Cabinet - Tuesday, 7th May, 2024 10.00 am
May 7, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
on time, I'm pleased to say this is as is now the custom, a hybrid meeting on Zoom. We have some members in the chamber, including myself as chair at various senior officers. A very senior officer is joining remotely and we have some members joining remotely as well. So, we have a fairly full agenda. So, we'll make a start. We also have some members, non-covement members of council, who are joining us today to speak on various items as well. So, welcome to them. Thank you very much. Right, let's start with apologies, please. Do we have any apologies for absence? From coastal Jack Berrymont, thank you very much. Let's start with apologies, please. Do we have any apologies for absence? From coastal Jack Berrymont. Thank you very much. No, apologies also Councillor Shah. Councillor JOHN COCKS also sent a apology. Thank you very much for that. Thank you very much. All right, we have, we've moved right into on the minutes, on the agenda, which is the minutes of the meeting held on the 19th of March. They are on pages 5 to 10 of our pack. Could I have somebody to propose those? Are there any, are there any comments on the minutes before I ask for somebody to propose them as a true record? No, everybody's happy with somebody who had to propose, propose and please. Hello, Councillor Richard Church has proposed we accept those minutes. Could I have a second? I have a seconder from Councillor Jackie Charlton. Thank you very much. Would all those in favour please show? Thank you very much. So those minutes are accepted. Good. Let's move on to item three, please, on the agenda. Are there any declarations of interest from members relating to the items on the agenda? Do you think of anything during the course of the debate? Please show or indicate at the time. Thank you very much. Good. Let's move on to item four, new Sustainable Communities for Learning. This is in the name of Councillor Pete Roberts. Pete, pages 11 to 62 on our pack. Thank you. Thank you, Leader. The Sustainable Communities for Learning Strategic Outline Program is the first strategic document that we brought forward that looks at the planned structure of our schools estate into the future. Outlines a program over the next nine to 11 years of what we are looking at for development. And as you will see, when you look at the document, it indicates a number of sites where proposals are coming forward now that will require statutory consultation processes in relation to the school's organisational code as part of the moving forward. So it's perhaps pertinent at this point to point out that where these are indicated, this doesn't pre-determine anything that is going forward within the school's code. You can introduce two offices to take you through this. First, the Director of Education. Richard is going to introduce it as a strategic level. And then Mary Ann Evans is going to take us through some of the more detailed aspects of it. So I'll pass you across to Richard now, which is to take us on a strategic level. Thank you. Dr Jones. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Sorry, just a little bit. [inaudible] Is that better? Thank you, apologies for that. It's a little tech issue there. Thank you. Before I hand over to Mary Ann Evans. Just from my point of view, as Councillor Pidrops has said, this is the document which sets out our future direction. It's a strategy document, very much a high level strategy, setting out aims and objectives, which will shape our work to transform the power education system over the coming years. There are four overarching strategic aims of the document. The first is to improve learner entitlement and experience, including the rationalization of primary schools and developing all age schools. The second is to improve learner entitlement and the experience of post-16. The third, to improve the access to Welsh media education across our authority and finally to improve our ALN provision. As Councillor Roberts has said, the strategy also includes a major capital investment program that will ensure that schools and powers always have inspiring and environmentally sustainable buildings that our learners deserve. I'll pass over now to Mary Ann Evans to talk through the detail of the report. Thank you for that, Paul. This represents the Council's ambition towards transforming education sector, and also linked to the sustainable policy. Just a little bit of background for you. Welsh government previously had capital programs, which you're very familiar with, called 21st century schools. We had a band-aid, which was funded for five years, and then band-aid, which ran for another five years. Welsh government reflected on how well that approach had been, and have decided to change the way it's the couple of program runs, and is now looking for nine-year rolling programs. Every local authority is required to submit a new strategic outline program based on the nine-year rolling program. If you're planning to expand the projects or those projects that were in the Council, and I'll move into the new program. The key difference with this program is it's far more flexible than the previous programs. There's no funding envelope, so if we submit this program for 300 million, it doesn't mean that Welsh governments signed up to a 300 million program, and we have to deliver within that. What it means is there's an in-principled support for the program, and each project then has to be submitted, so every business case has to be submitted on its own merit, and Welsh government will consider each project based on that. It's a nine-year rolling program with the program flexing to three bands. The first three years, they're looking for projects which will achieve full business case within those three years, i.e. those projects are ready to go very soon. There's three to six projects in development and undergoing statutory consultations, and in the last three years, they're looking for pipeline projects, so those really are not even started, but on the plan, so to speak. So we pulled together this strategic pipeline program, it follows the fight-paced business model, so it looks at the strategic case, become the case, the financial and commercial and management case. We'll see within the