hide it somewhere and they've got that little slash fund, but it actually is held by the Council and then distributed against evidence of the building work actually being done. Yeah, there's there's always conditions attached to section 106 funds and the conditions have to have to be met for the, for the development to, to be able to take place. Councillor Redjaw. Thank you chair. I just want some clarification. I was reading the consultation comments and the new port and Carisbrook Community Council made a good point. A large number of healthcare facilities on the island are currently based in older buildings which would not be possible to extend and this financial contribution could force these facilities move and buy bigger premises to function elsewhere. So there has been GPs surgeries closing down relocating out of villages. If those villages were to then have housing developments, does this, does the, could you, could the money generated provide something new in that area, or would it go to an existing surgery elsewhere. My hope is that it can, it can go to providing something new but again it's, and it's a matter really for talking to the doctors surgeries in the local area to find out what the need is. You know, certainly, I know that at wooden, a lot of the patients that are looked after by the wooden surgery are actually based in Newport, and I would imagine that there would need to be discussions on trying to be able to facilitate something in place for the people that currently benefit from that who live in Portland. So, again, it's, it's about negotiation rather than than that. But you can only negotiate, negotiate. If you have a tool to be able to do that with and with this policy, we hope that we can achieve that. Thank you Sarah. Can I take it that the committee agrees with adopting this or supports the adoption of this SPD. Yeah, I think it'd be useful to capture your comments that you may cancel the questions around addresses and people and difference between the two in terms of contributions. Are we happy with that as a committee. Thank you. And another one, draft sustainable drainage that's item number nine draft sustainable drainage systems supplementary planning document. Again, that's in the papers. Do, do I have any comments or questions on that one. A council churchman. And it's a bit of a statement really after this last year and the absolutely appalling flooding that we've experienced. Various circumstances have caused it. But I would have thought this is almost the most important document in front of us today for strategic reasons, because if we don't stop this flooding, it's costing the council money we're losing homes. It's disrupting businesses. We're losing roads. So, as I said, I find this document extremely good. I might add very comprehensive. I think I understood most of what I read, but just how do we really get it going. So that it makes a difference to the way the island is at the moment for the future because from what can make out from different people, we're going to get weather like this now. Fairly continually. This isn't, it isn't a one off year. We've had a lot of rain. This is going to continue, which is why, to me, this is the major thing here today. I'd like to know what planning their responses to it. How I presume that take it seriously. But Paul, a council full of perhaps you could make a comment on how seriously our planning department take this. And I would beginning to implement it obviously there are costs involved. I voted recently against planning application, because I was very concerned about the water, etc, the one down cows going on. I'm terribly concerned about beverage. And, and one other very small point about this is being married to a charter survey. I was always told the more concrete you lay the more you make water go into smaller run offs. Do we have in planning a policy to only allow permeable parking to be installed. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Vanessa. I think a lot of the planning policies that we've been using locally has been from 2015. Since then, there has been a lot of legislation that's been imposed. And I know now that, you know, certainly with respect to parking, parking that you were talking, talking about, if you want to create parking by more than five square meters, you have to apply for planning permission for that. So that is one of the new new things that have come up, but certainly since 2015, we've, the world has moved on. The planning strategy that was passed last week, have a lot has got a lot of policies in it for flooding, precisely for that reason, we're seeing the a lot of issues being created by the surface water drainage at the moment. Certainly over this, this year, things definitely need to be definitely need improving. I was meeting a couple of weeks ago with Councillor leaver in gunville. And one of the things that the residents that attended that meeting, they're sort of like criticized the planners for was, well, why did you allow these buildings to go ahead. Well, the reason that those those buildings went ahead was because we didn't have robust enough policies in place to be able to make sure that the right kind of infrastructure was put in place for those homes. This policy is, is for me, very, very important as well, because again, I agree with you. I think it's probably the most important thing that we have on the agenda before us tonight, because it is really important that we actually have seen as a council to be able to tackle some of the issues that we're suffering from, particularly from surface water drainage. And, you know, this is a good, good place to start. I'm sure that in the coming years, we're going to hear more from government about supporting more, more work taking place. But this is, this is really a, from my point of view, this is a starting point on us moving forward within the new plan. The policies are already there within the planning strategy, but this actually reemphasizes it. And I think when you look at the comments that we've had back from members of the public, they've been quite extensive and a lot of people are in support of this, which I was really, really heartened to hear and certainly with all that's happened in the last six months. It's a very, very timely document. Thank you. Council. Sorry. One thing that really worries me is the RSVP, the Environment Agency. They seem to have more power on this island than the council does. Is, is there anything we can we do about that? Because, I mean, we go back to semi and rec when it really got flooded. We know who's, you know, yeah. But the point is that that destroyed family slides. So what I'm also really concerned about is the power of some of these crongos. Do they override what we as a council put forward. Thank you. That's a good question. Certainly, you know, I know the issues that you're referring to with the RSVP and the use of their sleuth gates down at St. Helens. And again, there are concerns about how those, those are operated on. And, you know, the impact that that will have on on residential dwelling. So, again, it is