Transcript

• Thank you. - Yeah, brilliant. Well, (speaking in foreign language) Good afternoon, and welcome to this multi-location CABLA meeting. I say multi-location, but I think we are all in the room. Can I remind members that the meeting is being recorded and hopefully being webcast live as well. No, not webcast live, webcast after the meeting, so you can catch the highlights later. Can I just welcome Councillors Leonora Thomson and Councillor Leigh Bridgeman, who are joining us today in a kind of observation capacity, head of their anticipated confirmation later today as cabinet members for various portfolios. As I said, they'll be attending as observers only and will not be taking part in voting/decision making, but great to have you here, guys, and looking forward to being here on slightly more formal footing in the future. We have had apologies from Councillor Linda Thorne, who's got an avoidable clash with the speaking engagement, so Councillor Goodway will pick up her item. Are there any declarations of interest? Nope, no, oh, are you pardon? Councillor Weber. - Yeah, for item five, the Education Investment Strategy, I'm a local authority governor at Cotez High School, which is mentioned in the report.
• Hi, yeah, thanks, leader. I have two personal and prejudicial interests in items three and four. One, it feels of interest, I'm a trustee of a charity that's based at Trilai Park and would have a great interest in this, so I will be leaving the room for that. And also, on the education cabinet paper, the school, one of the schools mentioned in the appendices is a school that my children attend, so therefore, I think it's best I leave the room and it's a personal and prejudicial interest.
• Okay, thanks, Pete. Councillor Burke.
• Hello, thank you. I have a personal interest in relation to the Fields and Trust item as one of my parks is listed.
• Okay, Laura.
• Also a governor at Cotez High School, so I have a personal and prejudicial interest.
• Okay, thank you. Item one, then, is, oh, sorry.
• Sorry, I just need to declare a personal and prejudicial--
• Your mic's gone off.
• A personal non-prejudicial interest in the education paper, because it mentions a school in my ward.
• Okay. Nobody else. I'm trying to think now. Item one, minutes of the cabinet meeting held on the 21st of March. We can tend to agree these as a correct record.
• Aye.
• Okay, item two, within the leader's portfolio, appointments to joint committees. You will see that there's an amendment sheet circulated, which had previously been marked to follow. The report before cabinet is a procedural report in order to make appointments to joint committees for the 24-25 municipal year in line with the council's constitution. Appointments to joint committees, which discharge executive functions are to be made by the cabinet. The joint committees are listed in the report under paragraph four, details of which, as I said, found in appendix A. Are there any comments that you wish to make on this from cabinet? No, no, across the table. Thank you, and we can tend to agree the recommendations. Thank you, item three is the Welsh Language Standards annual report for the last year, again, sitting in my portfolio. The preparation and publication of this report are strategy requirements of the Welsh Language Standards. The statutory publication date is the 30th of June. The report reflects, really, the work undertaken by the council and its partners, both to meet the requirements of the standards, but also the wider implementation of the Ballying-Bulkardiff strategy. This year, it is also recommended that cabinet approve the policy development and compliance with the Welsh Language Standards document that's been included as appendix two. This policy was produced following the widely publicised Welsh Language Tribunal case, just to support council officers in making a conscientious effort to consider all potential impacts on the Welsh language when policies are being developed and revised. I won't go through the report in detail, but some significant highlights, I think, that deserve drawing out. It is worth noting and congratulating and thanking the Ballying-Bulkardiff team, not least for their marathon work in translating 14 million words last year, and also, actually, helping to secure over half a million pounds of external income into the council. Allied to that, I think, it is very positive to see, as part of our commitment to be a council that represents the city, a continued increase in the number of council staff with Welsh language skills, an increase of over 400 members of staff, and representing a 32% increase on previous years. But I think you will see in the report, also, a wider focus in terms of the promotion of the Welsh language in education, in particular, but more broadly, as well. So we were really pleased to collaborate with other partners in South East Wales, supporting the establishment of a Welsh language education champion and promoting Welsh language education across South East Wales. That partnership's delivered a number of projects. Including, significantly, promoting Welsh language to members of the black and ethnic minority communities, as well as access to Welsh medium additional learning needs. And I was very pleased to speak back in March of last year, and there's another event coming up in June, at an event for some of the city's Welsh medium high schools, promoting the career opportunities that exist for those who have ability within Welsh. We have 300 Year 9 pupils down at Cardiff and Vale College, and looking forward to another successful event in June. So some potted highlights of the variety of work on this agenda that's achieving great results, and like I said, my thanks in particular to the work of the bilingual Cardiff team in its delivery. So I'm pleased to present this report. Are there any comments from cabinet colleagues? Nope. John.
• Thank you, yes. Just briefly, thank you for the report, and I understand the statutory nature of it, and the need to lay out for the next five years what you wish to do. As part of the report, they do mention briefly the financial implications, and it says consideration should be given for the financial resources required to implement the actions, and be satisfied that these can be done within the existing budget allocation. And the funding sources identified prior to implementation, forgive me, but I haven't seen, as part of this, exactly what the costings are projected to be over the course of this five-year plan, or the source of funding.
• Chris, do you want to come in?
• I think that the financial implications really--
• Hang on, Chris, there we are.