document itself, how we have addressed how this program meets some of the key Welsh government policy areas, such as Welsh medium education, climate change regeneration, economic development, etc. Our information is in the actual soft itself. We get to be economic case where we've looked at what options are available to us. We have to take our investment objectives, and we assess three options based on the investment objective and the critical success factors. The third option is option three, I believe this option gives us the flexibility required in order to be able to influence our current strategy so it includes those project currently in design. And it also gives flexibility around projects that will come in as part of the transformation proposals going forward. But this is the best, is the best option based on the fact that it does meet the strategic aims and objectives, and it is, we believe, deliverable within within this nine year rolling program. So we have on the call as well so we have propelled it over 12 years rather than nine. I do think myself at the nine year is is pretty short period for such a big capital program, but I would like in future to see Welsh government sort of extending the time skills around this one. And I also just address one other thing that was raised in the learning skills committee, how this program links with sustainable policy. And I think for me, without this program, it would be almost impossible to develop a sustainable education sector in which we need capital funding to enable us to invest in our schools to improve the condition of schools, which then ultimately leads to improve the learner experience. It helps us with our plans to rationalize the schools at the schools of state as well by investing where we need to invest. It also helps us to meet the net zero agenda. So without this program, I don't think we would be able to take forward the translation strategy to to the, to the degree that we need to do. So I leave it at that I've got James to be on the call as well from a more technical perspective in terms of design and, and the building process etc. James from capital funding as well. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Anybody, anybody wishing to contribute to the discussion before I bring in members who are not on the cabinet, any cabinet members wishing to speak. I'll add at the end in summing up. I would like to bring Jim in though so he can talk a little bit about the modular approach that we're starting to talk about on the options for random common standards across our schools. I know that nobody else indicated on the cabinet wishing to speak to the chair of scrutiny here on the learning skills scrutiny committee. Councillor Guinborough, you're with us on to you. Yes. Yes, I'm indeed. Yeah. Yeah, I just got a few comments to make really, I think our report is self explanatory. Really. Yeah. I know I just, I'll just make a few comments perhaps to give a bit of meat to the bones of our report. Certainly welcome. The aspiration, which is before us and that was said in the committee. But we're not really. I'm coming to my words. We are enthusiastic, but we're not quite clear on where we still are going with this aspiration. It is an aspiration and not a commitment and the commitment that there's been made is for the first three years of the program. So we did ask the question whether the resource can be found in years four to 12. If that resource isn't found massive complications for our school that was because we are relying on transformation to deliver the education which our children deserve. We also recognize that Welsh government are making a massive contribution to this project somewhere in the region of 200 million. And we also asked the question there, then, is that resource going to be going to be enabled to be found in, in, in this desperate situation which we find the finances to be in at the moment that preferred option history. But we were struggling to find the evidence to see whether this option meets the Council's ambition. And we do not tie it in with sustainable powers, obviously sustainable powers and what was said about education was in its early days. And we don't see how it ties in with a sustainable palace also with the development of the Welsh language and the current transformation program. It has put some of that transformation on the back burner, particularly in the north of our county, where we see schools, school closures proposed. Back to other maintenance, schools were subscribed. This was, this was an aspiration in the previous council and now we see it in year nine. And we're not really sure that whether that area of the committee can continue to operate in the manner it is without this investment which you highlight, but it almost seems to power away. I'm not going to say very little else, just much has been said about our approved facility recently and obviously there was a budget proposal surrounding that, but there's nothing to be found in this paper in relation to that. So I'm a bit confused with that budget proposal on the table, and nothing in this aspiration to deal with that really so I hope that gives you a little bit of clarification on the report that we brought before you. Thank you, leader. No, thank you very much. Councillor every time this has got his hand up, probably possibly deal with the monetary issues the financial issues. Yeah. Yes. Thank you, leader. I agree with the chair of scrutiny that this is a highly ambitious program and that's commendable because it's exactly what we as authority needs and what our purpose in power is required. But I think if you look at the comments there from the 151 officer, they make it perfectly clear that this is going to be a challenge after year three. There's no doubt about that. It'll have to be monitored and we'll have to take into consideration all the national economic and financial impacts that might actually impact this particular program. But I just want to address the question around sustainable powers because it in effect. That's the very program that we ensure that we can deliver this capital program for improvement, because we'll be well by year three, we'll be well into the sustainable. Power program and we'll hopefully, but by that stage of achieved what would initially want to achieve, but