a, I'll share your concern on this. Certainly with the Environment Agency. From my perspective, the Environment Agency have been quite good in certainly some of the discussions that they've had with with local residents about, you know, about sort of like flooding. We have done some good thing. I know there's concern, particularly down at in right about the gates that were created. I don't know enough about, you know, what, what the what section 19 report states on that but we're waiting those section 19 reports on the flooding across the island. So it would be useful to look at those digest those and be able to feed back. And I think that's something maybe the scrutiny committee may want to look at in future because I think those reports are really, really, really important. Yeah, we know we now have flooding as a sort of six monthly gender item. I think the next one is July. So if the section 19 reports are ready for that time, we can, we can use that. So I think that there, it's going to, they're going to be available in sort of like weeks. So we should be able to get those for you in July, but I'm hoping, hoping so. I really would like the officers to be able to digest those as well. Again, as we know section 19 reports, don't come with any funding. But again, it allows the local communities to get together to to talk to land owners and those adjacent about how they can make things better for the future and not learn from some of the mistakes that may, may or may not have happened. Thank you. So we've got a question from Councillor Quirk and then Councillor downer. For new builds and going forward, absolutely brilliant. We've got an issue with what's already there, because there's a lot more already there, and it's going to be a new builds for a very long while it's come. But the same will apply. Once you've got things in place, you need enforcement to keep it working properly. In Shanklin we have two block culverts causing significant flooding. I mean, one house has been flooded up to six feet deep eight times in the last year. This is, you know, and it's due to lack of applied enforcement. And we need to actually have the enforcement to back up things like if someone doesn't build a cover very well. If it goes under a house and it's expensive to fix, you've still got to fix it. If you've got to have retaining walls. Streams that are directed, you've got to maintain. And so you need an enforcement site now. Enforcement isn't a statutory duty. But investigating any breaches of planning applications is a statutory duty. So effectively, it is a statutory duty to have enforcement. And we need to have enforcement to back up and where things go wrong, whether it's old buildings and new buildings to ensure that that does work. And there's probably more that we can do with what's there now than about what we can do in the future. And maintaining rule of dishes makes a big difference. Plowing the right way across fields makes a big difference. There are lots of things that can be done. That's a bunch of farmers, you've been doing a lot of really good work, actually, and trying to educate farmers. Follow somebody, but there's a lot that can be done to help flooding. But it's beyond what we, you know, this is a supplementary planning policy for just the new bills, but we maybe should have something looking at the board, the picture of actually flooding because there's a lot more that can be done. And a lot of that is education and enforcement. Again, this committee will have an opportunity to talk more about flooding. I mean, those are very important reminders. I don't want to go too far off this particular agenda item. So I'm bringing Councillor Downer. Just a quick one. Thank you, Chairman. Yeah, years ago, I used to have a river board and I used to keep the water courses clear, albeit we didn't have the rain that we had where I have a name, but I'll think, you know, it's important to keep water courses clear. So, because then they got the capacity, and I'll do it and tell her to bring a lot of cash for a quirk has been speaking about with the agricultural aspect of it, because of all no crops as well. You know, you harvest them and then the land that was found, but the trouble is getting it soil erosion there and years and years ago, they took all the hedges, well, that wasn't a bit of good, because, you know, there's nothing to, you know, protect the soil and also, yeah. So that might be a bit off the target, but thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Councillor Downer. Councillor Spink. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Just an observation and possibly a question, Councillor Fuller, that is, southern water will obviously play an important part in this. Some water have said on various occasions that they can cope with the sewage, but they can't deal with the rainwater and surface water going into the combined sewage drain. So it will be very important, if I may say so, do attenuation tanks, for example, I think, in my view, are one of the least attractive forms of suns, because they just slow it down, it still ends up, and they will come a point, one would imagine, when they won't be able to slow it down sufficiently. I'm concerned that perhaps southern water aren't being consulted enough in this, and I think southern water feel is the case. Now, for example, if I could refer you to page 105, which is a statuteary consultees, there's a comment there by southern water, early consultation with southern water and local planning authority will be required. Before developing the site layout or master plan to ensure a viable drainage strategy, southern water must be contacted before submitting a planning application. This will allow agreement of any connections and discharge rates into the public sewer network, as well as a doctorable such design and standards. If I may say so, the answer of how to deal with that seems to be almost bordering on rude, quite frankly, complete a wastewater pre-planning inquiry application form and email it to developer services at southern water, not very attractive, and doesn't really give confidence to anyone, let alone southern water that they will be properly consulted. So I do think we need to take southern water more seriously, and listen to them when they say, because what we need to be doing is having more grey water recycling sites, not just great big ponds, which will store our problems in the next few years. Thank you. I'll take Councillor leave as well, and then you might want to respond to both. It's just on that point, Chair, so the how to consult section, is that purely our estimation on how to do that, or is southern water actually input into that. So that's southern water's answer on how to consult essentially. Okay, Councillor Fuller. We're quite lucky because the author of this paper is James Brewer, and James, as we all know, is the Council's flood office or the heads up the flood team as well. So again, there's a lot of communication that is going on between southern water and particularly James on some of the flood issues. Just going to go through, flooding enforcement