• Sorry. Yes, like I said, the financial implications really just indicate that general requirement that anything that comes from this report, we're not being alluded to anything that's outside of the budget framework at the moment, but if there are requirements, they need to be within that framework, or clearly report back to cabinet. I'm not aware of any additional costs that would be incurred as a result.
• I know what you're thinking, but it's a statutory requirement on which the expectation is that it's picked up within the RSG in terms of funding from our governments, and we can argue whether that's sufficient or not. I'd come back, I think, to the quite entrepreneurial approach that is being taken in the delivery of this service that's actually allowing the provision within the council to also serve other parts of the public sector as well, and as I said, making, I think the actual figure is 580,000 pounds of income into the council in the last financial year, 5 BC, yeah. Council Member Berman.
• Yeah, thank you. I have a question in relation to the Welsh Education Strategic Plan, which is referenced within the report, because the figures there are quite interesting in that we were targeting to have 19 to 19.8% of pupils going into Welsh medium education, but we haven't hit that target. We're a bit shorter, but it's 17.1%. So I suppose my question is, whether we're going to do anything proactive to try to promote Welsh medium education, or whether we just think it should be just left up to parents to make their own choice. But I do know from my own experience as a governor at Haskell of Erlandeg that that school has had to try to market itself to try to get its numbers up to deal with falling rules. So there is a case to be made from the Welsh schools to promote the benefits of Welsh medium education, and is there something maybe that the Local Education Authority could do to add to that, and it would clearly help it to achieve that target?
• Yes, there is, and we are. I mentioned the work of the Welsh Language Education Champion as one part of that approach. Erlandeg, I believe, is one of three pilot schools where we are trialling specific approaches to try and improve the uptake. And I think, from what I understand, that the roles for September having some success certainly across the three pilot schools. So there is a variety, and I think it is picked up within the wider funding work out of strategy updates here. So it's something which I think we can all acknowledge that it's more work to be done in terms of getting those targets. But yeah, there's good work happening as well. Colleagues, are we content to agree the recommendations?
• Five. - Thank you. And then item four still being presented by me because of convention. If an area of the report involves a cabinet member's ward, Council Bradbury is departing for this item. Fields and Trust, you will see there's a scrutiny letter circulated. We are coming up on the 150th anniversary, actually, of the Public Health Act of 1875, and it was that act. Council Bradbury, do you know it?
• My wife and I have talked about it. (laughing)
• Since 1875, yeah. (laughing) It was that act that provided powers to local authorities to maintain land for recreational purposes. And so going into the anniversary, appropriately for us, I think, to be looking at how we protect more of the city's wonderful green spaces for future generations. I've been through this process myself as a cabinet member back in 2012, putting seven sites into trust then as part of the Queen's Jubilee then. And in 2019, Council Bradbury took a further two sites as part of the Centenary Fields initiatives. The proposal before us today proposes a further 11 sites for protection, and as we discussed in scrutiny, careful consideration was given around the criteria for site selection. My understanding is that the proposal has been welcomed by a number of local ward members already, and we will be ensuring that all stakeholders are aware of them and their implication. One innovation this year from our last two reports on this is that we will be consulting on the parks going forward as opposed to just putting them directly into trust. So I think that, again, is something that should be welcomed. County colleagues, anything you wish to say on this report? Nope. Council Lancaster.
• Thanks. So I was gonna ask on that process of consultation, but you say that in future the potential fields in trust are going to be consulted on first, is that right? Like candidate sites in the--
• In effect, yeah.
• Okay, then I'll move on to something else then. Fair enough. Way to ask two questions. One thing I understand with this arrangement is that it's, even though an area might be part of this field in trust arrangement, the council can still take back the land and use it for things other than green space, provided that the field in trust receives a similar amount of land elsewhere in Cardiff already under, not already under field in trust. A little bit like with the Mandy Cardellan Park land swap. Is that still the case with these fields in trust? So although you might think that they're protected in reality, they're not necessarily.
• I think that would be a particularly pessimistic way of characterizing it, and I think, you know, such conversations could theoretically happen in that kind of scenario that you described, but the power rests to approve that would rest with fields in trust as opposed to with the council. Okay. Council Member Berman.