it got to change as far as the authorities concerned and be able to deliver our services that are more effective and at less cost the authority. And that in turn will release the finances, which obviously can be used with this type of program. So, so, so, I do believe that this is achievable, but it will have to be monitored very, very closely. Thank you. Thank you. There's anybody else wishing to comment on that aspect, Marianne, I mean, indeed the one five one officer. Yeah. Thank you, if I could comment and I think the comment is included in the reporting in section four point one. It highlights that this is, it is ambitious. As Councillor David has pointed out, there is a significant investment required from the Council as well as the potential Welsh Government funding that we, we are seeking through this, this plan. But it's worth noting that when we do consider the resources we have available as a Council, we have to consider all of our resources and make sure that they are all aligned to deliver the priorities that we set for the Council. Whilst making sure, of course, that any capital investments that we do make are affordable, prudent and sustainable within the economic context within which we see. So, as highlighted in the report and the commitment is there, but in terms of the individual projects and the financing of them as we move through this program, that will be considered at later stages of the business case, where we can actually confirm how the Council's part of any financial commitment will be financed at that stage as well. So, just to reiterate that there is further work needed to be clear on how that financing will be put in place. Okay. Right, I have a series of hands. Thank you, Jane, for the clarification. Jim, Jim Swaby, please. Thank you. I'm just in response to Council Pete's comments. I thought it's worth putting a bit of explanation around the, you know, the detail of the, the implementation of this, because the document is looking at the strategic approach. And the individual projects that follow from that very much intended to be fit the purpose, they will not be the same. You know, once solution would not be the same as the next solution necessary with the caveat that we are working towards a standardized power school design to simplify some of the decision making or look at, you know, the standard elements within the building. And modulus it's very much against that so from, from my point of view, you know, the flexibility of the approach within this allows power to get the best result for the particular application for each school and the best outcome for learners. Hope that helps. Yeah. Okay, thank you, Jim. Mariam, before I bring any other members back in, would you like to comment? Yeah, just to point out as well, it's saying that in the text and flexibility is key to this program. I also, I think in the past we've attended to build new from scratch. Right, so we've tended to go for new bills. I think a very cool, we, we've only had the one or two projects which have been, which haven't been built within the current, within the past, Sunday and Sunday programs. Going forward, we need a bit of a change of mindset. We need to think when we're looking at each individual project, what is the best. So, is new build best or can we achieve what we need to achieve in another way through a remodeling through an extension. Those are the kind of things we need to look at. We need to make sure that this money goes as far as it can, that there's more, more school can benefit from it. And if we do that, then we may not be looking at the full blown new builds everywhere kind of approach. So that's something we will need to keep in mind as we go forward and we look at new projects going through. Okay. Yeah, thank you very much. Can we just say from Councilor Matadorance before I go back to, when is that an old hand or a new one? It's a new one, have a great one. No, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. Madam. But, actually, I just ask colleagues to look at 3.3 of the strategic outline program. I think the active travel element is quite light for this proposal. And I'd like to see some more detail here about what we think the benefits might be in terms of active travel through communities. I think where there have been school new school developments within the county, it would have been useful, I think, to capture some evidence of the added benefits and the added value of active travel from those schemes to the wider community. And I think that missed an opportunity in the current paper. So just ask that going forward, whether this infirm the reflection that we can consider to this, because this is clearly a benefit and again for the Council to be able to improve active travel routes for walking cycling and public transport through communities, rather than using cars or all of the time, more complicated, except for our rural communities, but a bit of the report does at least acknowledge that. We just think we've missed an opportunity around some of the developments that we've already undertaken and captured those benefits. And where we've already got active travel plans in place for communities that may not have been developed yet that are aspirational. How is that going to adapt and change to meet what's being proposed here in terms of a school, the organization and sustainable power. And I think it'd be really important if we, if we focus on that and try and try and increase the aspiration within the SOP because I think it's lacking at the moment. And I'd like to see some more detail. Thank you. Okay, so Marianne or yes, Marianne, would you. Just quickly. Thank you for that. I agree. It is slightly like that active travel and it is a key, key part of the program going forward. Yes, I'll take your comments on board and we can reflect on them before we submit to Welsh going on. So we'll do that. Definitely. Good. Okay. So, yeah, that's really helpful. Thank you, Matthew, for that. That's a positive improvement. Gwen, where you've taken your hand down. Do you still want to speak? Yes, if I could please. I'm sorry. I didn't intend to take my down to my. No, I don't know my notes. I made last night. It was screaming out at me once I finished speaking. So if you just. I was just a bit unclear when I was reading through the