couldn't agree with you more. Flooding enforcement is a huge issue. I approached Ollie, the planning team, and also southern water to find out where the southern water might want to put some of the money that they're getting for to decrease surface water drainage into planning enforcement. I thought it was a really good idea to get some water and the Isle of White Council working together to reduce our stormwater flows. There is a memorandum of understanding that we're working on at the moment to ensure that happens, but I think what we want to try to do with southern water is to go out and educate people as well, because people don't realize that, you know, it's not just concreteing over your driveway, but also things like putting in an astroturf into your front garden, and how quickly that can speed speed up the flow of water going into into a combined sewer. So again, those discussions, I've been very, very enthusiastic about trying to move forward because I think it is really, really important. The water actually gets it because they're the people that are blamed for when the water goes out into our into our outlets, into our sea, and, and those, those of course, has has the Gretel S word sort of like attached to it in sewage. And then it's something that we are working very, very closely with southern water on and as a utility service, they've worked very closely with with the planners in the last year so I'm hoping that we can move things forward. And again, maybe this is something that your your committee chairman might want to look at further at its meeting in July and, you know, the relationship we have with with with Keith from southern water is fantastic. I find a project, and some of the other things that going on in the background is really, really positive so thank you for that. The riparian rights and, and the, the agricultural aspect of this as well and this was the thinking behind where I was going with getting sort of like planning enforcement looking primarily at water, because again it's going to those those farmers go into those landowners and actually giving them advice and support on how they can make sure that their land is used in a much more sustainable way. If we want to lose soil to our road on our roads, we want to use that soil for what what it what it's there for and that is supporting supporting landowners and our farmers, which is so important so yes I'm having those discussions and hope they can continue so thank you very much. Thank you. Before we move on cancer job and was that. Yeah, one of the issues I've raised a few times is reinstatement of the ditches along the roads which have been lost over time. Thank you. And I wonder if we could clarify exactly what provision there is for that and what funding is available for reinstatement of those ditches. I want to go to off topic but is, is there a brief response to that, Councillor Fuller. Well, my, my responsibility doesn't go as far as highways unfortunately but I know locally from my area, some of the local farmers, the local farmers that I've spoken to, are very, very pleased to put in ditches to be able to reduce the stormwater again the ditches that were put in place 50 years ago. And a lot of them have overgrown. I saw one in in fresh water down at long halves, a couple of weeks ago, and how that those ditches have been allowed to grow, and they don't really do the job that they're supposed to do. And I think having sort of like the maintenance is something that is quite important as well. At the moment, I don't think governments quite got got it, but I would imagine when they do they'll probably see that it would be much more cost effective to educate and support. And I think the thing is to be able to make sure that their land takes away water or slows the flow of water, then, then, then building hard infrastructure like you like like was mentioned about attenuation tanks. There are better ways of getting water off of our, off of our surfaces than just necessarily building attenuation tanks. The right, they're the right thing in the right places, but necessarily it's, it's not, not the one answer that seats all but thank you for that. So, Council red job. Sorry, just keep it very quick. I just want to say I think this is really fantastic and I think the team's done a really, really good job on it. And I just want to echo what other people have said about education I think that's really, really important, because something that's clear from the document is that there's no magic one for one fix or it's lots of small little things that everyone takes apart in. And that is perhaps a message that isn't quite well understood. And I would like to encourage there to be perhaps something available online that people can access just to educate themselves more. Thank you. So, can I cancel John very quickly. Very quickly, Chair. So, it is a high ways question. I agree. So, thank you. I know the redirection is there, but it would help if we could have some clear guidance for communities. If a community wants to reopen and clear a ditch along the side of a highway, which has now been filled in and tarmac over, are they permitted to do so. And if so, what is the process for doing it because I've got one I do that within a few weeks. Thank you. Yes, thank thank you for that, Chris. I think the other thing moving on to that is about flood plans as well, getting the local flood plans in place for town and parish councils. And maybe there's something that with my flood hat on, and without thinking about highways, maybe that is something we can work with our town and parish councils to make sure could be made made more robust. That I will have a meeting with, they're looking at flooding this month at their topic meeting. So again, it's something that the town and parish councils are also being quite proactive about. And again, if there are members who have parish councils that would like to attend the I will meeting. I'm sure they would be much more than welcome. So, yes, I'm looking forward to that later this month. Thank you. And I last question from cancer and could we please include the National Trust in this, they own an awful lot of land on this island. And from what I can see, they never clear ditches specifically behind me luck and farm. The water just collects and when it collects, it causes problems, it causes slippage. The ditches on that luck and farm have never ever been cleared, and it's appalling appalling. Thank you. Can I take it the committee then supports the adoption of this supplementary planning document. You can see nods, nods and hands all around. Thank, thank you very much. Item number 10, future governance report. So, of course, when we put this on the agenda, we didn't know what the outcome of full council last week would be. But as we now know, full council voted to approve a change from a cabinet to a committee system. And for that to take effect in May 2025. So a year from now. This gender item, I think would have been particularly important had full council wanted to implement a committee system this month. Clearly, the timeline is now