• Yeah, I just wanted to make a few points. I mean, first I should say, you know, thank you for including more information in the report recommended by scrutiny about what the protection involves and what kind of changes fields in trust would have to approve, and you know, I do welcome this report coming forward. I suppose we just have to be aware that it's not a be-all and end-all protection, for instance. I think you did clarify scrutiny that it wouldn't override statutory rights, such as if Dora Cymru decided it needed to build a huge pumping station on a park, they would still have that ability to do that, and I think it's worth, you know, the public being aware of that. And I think the other example I cited at scrutiny again was about some of the changes being done on Roth Rec, which already has fields in trust status, and I know a lot of the community are unhappy with some of the changes and the way the park has been reconfigured, but it is within the scope of something that wouldn't require to go to fields in trust for approval, because you're changing, effectively, the mix of recreational space, albeit the cycle route, I suppose, is on the cusp between recreational use and maybe highway use, but I think it would technically still come under the definition of outdoor recreation, which then wouldn't require them to have to approve that change in the mix. However, I suppose, you know, the one thing I wanted to push a little bit further with is about the consultation, because I do welcome the fact that you're saying you'll have more consultation in the future, and I suppose my question is, will you just be saying, well, we're now proposing to add this park, this park, and that park, what do people think? Or are you going to go out with a more open consultation and say, what parks do you think should benefit from that fields in trust status? 'Cause I think, you know, there would be people there in the community that would welcome that more open consultation and the opportunity to nominate particular parks. I think it would be more towards the former than the latter. Here is our proposals, and we've arrived at these proposals through, you know, going through a criteria matching process. What do you think? That is not to say that there won't be other opportunities within this administration to put further parks into trust. I think we've got to take a balanced view on that, as we discussed, in scrutiny. You know, and I think the point is worth reiterating, just because a park is not in trust does not mean that, you know, the council or any BRS has intentions to build on it. But certainly there are examples elsewhere in the country where maybe cities put all its parks into trust and then ended up in some difficulties because of that going to that extreme as well. So I think it is a balance, but I trust that answers the question. Good, thank you. Are we content to agree the recommendations? Thank you very much. Councillor Bradbury, he's going to stay out. And Councillor Mackey and Councillor Weaver, it's a personal interest, isn't it, so you can remain, and Councillor Mary. This is, of course, the education investment strategy, 24 to 2033. There is a screening letter circulated. Councillor Mary, over to you. Thank you, leader. This administration has always been clear about the importance that we give to education and improving the education status be a key part of that commitment. With our joint investment with Welsh Government in the last tranche of their building funding being, we believe, the biggest individual school building programme in the UK. With the Welsh Government moving towards a rolling programme it seemed time to bring forward a strategy paper to underpin such big decisions around our education estate. So the paper is clear about the challenges we face with the condition of some of our schools despite the size of the investment made through both the new building and our asset programme as well as the progress made. Paragraph 10 takes you through the growth and investment through our asset renewal programme from 13.1 million in 2021 to 29 million in 23, 24. A programme that was much needed when we remember the considerable investment needed to keep open some of our secondary schools some years back and even we reached the point where pupils from Willows were being taught in the ground floor of County Hall. As you can see now, 48% of our school buildings are now in the top two categories per condition compared with 38% in 2020 and plans are well advanced through moving two of our last deconditioned schools with the investment going into Willows and Cantonian. The strategy is firmly rooted in the priorities of our 2030 education strategy. It's aspirational and ambitious linking this investment with improving educational outcomes. It is focused on providing a better balance and distribution of local, inclusive and accessible Welsh and English medium places and ALM places. The challenge the local authority faces too is about balancing the peaks and troughs of demands with a currently falling birth rate alongside a rise in demand for ALM places which is why there's been a shift in priorities which means there will be a focus on the provision of ALM places going forward in the rolling programme. To be clear, this is not to undermine the commitment to our schools being inclusive but we do need to ensure that we have the appropriate places for our children here in Cardiff. And we certainly cannot afford an ongoing expense to find school places out of county or in private schools when we can seek to provide them ourselves. Our children with ALM need a massive step forward in investment in provision. I'm very pleased that Scruitney have been so supportive in their letter to the cabinet members and I'm proud to move this report to cabinet.
• Thank you very much, Sarah. I'm sure we'll be revisiting individual elements of this report in the years to come. Any comments from cabinet members? No. John.
• Thank you, there's lots of impact there but I think I'll just stick with something fairly specific if I may with my Hanish and High Governor's hat on. I didn't declare it as an interest because I'm not voting in the items, so, you know, but, you know, I do have, you know, I'm interested, I'm interested in the outcome. In paragraph 54, you just do briefly mention the acquisition of the tea glass site in Hanish and High. A logical thing to presume would be that that would be used for a replacement Hanish and High. And I think originally part of the site was also to be used for ALM provision as well. I also understand recently that that might not now be the case and that might not be the site for a new Hanish and High and the whole site might actually be used for ALM provision. Could you just clarify that, please? Is that tea glass site, is that gonna be used for mainstream education and ALM or what is the current scenario?
• Yeah, in terms of the tea glass site, the only commitments we actually gave when we purchased the land was for educational purposes. Although I can believe and totally understand why there might be an expectation of English medium school places, for example, on that site. But I hope the strategy can take you through the reasoning about where the money is being spent and why an ALM place is a huge priority for us at the moment. So what was done was we had a long list of projects and we then considered them on assessment criteria which was around sufficiency, condition, suitability and addressing disadvantage, financial dis-sustainability and planning card document. So all of those factors were weighted in and there was a basic grid score which is how we actually came up with the long list of projects. Obviously, that isn't to say that there may not be condition issues within individual schools that we still must seek to address. And I hope you can see from that, you know, uplift in the investment that we're actually putting into our asset program that we are actually determined to address that.
• Thanks Sarah, Ronnie.