far, far longer. But I think it's important that there isn't a sudden relaxation of activity. And that we park this and only address our minds to it in March next year and realize I've only got a couple of months left. So I suppose it would be if there's anyone able to give us an update either in the room or online. Is there, I think, as to just rough timelines, outlines of the work that needs to be done and when we expect it. And for me, I would hope given a year, we will have an excellent constitution draft constitution at the end of it to replace our current one. Thank you, Chair. Very much indeed. And I think basically at the moment, it's fair to say that we are working progress. But there are, as you rightly say, a number of stages that we will have to proceed to from here. The first one really is, you know, this has been treated as a project. And so it will be incumbent upon us to make sure that we close that project down accordingly and make sure that everything is cleared up in terms of the actions contained within it. And obviously to take any lessons learned from the process to enable us to take account of what's important and consider as part of the next phase. And so as soon as we've done that, and I guess that would take a great deal of time, we are already starting to consider what the next project looks like in terms of that phase two. And as you will appreciate most of the work that was focused on the anticipated early implementation date to make sure that we had been able to prepare as much as we possibly could for that implementation. But none of that, none of that work is lost in the sense that it will help to inform that next phase. As you rightly say, there's obviously the constitution will be a key piece of work that will need to be looked at both in terms of giving us the opportunity to fully consider the elements of the committee system and what's required of the constitution. As well as to deal with the snagging list that that we're all aware of, in terms of trying to address some of the perhaps anomalies and things that aren't as clear as they could be in the constitution to allow us to operate effectively. And clearly the audit and governance committee has that within their remit in terms of the oversight of governance so we will be establishing a program of activity that will enable us to do that. We did have an indication from the independent remuneration panel that they had prepared a draft members alone scheme. But again, they'll be working alongside us over the next 12 months so that they can probably take into account all the various considerations in proposing a new member allowance scheme. And of course, we will be trying to do as much preparation as we can, in terms of understanding how the committee system itself is going to operate. And clearly there'll be a schedule of training to go with that. So I'm hopeful in the next few weeks for us to have a new implementation plan, some of which as I say has already been prepared, but we will need to look at how, how we take this project forward now. So we should be, we should by the end of end of May be being a better place to have that project plan ready for implementation and clearly scrutiny going forward will have an important part to play in terms of the oversight of the of the work to be done. And I guess, you know, we'll also be wanting to make suggestions as to how they might want to be involved, or indeed contribute or increase their ability to to participate in in this piece of work. So any suggestions from the committee would be, would be most welcome. And I guess the, the other point that we will need to be considering is reviewing. As there was quite a bit of discussion about in terms of the risks that were contained within the report itself. Clearly we are in a situation where we effectively have no change to the current governance arrangements. And so clearly we'll be needing to look at how we can support members across the chamber in terms of that whole kind of governance piece and decision making processes over the next 12 months. So I think that's probably all that I need to say at this point in time unless of course anybody's got any questions that I can answer. Thank you. Yeah, do you envisage was probably given an opinion for I wouldn't imagine a role now for the working group that did its job effectively it brought the issue to a final vote. That's right. Would that be fair. That's right. Yes. Yes, that would that that is certainly our working assumption is that the future governance working group was there to get a guide us towards a decision for the Council. And we provided support to reach that decision. So full Council has now made the decision to move to a committee system. That's not to say that members won't be involved in the next part of the process. It's just that we will see a closure of the future governance working group in terms of its fulfilled its remit that was given to it by full Council last March. And in terms of this committee, it would be good to see the timetable you talk about in due course when it's ready to make it available. Thank you. But also, I think specifically over the Constitution, because there was some conversation probably at least two years ago. Mark's Council is that nothing to do with changing to a new system that the constant the current Constitution needed work clearly is going to be replaced effectively because of a new governance system. I think it would be good to see Council involvement in that. And this committee might be a good way to achieve it. Yeah, you're absolutely right scrutiny is got an important part to play in that and clearly what the next 12 months does give us. Is that additional time to involve members more widely in terms of the construction of the new Constitution. Clearly, there is a remit through the audit and governance committee in terms of its oversight and production. But I would anticipate that there would be a desire from members to have a much wider, you know, viewing and oversight of of the Constitution as it as it develops over the next 12 months. Thank you. And I'm looking at hands up in the room. I can't cancel job and you did have your hand up. Yes, Chair. So, so on this, if members recall the amendments were taken contrary to the order which they were submitted. And there was a clarification received from just in for and that day regarding how one amendment might impact another. And of course, an amendment cannot change something which has been changed in previous amendment. So the clarification was that if an amendment for Section F was passed, another amendment following it could not be put. So the amendment which stands is the one which was agreed, which is the first one agreed, namely that a revised replacement constitution relating to the operation of the committee system, including the interim members. And that was the same, just discussed, we brought to the annual council meeting on 15 May 2024 for consideration approval and adoption. And that was the motion that was passed. You slightly lost me, Councillor JOHNSTON, are you saying that the constitution for a committee system should be presented in a week's time not with standing the committee system won't come in for a year, or are you suggesting something more groundbreaking. You know, can you explain yourself in terms that I understand, unless Claire you understand. Yes, the clarification from Justin was that an amendment cannot revoke a previous amendment. So the group, the question was, if an amendment is taken, and it fixes a date, can a subsequent amendment change that date. And the answer is no. So the amendment that was passed first, was that the constitution would be brought to full council on the 15 May 2024. A subsequent amendment cannot overturn that date. It can delay the process for implementation, but it cannot change something that's been agreed in a previous amendment. So it still stands, the constitution is to be brought forward on the 15 May 2024, although the implementation was agreed to be delayed until 2025. Thank you. That sounds rather a big one to drop in the middle of the meeting, but I don't know Claire Shand, do you have any comment to make? I'm not sure I'm technically qualified to answer that question. That's a legal interpretation that I guess we would need to have some advice from Chris and the legal team. In theory, my, you know, if I was to make an observation, I can understand the technicality of it, but adopting a constitution that doesn't take effect until a further 12 months. It seems to be appropriate in the circumstances, given that there's a, you know, the implementation doesn't actually commence until 2025. But that's just a personal opinion. I know, I know just Chris Potter's still on screen so I might bring him in. I mean, my comment would be Councillor JAMA and I hope you're not right, because I think it would be a shame to have to rush a constitution in within a week when it's not going to take effect for a year. Thank you Chairman. As has been rightly said, the Council made a decision to change to the committee system, but the actual change implementation date won't be until May next year at the annual Council meeting. In terms of the point raised by Councillor JAMA about amendments, obviously amendments can be made to particular motions, and the Constitution, the current Constitution, sets out what constitutes a valid amendment and what would not constitute a valid amendment, which clearly sort of a lot will depend upon the context, but drill down to the essentials. We are going to remain operating a cabinet leader cabinet executive system until the new system takes over in May. The Council meeting and therefore approving adopting and approving a constitution, which is not relevant to the operation of the lead and cabinet executive system, it cannot possibly make any sense. So there is time, as has been outlined for member involvement and for further discussions on the type of constitution in terms of its detail and so forth, which can be sort of worked through carefully, but with appropriate speed to make sure we are all ready for approval and adoption of the relevant constitution, which would be relevant to operating the committee system, which is at the annual Council meeting of May next year. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. Are there any further comments on item 10 future government for Councillor CURK? Clearly, I wouldn't be earning my key if I didn't mention I walk in this. I just want to reiterate what I've mentioned before that don't forget I walk representation when it comes to new governance. I would hope that we would be included in any such representation. I believe will be discussed on our next executive meeting. And as I said before, I mean, obviously this committee would be going, but it would be good if we had something of equivalent value so we can still have meaningful input into your processes. We raised this with when we had the meetings to town of Council. Before the decision was made and the argument was given that, well, most of the White Council is a town in Paris Council is anywhere and that's good enough. But, I mean, I would strongly argue against that. A lot of White Councillors are indeed tanning parish Councillors. Also, members here have got a lot on their plate and how can I put this politely might not be as involved in their local councils as they might be. So I still would argue very strongly for the role of I walk the representation and I hope we'll be included in that dialogue. Thank you. I agree, Councillor COOK. I can see cliche and nodding ahead. So thank you for that. Looks like we've got to the end of that agenda item. Thank you. Item number 11 community safety partnership annual report. Again, a report you've got in your papers, page one, nine, one. Is there anything Councillor Lucy only wanted to say by way of introduction or summary on the community safety partnership report, or should we dive straight in. Just dive straight in. So our next CSP meeting is the 23rd of May. So we're welcome. Your feedback and any extra that we can add to it. Thank you. On any hands up from the committee. I can still quirk. I think it's really disappointing that crime rates going up to match Hampshire and towards the national average. I think that's a shame. It seems to be driven by domestic violence, which is something that is quite worrying and I know there are sort of schemes to try and address that. And also driven by a very substantial increase, although from a low base in terms of drug, drug arrest, and also in terms of carrying weapons and drug crime and weapons tend to go very much hand in hand. If there is any clear association between those. Thank you, Councillor Quirk. So, yeah, as I said in the report, domestic abuse does continue to make up a significant portion of crime locally. There is an Isle of Wight domestic abuse board that has been established, and that takes the lead on tackling that particular area on the island. So, the priority for this within the strategic needs assessment for the community safety partnership is that the domestic abuse board will take the lead on that. And the community safety partnership will continue to support the board, and it has the duty to commission what we call DHRs domestic homicide reviews, when that criteria is met, and put forward by the local by Hampshire can savory. So, that would be that's how we deal with that. In terms of the links between drugs and knife crime. Yes, there is, there are obviously links between that antisocial behavior. So, we have a system for prevent where there are, it's like for educational establishments or other establishments that deal with both young people and adults, particularly those who have vulnerabilities. So, there is a development that can be made, and if necessary, that person can be referred, and the prevent board run by council will then review those assessments and make a decision about where that additional support can be offered to that person to try to bring them back into the community to give them that support that they need in order, and hopefully for them to be able to evaluate their behaviors, and then make that choice to obviously to become