• Thank you, I have a couple of questions. So the first one is about the projects that are still to be progressed from band B. And obviously one of those is the card of high expansion which is of great interest to a lot of my residents. So it's just really to sort of give some understanding of whether we have any idea of a timetable for completing those projects and when, if we don't have one at the moment that's publicly available, when you might think we might have one. 'Cause obviously these projects I think have been talked about since about 2017 and we're now 2024 and people want to know, you know, when something might be able to happen. I appreciate you've got to do everything in sequence. You haven't got the money to do everything in one go. I understand that, but I think it was just to give maybe some understanding if there's more knowledge of the timeframe now. The other issue is about the pupil number projections because I think they do make some very interesting reading. I mean, not withstanding the fact that the projections have gone up and down at different times, which means that, you know, it's difficult to know if any one projection in any one point is more realistic than any other to be quite honest. But when we actually look at the ones that we actually know now in terms of the actual birth, they're all lower than all the projections. So I'm just wondering if, you know, you have any thoughts about the methodology being used for the projections and whether perhaps we are overestimating what the pupil numbers are going to be because of course we do understand the problems we get when we have more surplus places than we perhaps hope we were going to have because that means that, you know, the funding for the schools is spread more thinly because it's so much tied to funding per pupil going to each school. So, you know, there are major consequences for that and obviously it impacts on, you know, are we planning for too much provision if actually the birth rate is repeatedly not matching what the projections are.
• Yeah, I mean, that is why, as you can see from the list of projects that are actually named in there, there isn't actually a huge amount of investment in primary school places, for example. We've been through a drop in the birth rate and that isn't just Cardiff issue. I don't even think it's just a UK issue, but it is generally a pattern that's being seen internationally. There's usually, I think it's 15 year cycle they work on so that numbers come up and then are expected to go rise again. I personally think that as a local authority, we need to be aware of the fact that actually we can't necessarily make historic assumptions around what that birth cycle may actually be like. You know, it's an unknown, isn't it? Families have been under a huge amount of pressure economically over the last few years and that may have led them to make certain decisions. Whether they then reverse those decisions if things become economically easy, I don't know. And as somebody who's a parent of children in their 20s, we all know the financial pressure that young people are under in terms of tuition fees, house prices, rising rents. We, you know, it's a question though, isn't it? And this relates back to your first question is that's why I am actually pleased that there's gonna be a rolling programme rather than those big programmes like Band A and Band B because you have the satisfaction as a cabinet member at the start of one of those announcing a long list of schools that are going to get investment, but with inevitable disappointment for those that are not named. But then over the course of time, schemes shift, they work always takes longer, expenses go up and that can mean that schools are then disappointed by dropping out of the programme. And I think having the flexibility of a rolling programme where you can put tentative kind of like bids in for indicative pots of money without listing what you might do, I think is a much better process which will lead to less disappointment for schools in the end and also lead to us being able to adapt more quickly and with greater flexibility for exactly that kind of question that you're raising about the birthday. So there's expansion of one primary school in that programme at the moment. And within the rest of it we've kept the flexibility about whether there would be the organisations locally or whatever, but that can be adapted to the situation as schemes actually come forward. And just to stress that each scheme too will have its own individual business plan before it progresses as well.
• Thank you, Sarah. Colleagues, are we content to agree the recommendations?
• Aye. - Thank you. Item six is the report on the housing emergency with updates on progress and additional property purchases. There are confidential appendices and there are confidential and public scrutiny matters circulated. Councillor Goodway, can you introduce this? Thank you.
• Yes, thank you, leader. I introduced this report on behalf of Councillor Thorne who unfortunately is unable to be present this afternoon. The report seeks to update cabinet on the progress that's being made to address the ongoing housing emergency in Cardiff, but also to seek cabinet's approval for alternative property and land purchases to replace some of those identified in the earlier cabinet report presented in December, 2023, which are no longer available. And then to seek approval for the extension of the use of specific hotel provision as family homelessness accommodation for the period of 12 months going forward. And then to ask cabinet to approve the Cardiff local housing market assessment for the period 2022 to 2027. The report outlines the progress being made to meet the unprecedented demand placed on our homelessness services through a sustained and rapid increase in presentations from families and individuals. As colleagues will recall, in December, cabinet declared a housing emergency in Cardiff in consideration of these increased pressures. At that time, a range of measures were agreed aimed at reducing demand through preventative action and increasing the supply of affordable homes in the city. I'm pleased to say that there are some signs of progress, for example, in the number of families waiting to access temporary accommodation. But there have also been new pressures arising since December, the yearly release of prisoners to reduce overcrowding in the prison estate, to name just one. And the position overall remains extraordinarily challenging. The Communities and Adult Services Scrutiny Committee has considered this report. And I'm advised that officials in the service will be considering any potential to de-risk the sequencing of decision making in relation to property and land acquisition opportunities for housing purposes. In the case of large scale property purchase, agreed in principle in December, I am advised that the reason for the withdrawal of that opportunity by the vendor was positive in so far as the property was able to be sold for its original commercial purpose of offices for financial and professional services activity. It is considered that it would have been difficult to predict this outcome at the point the decision to proceed was made in December, with the vendor very much wanting to progress matters more formally at that time. Alternative land and property opportunities have been identified in order to replace this previous proposal. And the detail is contained in the confidential papers attached to the report. The key benefit of the large scale property purchase is the speed of delivery and market purchase will remain an important delivery route for new homes to complement our award winning housing development programme. Scrutiny Committee also joined with our concerns about the long term use of hotels for family temporary accommodation. And it remains a key objective of the administration for this provision to be phased out as soon as practicable. However, in the meantime, it is important that we secure the best arrangement with the owners of that provision and the report recommends such an approach. Finally, the report also references and seeks approval for the local housing needs assessment. This shows the initial five year level of predicted need across 10 years and the detail will help to inform the replacement LDP. Colleagues will have seen the two scrutiny letters. One is a public letter and the other is a confidential letter. And my cabinet colleague will take the representations contained in both into account as we take the policy forward. Thank you, Lida. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Goodway. I think we all recognise the severe issues in terms of housing pressures afflicting the city at the moment and really good to see progress being made and decisive solutions being brought forward to try and ease that pain. Myself and officials from the Economic Development team and indeed the Housing team attended earlier this week the UK's Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum up in Leeds and not only was it pleasing to see elements of that house building programme you referenced there being cited as exemplar projects by other private sector partners but also really interesting to hear feedback from Scotland as well as Wales contrasting with the situation in England here in Wales and Scotland right to buy having been suspended and that in turn enabling us to make some of the financial investments to resolve these issues or support resolving these issues that we were able to do today. So good to see this coming forward. Does anybody wish to speak from cabinet? Nope. John. Thank you, yes, so as you referenced, Councillor Goodwin, we did look at this in December. My recollection from that is that the report then referenced the Welsh Government's ending homelessness white paper which is also referenced in this report here. It was interesting that there was some pushback from cabinet in that some of the proposals in that white paper weren't acceptable to you on the basis that whilst well-intentioned some of them could actually end up leaving you into problems not least with some clauses such as the sort of intentionally homeless clause and so on and so forth. So I remember Councillor Thorne saying that there would be some pushback to the Welsh Government on that consultation. What dialogue have you had with the Welsh Government since then and where does that particular white paper sit within this proposed strategy now that you're bringing? Well, I think it's fair to say that the concerns that were expressed by Councillor Thorne at that time remain, I think the biggest concern is the law of unintended consequences. As you say, that they may well be well-intentioned but the advice that we're getting as a cabinet generally and as Councillor Thorne with a specific responsibility in her portfolio, that the advice that she's getting is that if some of those proposals were to be debated were to be taken forward then they could have profound implications for the city and for housing strategies. So I know personally that Councillor Thorne has been seeking a meeting with the Minister within Welsh Government following the formation of the new administration in the last few weeks. I am not aware, I'm sorry, whether that meeting has actually taken place but I have seen email exchanges where she's been seeking to put those meetings in place. And I don't know, I would look to officials who are sat behind me to put their hand at my back and start working me. I'm not sure to what extent this strategy has taken account of those proposals because they're not, if they're white paper proposals they're not yet requirements. But I don't know whether we've built them in or whether we've taken the decision to expressly exclude them because of our concerns. But perhaps somebody can help me on that one.
• I think a response to the consultation's been submitted that highlights our concerns. So, and I know those concerns are shared by widely across the WLGA, not in terms of the principles but in terms of the mechanics and challenges of delivering in the short term. So we will continue to engage with ministers on that issue. Thanks, John. Councillor Berman.
• Yeah, thank you, Councillor Thomas. I appreciate what Councillor Goodway was saying about the positives behind the withdrawal of the acquisition by the vendor. But obviously, if you are a homeless family in need of accommodation you might not view it so positively. And I suppose the question is, is to whether perhaps we need a more multifaceted approach in terms of bringing on board more accommodation for homeless people, whether there's more we could be doing working say with housing associations to get purpose-built facilities made into place. And obviously, I would share the aim very much so of trying to not have to rely on hotel accommodation. You know, in the past, we did phase out the use of hotel accommodation, but sadly, of course, economic circumstances have significantly worsened since those days and the need for homeless accommodations has significantly increased and one can only hope that there is some change in the future in that regard, which means that the demand becomes less again. But I suppose, you know, what I'm saying is, do we think we're doing enough to have more options to us that might bring you on board the desired accommodation so that we're less susceptible if one project falls through like this?
• I mean, I think it's fair to say that there's a significant raft of different approaches being taken through the housing team and perhaps, you know, it's allowed Jane to elaborate on those, the variety of opportunities that we're pursuing.
• Yes, thank you. We've obviously got the very extensive build programme that the council is taking forward, but we also work really closely with our RSL colleagues and any new builds that are coming to fruition. We've got a list of those and we, you know, we carefully review those to make sure that we're allocating those in the correct way and we are allocating a considerable proportion to homeless families or homeless individuals and in some occasions, we are actually using those as managed blocks to help with hostile accommodation even to make sure that we've got alternatives to the hotels. Unfortunately, just due to the pressure of demand and the time it takes to build, we have not been able to stop using the hotels as yet. That is obviously the aim.
• Thanks, Jane.
• I do take the point that there needs to be closer liaison between policy makers and those of us who then have to deliver the policy outcomes because there's no doubt that one of the reasons why we've got increased pressure at the moment is because Welsh government, you know, laudably sought to introduce legislation which would give tenants more protections. But I don't think that they anticipated the result of that, the extent to which landlords withdraw from the market and that is having a major contribution to the problem that we've got. And that just reinforces in my mind the need for much closer work and then closer liaison with those of us who are having to deliver these services when those policy decisions and those legislative decisions are being made because it needs to be joined up and the expertise and the skills that we have within local government and within RSLs, I think need to be much more closely relied upon than it suggests has been done in the past.
• Okay, thank you. Colleagues, are we content to agree the recommendations?
• Aye.