involved in that type of antisocial behavior. If that doesn't work, this can be moved to a different channel of action, which is led by the police. I'm just going to let you know domestic abuse is actually looked after by public health. That's why Simon's come on the screen. I've seen Simon appear on the big screen. Welcome, Simon Brian. Is there anything you wanted to add? We've got an item shortly on the perpetrator part of domestic abuse, but I just wanted to share that as the chair of domestic abuse, we take it really seriously and do an awful lot of work, both with our providers and our partners to reduce domestic abuse and the impact, and also trying to break a lot of people who are in and out of relationships, which are abusive. Also, chair the drug partnership will do a lot of work to increase the number of people through drugs and alcohol. It's worth saying in this forum, we have been given alongside every other council in England increased funding for drugs and alcohol, and the paper came to the Health Department being brought 10 days ago, but that funding is not confirmed after April 2025, but Laura Johnson, who is the domestic abuse principal and leads this area, and I can talk through anything as part of this or the next item. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we may struggle to try and sort of divide the two agenda items and not sort of seep on to item 12, which is very important in its own right. Excellent red drop. Thank you chair. I just wanted to point out that the top increase is actually sexual offenses not domestic abuse so while there is overlap between those they are different. So my first question is who is responsible for that I guess it doesn't sit with the domestic abuse partnership board. My second question is there doesn't really seem to be a breakdown of statistics around specifically violence against women and girls I was wondering if that's something that should be included in there or it would be interesting to see anyway. Thank you. Just to let you know there's a separate board with the pleasing condition that deals with violence against women and girls set on that. But I can speak to you privately about that if you want to know more details. I was reminded committee that what what we're being asked in this agenda item is to confirm that we're satisfied that the partnership is fulfilling its statutory duty. That is the question we're being being asked. I'm sorry then just to clarify. Your answer to Councillor quirk's question was that the domestic abuse goes to that board. So my specific question was as the biggest change on the percentage change on the list here is sexual offenses. Who does that sit with. This is with the police as the lead agency for that sorry Laurie for you've got more details. Basically exactly what Simon said is so that that would actually sit with Hampshire considering so, but they are they do sit on the community safety partnership board. So therefore, if you would like to if you're what you're asking us you would like to see as with the other charts within the report you would like to see a breakdown of the individual groupings of violence against women and girls as opposed to just domestic violence. And then that's fine. We can take that as an action point and let you know whether it's possible to have that data separately as a breakdown. Is that what you're looking for. Yeah, that would be great because and and and under the sexual offenses headline so those two things being separate. That's fine. I can take that as an action and find out exactly what we can publish and put that into the report wherever possible. Thank you. I did see. Laura John so you had your hand up it's gone down again. Did you want to say anything. I was just going to add that as well as it being a police responsibility. The office of the police and crime commissioner actually commission services in relation to sexual offenses and specifically is was which are independent sexual violence advocates. And then on the line of white that's delivered by the Hampton Trust. Thank you. Councillor Leela did you have your hand up. I was teetering. I'm happy to endure. Don't feel pressured to change. It was just a question of curiosity so in in in the breakdown of violence against the person to those breakdowns are violence without injury and violence with injury. There's a reason there that's put out. And there's a reason why I'm asking that I just I'm just curious. Do we know why? I would imagine but I would have to confirm it's to take into account the fact that obviously there is certain types of domestic abuse and violence and some of them are have physical present physically and some of them potentially. But there may not be no physical evidence of it but it's it's more coercion emotional abuse things like that but I will caveat that with I do have to check but that would be my opinion. That's why I was asking because obviously that split focuses in on whether there was a physical. But when we see data like this, there's no the tends not to be as much focus on what the mental impacts were on on victims or people that have experienced this so just just something to put out there. Yeah. I think it's just how the police record them but I'll clarify that for you. Do do we have any further comments or contributions. If not, I'm going to ask the question I think we're required to is the is this committee able to confirm it's satisfied that the partnership it's fulfilling its that duty. I can see some nods. I can see nods. Yeah. Thank you. On to the final item, the perpetrator program to receive a report on the lines of inquiry previously agreed by this committee and pages two five one two six eight. And the report looks like more of a sort of slideshow. I don't know is that is the someone who's reporting on this. Yeah. Chair so thank you very much so you've got myself as chair of the domestic abuse partnership board and direct public health with Laura Johnson who is our lead in the council and Lisa allam who is the head of commissioning in the office of the peace and crime commissioner. What we have done is put together a slide set report on the information as suggested. Some of the questions are more general so we can talk through that and with some specific data. What I'd like to say is we've had a domestic abuse partnership board a set out with the domestic abuse act for a year now all working very well together. As you've heard through community safety partnerships with police with the office of police crime commissioner. And with health partners fire, etc. And this bit about perpetrators of use really shows the work. We are doing for those who are displaying behaviors that are abusive. We're trying to really move the system forward and change the language. So, Laura, Lisa can either talk to the presentation or take questions, whatever is the most convenient for the panel. Yeah, I think I'm happy to not necessarily receive a great detail report, but any further summary from Lisa or Laura. And then maybe we'll move to committee questions and deal with it that way. That's brilliant. Laura over to you. Thank you. And well, I hope you've all had an opportunity to look at the presentation and thank you for your interest in this area. The key points that we had planned to convey to you was really regarding the national policy context. And you'll see one of the first quotes on the presentation is regarding domestic abuse and sexual violence being considered as seriously as knife crime and homicide. And that came from a government report in 21. And that's really related to the impact of domestic abuse, which is not widely understood around the mental emotional and physical consequences. And of course, in the very worst cases and the homicide and suicide related to domestic abuse. So the national kind of policy context includes the two documents that we've listed there, the tackling domestic abuse plan and tackling violence against women and girls strategy. And that's what our approach has been based on. I'm just having a look to give you the key points and not the more detailed summary. It will be good to draw your attention to the coordinated community response, which is a framework that the domestic abuse partnership have adopted. The CCR involves various agencies and organizations working together to address domestic abuse. The goal is to ensure victim safety to hold offenders to account and to provide a more effective and uniform response to domestic abuse cases. So it's a whole systems approach. And it's designed to respond to the whole person. It recognizes people cannot be categorized into one experience or to one box or one risk or one need. So the CCR has 12 is a framework of 12 components and perpetrated programs fit specifically under specialist services. If you refer to the presentation, you will be able to see the other 11 on there which are more indirectly related. Simon has already introduced the end of white domestic abuse, abuse partnership, which coordinates the response to domestic abuse on the Isle of White and other key important things are that we have recently developed our strategy. And our key priorities are prevention reduction of harm increased access to specialist support collaboration and working together, which of course all feeds again into this perpetrator program agenda. Lisa, did you want to talk briefly to Hampshire and Isle of White Constabulary response. Yeah, sure Laura, and I think there was a specific question around the training that police officers receive in relation to domestic abuse and how they respond. So the slide in the deck that you ascend which is slide five sets out what training I'd have Hampshire and I'd have white constabulary receive. But it was just to add in to that information included that there's also independent scrutiny panels for out of court interventions for domestic abuse, and that's to ensure that the police are using out of court resolutions appropriately, and that the right cases are being utilized for that. So it's only intended for for low and in some, you know, examples, medium risk offenses. And that that panel consists of the crime prosecution service specialist victim services, magistrates, and other partners. So just to ensure that there's some external scrutiny going on regarding the police's decision making in relation to that. They also have specific domestic abuse scrutiny panels within the force, where they invite the force leads for domestic abuse, but also domestic abuse specialists, so that they can review domestic abuse incidents and ensure that the police response was appropriate and proportionate to the severity of what happened. There's also been a huge amount of work undertaken within the constabulary regarding police perpetrated domestic abuse, and there's now a dedicated unit set up within the force to be able to respond to that. And that includes that whenever there is a report of police perpetrated domestic abuse, that a senior oversight officer, which is a minimum of a chief inspector level, is allocated to to be the victims link in and to ensure that the investigation is being conducted as it should be. So that, that was the overview regarding the training and if there are any other specific questions in relation to that, I can feed that back to the force leads for you. I was used to cover slides six as well so I'll just go on Laura just to pull out the key bits of that. The diagram that's that shown on that shows kind of the range of options that are available for people living on the Isle of White. Cara is the out of court intervention that I mentioned, it stands for cautioning and relationship abuse. And it's commissioned by the APCC. But, but really key on that point is that it's a domestic abuse awareness raising intervention is not designed to be a behavior change intervention. And that is why it is only suitable for people who have never offended before and under committing low risk offenses. And it is about supporting perpetrators to make better behavior choices within their relationships, Hampshire police were the first forced to pilot out of court resolutions for domestic abuse offenses. And since the initial pilot evaluation, which was a randomized control trial, there've been several further evaluations demonstrating the effectiveness of that intervention. It's got proven benefits in terms of reduction of reoffending victims, reporting positive changes and offenders themselves reporting a change in their attitudes towards their, their partners and their children. And we pause early for questions I think that shows the kind of range of interventions we've got available to the island across a range of partners, which makes it a really complex picture. So, thank you chair, we're all very happy to take questions between us. Thank you. Thank you. All of you. Is there is a hand up here, Councilor Churchman. Yes, I'm delighted to see such a good report on page 251. However, reversing the trend of the perpetrator of domestic abuse remaining in the home, while the victim must leave. I mean, as most victims are women, not always. It does occasionally go the other way. But I cannot believe that women are being forced out of their homes, especially where there are children involved. And it really concerns me that the person perpetrating violence, etc, stays possibly with children are the one that is forced to even now what message does that send to the children, especially if they were young boys who think that's great. And I follow in his footsteps. Thank you. You're absolutely right. And I'm sure Laura will bring some more specifics. It's what we're trying to change on the island. So, actually, we want to have safe spaces for, as you say, mainly women to stay with their families and the perpetrator moves away, which is why Lisa's really happy articulating some of the options available to the police, such as orders to prevent access. You're right, it does need to change and we'll move forward on that journey. Laura, anything specific you want to add on that? Yeah, I think we are probably working in a kind of environment where we're looking to reverse many, many decades are very well intentioned, but unintentionally victim blaming practice and policy. And that's why we've come to a point where with the issue you've raised. There are a number of actions within our community commission services that do support predominantly women to stay in their own home. So, for example, services will go in and complete target hardening. We include door wedges, extra alarm, extra security, etc. Interestingly, we have completed a process called a near missed review recently. And one of the recommendations and findings is to look further into the options available for people victims to stay in their own home. We know that in the Scandinavian countries, there's all, there's accommodation in the same way that victims are moved into refuges. There is accommodation for perpetrators and interventions are delivered. And so there are models out there, quite innovative models, but they're very limited in their application and evidence base, thus far. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation. My question is for Lisa. What steps are Hampshire can savory taking since the release of the Angelini report in February, and what they expect to come out of the second report as well. Thank you. And so I can't comment on that because that's not something I've been directly involved with, but I can certainly take that question back and ask force colleagues to report on that. Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry if this was already answered in or just spoke about, but just interested in what work has been done with schools around education on these issues. Concerned recently reports and even TV progress now about the impact of misogynistic influences on young boys in the consequence for young girls and others. If I start off. Yes, please do. So just to set out, we have a program called peach, which is our work around health and education working together. And that, as you say, that starts off really early thinking about sex and relationships education good friendships, and all those kind of things is building blocks for good relationships in children young people. And then that builds up with some more in depth work we can do with the services going into schools as appropriate and supporting really good relationships as you say, is that kind of a whole system and a side from change that's required. We'll provide training for schools as as needed working with the director of education. And also there is a program of work where if a child is experiencing abuse called Operation Encompass, the school is informed the next day, so they know how to support that child in that very difficult situation immediately. Yeah, thank you. I noticed on the previous agenda item, I don't want to sort of conflate crime statistics, but a lot of crime being perpetrated by people under 25. If I go, there's not that far out of education. So the role of education is obviously key. Any, any other contributions. Council illusion. I know this, I cannot remember the name of the project, but the please and crime commissioner has given money to is it a high schools for a project where it's like peer to peer, you know, chase it chasing social norms so you can speak to feel being treated, you know, misogynistically or whatever. Well, actually they called out each other so so changing social norms and it's, and it's worked really well. Is that the choices program, Karen. Karen says yes, yes, yes, so that can remember the name, but I want to say it. Donna Jones, it was really good and the children have really enjoyed it too. Yeah, I don't know Lisa, is there anything you want to do I add to that. What, what, um, can't lose your needs just said that correct choices program. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's been funded through the violence reduction unit and it's some, it's, it's aimed at years six and sevens and it's about. As Karen said going into schools and educating on, on a range of things, but around, you know, healthy relationships, misogynistic behavior, how to challenge that how to get support so it's a range of things and I can share further information for anyone that's interested. Thank you. Are there any other council of red drop. Thank you. My question is for Simon and for Laura. I note that on the slide, one of the key principles for the coordinated community response model is survivor voice. What are the mechanisms for, for, for gathering that and for using that within assessing how things are working and informing choices going forward. I'm going to start off in general principles is absolutely central to what we want to do in all our work. And we recognize that survivors aren't just in our domestic abuse services listening to those people who are on our services, but in all other services, asking partners to ensure that they listen. And that's fed back through the development of our strategy and our work so absolutely central to what we're doing. Laura. Yeah, so the needs assessment that we undertook last year was very much based on the victim survivor voice. We went out and did qualitative and quantitative work with victim survivor forums, we went to the refuge to speak to residents. We held focus groups within the community and one to one interviews and that needs assessment has informed both our strategy and our commissioning specification. In addition, the domestic abuse partnership board has developed a survivor voice work stream, which is currently just underway. So you'll probably start to see information coming out about that and adverts almost if you like for people to join that group so that they will be able to give their voice to shape the work of the board and also to kind of support the development of services. That's the red drop. Sorry, just a follow up question. That sounds fantastic. I think that's, that's really great. So you mentioned about the needs assessment. Is there any data from that that's available for people to view. Yes, we can provide you with our partner presentation. Yes, please. Thank you. I'm looking around the room. I don't is any any further comments or questions from in the room. Thank you very much. All three of you on screen for being present being able to give us that comprehensive report and take our questions. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Thank you. In which case, that brings us to item 13 members question time. And there to be no questions in which case, I will. There is a question. There is a question. Councillor German. Thank you chair. I was just giving the chance of the committee members to ask those first being very polite. The question I have is, and he's not here this evening. So I appreciate that. And I'll take a written answer on this. Will the cabinet member for finance please confirm when the multiple consultations agreed in the budget amendment for council in February for a local residential facility for high needs children relocatable homes, etc. will be available. Thank you. And can you can you provide you can provide the text of that. Yeah, thank thank you. Which I think brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you very much indeed for attending. [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]