• Thank you. Item seven, City Hall update report. There are confidential appendices and a confidential and public screen letter circulated. Councillor Goodway, back to you. Hang on. Yep.
• Yeah, thank you, leader. As colleagues will be aware, I have been working to review the council's future office requirement for some time and it is my intention to present a full business case on the core office strategy to cabinet in the summer. So this report is not that. It isn't about the full business case around our core office requirement. Rather, it is an interim report primarily designed to provide an update on the phase one maintenance works that have been carried out at City Hall, but also to seek some technical approvals to enable the works to progress to a second phase. So the phase one works, which will upgrade the electrical capacity into the building and will modernize the heating system in the public facing parts of the building, i.e. the event venue, those are ongoing. And a heritage application will be submitted to CADU in July with a view to starting the substantive works in December. And I'm advised that those works are likely to take around 12 months to complete. Since the building was closed in October last year, the council has been undertaking substantial asbestos removal throughout the building in line with guidance provided by CADU. The report also seeks cabinet approval to procure a contractor for the phase two works, which will modernize the heating system in the office areas of the building. The council has applied for grant funding towards the decarbonization of the building and is expecting a decision in June. There are opportunities for further applications to be made, and therefore this report seeks authority to spend resources to develop the phase two designs to read the stage two to support future applications. The report includes an independent report, confidential appendix number four, on the potential future uses of city hall that are based on uses that will be considered acceptable to the council, reflecting the building's heritage status, grade one listed, and dealing with and identifying some of the covenant limitations which currently are in place. So the independent report also provides some initial market feedback on potential future operating models for city hall, and there are a number of potential options. We can continue as we are now. We can find somebody else to run the event space. We can find somebody else to lease the office space. We can find somebody to lease the whole building and operate it, or a combination of the above. And there has been some initial engagement with a number of public sector organizations in relation to the above. But the detailed options will be considered as part of that full business case that I referred to earlier which will hopefully come to cabinet in July. Thank you, leader.
• Thanks, Russell, for a very helpful summary there. Any comments from cabinet members at this stage? No. John, anything from you?
• I think so, yes, I guess it's... We're at this stage now where we see the effects of a lack of maintenance over the years, and so we're really at this sort of crossroads with city hall, aren't we? You know, considering various usage models and all that sort of thing. Even what was quite interesting there about this sort of idea of possibly even removing city hall from the one planet objective so that we don't have to spend so much money on upgrading it or that sort of thing. So I suppose the key question is, and I appreciate if you might be addressing this at some point in the future, the key question is what do you want to see the usage of city hall as? Do we want to see it solely for council use or do you want to open it up for commercialization and with the inherent costs and risk that that involves? What do you want to see doing with it?
• Well, my overriding priority is to secure the investment in the building that will maintain the structure and bring it up to the standard that it needs to be brought up to. I mean, we do have an obligation as guardians of the civic estate to ensure that that building is sort of brought up to the standard and protected going forward. So we need therefore to explore how we can best lever in the resources needed to achieve that outcome. In terms of the uses, I mean, it isn't purely a council building now, is it? Because it's used for all sorts of events that it's hired out for. And the more of that that we can do, I would welcome. I mean, certainly since the rates hall was removed in 1998, the number of people that go in, number of Cardiff people that go into that building is significantly lower than it was because people used to go in there to pay their rates. They don't have to do that anymore. But I would like to ensure that the uses in the future draw as many people into that building as we can so that they can see it, admire it for what it is, because it needs to be seen. It should not be one of the best kept secrets in the city when people go past on the bus. You know, the number of people that do and have never been in the building and that they've lived in Cardiff all their life, I think is quite sad. So anything in terms of the uses that we bring forward that would increase the footfall into the building, I would welcome. And if that activity could be linked with ways of raising revenue to ensure that the proceeds of that income can be reinvested into the building to make sure that we're not in a position in 100 years time where our successes in title have to dig deep to find the resources. And you know, I have to say this, there is only one leader of this council that's ever made a major investment in that building since it was built in 1905. And that was me in 1998 when we had the opportunity to host the European Summit. That's what brought significant investment into that building. And I can tell you the criticism that I had from my own party for emptying the building so that we could host that event. And yet UK government and the EU invested substantial sums in that building at the time. And I have to say, precious little has been invested in the 25 years that's followed. We won't be having another one of them, will we? Thank you, Russell. I think I would gently point out that it is now two leaders who've invested in that building. (laughing) Rodney. Just good to hear that Councillor Lancaster wants us to rejoin the EU, apparently. (laughing) An interesting policy change from the Conservatives there. I suppose what my issue is, is that in terms of what, you know, uses we'll be able to buy with the building, but it does sound to me as if we are effectively giving up on the idea of having any council office use back in the building. Presumably we'll want to go back into using the chamber for council meetings again, and I think it will be, you know, I look forward to when we are able to do that again. But it does seem to me that we will have lost something if we are not anymore using it for any kind of, you know, council office function. But is that effectively what we're looking at now? I think let's not get ahead of ourselves and the future report coming in the summer or the second half of the year, to coin a phrase. (laughing) And I think, you know, I think that's a good point to raise, and I certainly wouldn't want to discount at this stage the continued use of part of our building as council offices, but I think we have to work through the various options in terms of our future core office, and indeed for then the potential interest from other parts of the public sector. So let's not anticipate the result of that work. But yeah, understand the point. No. (laughing)
• Can I just emphasize that it is my intention to secure the opportunity for this council and its successors to have use of the chamber going forward. Now I can't guarantee whether future councils will decide to do that. I mean, they'll be free to make decisions, you know, in 50 years time, and they may be different. All I am committed to doing is ensuring whatever arrangement we put in place, the council will have the ability to access the council chamber and the meeting space for, you know, to discharge council meetings and council functions. As far as the office accommodation is concerned, I defer to the leader. All I would ask you to reflect on is that when we make those decisions, it's the cost of delivering 35,000 square foot of office accommodation, as opposed to being able to deliver twice that for half the cost. And that's gonna be an important consideration for all of us at the time.
• Thanks, Russ. Okay, we can turn to three of the recommendations.
• Aye.
• Thank you. Item eight is the draft equality, diversity, and inclusion strategy 24 to 28. A scrutiny letter and response has been circulated. Councilor Sangani, can I ask you to introduce the report? Thank you.
• Thank you, leader. I am pleased to introduce the draft equality, diversity, and inclusion strategy to cabinet. Stronger, fairer, greener makes clear that tackling inequality is at the heart of our policy agenda. In practice, this means making sure that the many great opportunities of living in Cardiff can be enjoyed by everyone, whatever their background. Alongside of our own commitment, we have duties we must respond to under the Quality Act, which includes publishing a strategy equality plan at least every four years. A lot of work has gone into developing the draft strategy. A comprehensive equality needs assessment has been completed to help us to identify the most significant issue facing different groups across the city. We have reviewed progress against the last strategy equality plan 2020-2024 and looked at our local and national strategies. For example, the report of Cardiff Race Equality Task Force and both the Welsh Government Anti-Racist Action Plan and LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Welsh. We also spoken to some of the key partners to understand how they see things and discuss the area where action is needed. In terms of the next steps, should we approve the draft strategy, we will undertake a six-week period of consultation and engagement. To make the public consultation as accessible possible, the information will be translated into the community languages, including Arabic, Welsh, Bengali, Polish, and the hard copies are printed and made publicly available, not only in the council premises but more often across the city. Targeted engagement will also continue to undertake in lines with the aim of the council's participation strategy. Following public consultation and engagement on the draft strategy, it is proposed that a final draft be break to the cabinet in September 2024. I'm confident that this strategy will aid us in our ambition of creating a fairer city and I ask the cabinet to approve the recommendation to set out in this report. Thank you.
• Thanks very much, Julie. Any comments from-- - Sorry. Any comments from cabinet members? No, John, anything?
• Thanks, just a quick question. You mentioned the consultation there and of course that's key, I think, to the strategy is to engage as many people as possible in this. Given the strategy is aimed at improving outcomes for so many people who are disadvantaged or who have protected characteristics and so on, and these sort of cohorts of people have traditionally been harder to reach with consultation and engagement, it's vital that you get the consultation right and that everyone affected by the strategy will be able to have that input. So how will the consultation be carried out in order to reach the broadest range of people? And like I say, those people who have been traditionally a bit harder to engage with this sort of thing, how will the consultation be aimed?
• Julie.
• Thank you. That's a really interesting question. As we say, we have learned from our past practice from the participation strategy. We got really active engagement with all stakeholders, public board. We are taking engage with the Race Company Council, Divers Company, Third Sector Council, and as well as across our all council member as well. So at the moment, my consultation is underway and we are here to listen how the best we can record it and then accordingly, what the feedback, we get it, what we hear it, and then we can shape our strategy. We will identify the gap and then try to make sure we will address this, what we heard. Thank you.
• I mean, you mentioned the participation strategy and I think what was identified through that work is specific strategies and interventions to increase participation from less ordinarily heard communities, not necessarily in terms of, through an EDI lens, but actually in terms of poverty as well. So I think it's taking that learning and applying it and there's good practice already within the Cardiff research team in doing that.
• Rodney.
• Yeah, thank you. I suppose the area I wanted to pick up on is what's touched upon in the report in relation to health inequities and health inequalities 'cause it's obviously something that we have talked about for a long time, repeatedly features in different reports in the council. But the question is whether we're able to actually do anything to really address it in any meaningful way. And obviously, we know the council doesn't have all the levers. It's not something it can fix on its own. It has to be working with partner organisations. But I suppose my question is, how will we determine whether what we're putting forward now is going to make a difference? Will it result? So are we going to tie it to any kind of mechanism for measuring progress? Are we going to get actions that we work on jointly with partner organisations that can help shift the dial or whatever? Because if you look at things that are referred to, I think the report refers to healthy life expectancy. And if you look at the figures and the disparities between the most affluent parts of Cardiff and the least affluent parts of Cardiff, and you'd get the same if you looked at this life expectancy as well. Those gaps have been there and have been there for a long time and they're not shifting. So is there a way that we can take things a bit further forward than just continually writing about it as an issue and actually get something that does move the dial? Are we going to look at some way that we can measure that through some indicators? I know in the past, the council's looked at things like results-based accountability methodology to actually find things that we can agree on with partners we need to focus on and measure how that's outputting in terms of a difference, if at all, over a period of years. So I think that's what I'm trying to see is will we get that rounder picture that actually might mean that say, if we're looking at this in five years time, 10 years time, that we see that these things have actually improved.
• Thank you. Yes, I absolutely agree with you. The health inequality has been already addressed. And we said the stronger, fairer policy commitment is tackling a long-term poverty and inequality is at the heart of our council policy commitment. So if you see, and presently, if you can see the, we are working with our stakeholders, the Public Health Wells has given one additional role for the health improvement, particularly reaching out to the diverse community in order to reach out to our immunization program, about the healthy eating as well. So we are trying to make sure we can work equally well with our stakeholders. And I absolutely agree with you, how are we recording? So we make sure, so our consultation, and we got our really firm research teams, and when you come back to us, and then we analyze what progress we have made it. And we do have good recommendation during our PrEP Scrutiny Committee, and which has been already has accepted partially.
• Yeah, thanks, Julie. I mean, I think your question contained part of the problem, Rodney, in that we don't have all the levers. In fact, we've only got very few levers. And what we also don't have then is a controlled experiment of what would have changed had we not done what we would have done. And I think we can monitor the effect, if the changes in terms of equality outcomes in the city and health and poverty outcomes. But it's hard to work out how much better or how much worse it would have been had the council not done that, in the context of the changes, like particularly, I guess, the benefit system. But as Julie was saying, there's really, really clear research in terms of monitoring, in terms of our interventions as far as possible. Good, are we content to agree those recommendations? Thank you.
• That brings us to our last item of the day, the cabinet's response to the Joint Scrutiny Committee inquiry on the replacement LDP. Councilor Diaz.
• Thank you very much, leader. This report seeks cabinet approval of the response to the Joint Scrutiny Inquiry and the replacement local development plan set out in appendix one. By way of background, in March, 2023, the chairs of the five scrutiny committees agreed that a cross-committee Tarsian Finish Group be created to give a single response from scrutiny on the LDP preferred strategy. The Tarsian Finish Group agreed to focus on three key topics, planning obligations, managing transport impacts in district and local centers. Each group being led by a scrutiny chair, to wit, Messrs. Jones, Williams and Wong. The Planning Obligations Task Group looked at how current policy and processes were strengthened and informed by views of external witnesses working across the UK. The Managing Transport Impacts Task Group reviewed how the delivery of transport and active travel infrastructure on new developments could be improved, again, informed by work of external witnesses. The district and local centers task group reviewed existing retail policies, taking into account the impact of COVID and good practice for other British cities. The findings and recommendations were presented to cabinet for consideration on January, 2024. There are 17 headline recommendations which are broken down into sub-recommendations, giving 48 recommendations in total, from 130 key findings. The majority of the recommendations were accepted, or partially accepted, 37 out of 48. Appendix 1 in the report sets out the individual responses to each, and the reasons for not accepting. Where recommendations weren't accepted, or accepted partially, reasons are given, often including, then being beyond the scope of the scrutiny or inability to influence wider Welsh government or statutory processes. Work on a taking by scrutiny is very much appreciated, and will be really helpful, informing the ongoing review of existing and new LDP policies and SBGs. We also commend scrutiny on the quality and input of the expert witnesses they spoke to, which is really appreciated by cabinet and our officials. The deposit LDP is on the cabinet/council forward plan for September, with formal consultation scheduled to commence in October, 2024.
• Thanks very much, Dan. Any comments, colleagues? No. John?
• Thank you, yes. Having been involved in the task and finish group myself, I'm aware of the recommendations and the reasoning behind them, and I'm pleased that the majority of the recommendations have been accepted. One stands out to me that hasn't been the recommendation five from key finding 36, which was the affordable housing policy, which should be reviewed regularly. As this particular need is, by definition, it can be quite flexible, and you can need to react to fluctuations in need there. However, that was rejected on the basis that it had to be tied in with the overall LDP. Surely there is a need for some sort of degree of flexibility in there, why not sort of try to find ways of accepting this and work some sort of review into the procedure regularly? We see this in environmental scrutiny where we do question something like an SPG or something like that, and we're told, ah, we can't change that now because we've got to wait another five years for the R LDP to provide the hook, to change the thing to do, you know. So this sort of inflexibility, I think, is not terribly helpful, especially in something like affordable housing.
• I'll let the inner family in. (laughing)
• Thank you, Lida, thank you. Dan, thank you, John. I very much take your point, Councillor. I think the actual recommendation was referring to policy, hence the response. You are quite right, SPGs can be updated much more frequently than a local development plan. There is, under national policy, a requirement to review local development plans every four years, but given what we've seen in the past four years, I suspect that, particularly around affordable housing, there should be a mechanism to review that sooner. That would then fall to the SPG where there would be introduction of quantums of types of tenure of affordable housing triggers and various other policy guidance. That absolutely can be updated, and there are examples where SPGs have been updated since the adoption of the current LDP in 2016, thank you.
• Okay, thanks, Simon. Anything, Rodney?
• Yeah, just on the basis, I can't seem to be able to get to the appendices on modern.gov. I'm afraid I'm not able to ask any questions. (muffled speaking)
• Oh, there we are. At least the way to-- (muffled speaking) Okay, okay. Apologies, Rodney. Colleagues, though, we content to read the recommendations. Thank you, that concludes the business. We'll see you in full council in an hour and a half. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]