papers last night. Obviously a 300 million pound commitment and fantastic aspirations got me wrong, but in September 20. Twenty twenty capital expenditure identified at five hundred and sixty million then. So has that has that expenditure been identified to go somewhere else, perhaps into. The Baccalaureate School maintenance or is this a reduction in in the aspiration of the council. Can I come in? Yes. Yeah, go on, Marianne. If you're referring to the stop that went beyond. Yes, it was covered in September twenty twenty. That was the aspiration at that time. And again, that didn't be very cool. That's based on the current band B plus a larger, I think a more more ambitious. Ambition at that time. So this one reflects where we are currently with band B because some of those band B projects that haven't. Haven't progressed as quickly as we would have liked to have seen. I think some of those would have been in place by now for certain other things happen. So it's not a reduction in in the ambition. I think it's a reduction in the total cost. But I think what we have now is a slightly. It's I think it's a different program to what we had back in 2020. But I need to go back and have a look at the detail in order to be able to respond to that. More fully comes to the window. But it is the ambition as we found now, given the fact that the band B projects maybe come in. Haven't been haven't progressed as we would have liked them to have seen them progress. Thanks, Marianne. Thanks, leader. Okay. No, no, thank you for raising that. No, just before we leave the issue of the scrutiny report, there are a series of recommendations made by the scrutiny committee. Some of them are very, you know, quite, quite detailed and very important ones, which we need to consider. And I don't think we have, I think it would be best if the cabinet was to consider those under a separate meeting and provide a proper and full response to the scrutiny committee rather than going into a longer debate now around them. In this cabinet meeting. So, when we will indeed do that, because some of the suggestions you make up very far reaching, and we'll have an impact on, on this program. So forgive us if we could just leave that part those for now, and we will return to them and provide a full response to scrutiny committee into course if that's okay. Could I bring council David's now thank you for waiting patiently. Thank you, leader, and thank you for inviting me to speak. I really appreciate that. And just picking up on. The last point of Marianne's response that 500 million pounds was before we've had a significant bout of inflation in the intervening years as well. So that's 300 million pounds will by far less than. One million pounds in the previous ambitious report, but that said, is a hugely significant one, more of the submission to, of the soft two worlds government. And can we thank Richard and Marianne as well for highlighting the structure games. I think it's in 2011. Those are crucial and put the learner at the center of everything. The entitlement is so important, going forward, and that's what we must keep a focus on. And then, but I must go back as well. There must be clear links between this capital program and the sustainable powers program, or the reimagining of service delivery within powers and schools is one of the biggest areas education is one of the biggest areas that impact on the spend within powers. And when you read another report, so other presentations, you're looking at the minimum primary school size of 2010 or high school size of seven, 54 years, seven, 2011, plus 600 pupils in a six form. It is, I don't see the linkages Marianne has talked about the linkages, but these linkages need to be more explicit of how we achieve those. The ends of delivering for the pupils across powers, all areas in powers, and still have a council that is affordable to run. One of the strategic aims was, was medium education, and then again, in other reports, we see the removal of dual stream schools. Now, there is a perfection here, and that really must be bottomed out. We need that clear vision of the whole of powers rather than the space piecemeal approach that we sometimes see. The, I'm glad it's a long term program and a lot of young for wanting to push it to 12 years as well. It's important that we do have a long term vision. So the vision has to sit alongside this capital program. So I will continue to push and push for this. It is important that we achieve this. And also, we need a cut published council 10 year capital program to sit alongside this to show the funding streams as we go forward. Of course, there will be lots of assumptions and presumptions in the longer term and they can be adjusted as we as we go forward as updates. It comes towards us, but we need to understand that long term aim of the council and where we want to be in 15 to 20 years time. I think there's slightly missed opportunity here in the narrative around this. I guess it's a rolling program. I, as it's a rolling program. I expect we'll be here in 12 months at a time, putting more bonds on the flash and extending that program even further. So I, I don't know whether you can get that assurance. We will be revisiting this at the cabinet level at a council level every 12 months. But I am just that plea to make sure as the previous council said, learning is key to this and keep that focus on that. So thank you for that opportunity. Dr Richard talk about Maria. No, he, thank you very much to you for your contribution. Now, this issue of the Welsh meeting provision has come up in the scrutiny recommendations very clearly. And as now we mentioned again. Can we, can we bottom that out please because it is a really key part of the submission of our government. And you could view one of the recommendations in the scrutiny committees list as running contrary in a way to the direction of travel which we are currently engaged in in terms of creating. A Welsh medium, Welsh medium provision rather than just stream. Marianne. Yeah, I'll come in on on. I think the program. As it stands supports the development of our medium education, we've got investment in three, three schools. We've identified the need to develop Welsh medium provision so brought up again. Obviously cabinet made that decision at the school is on its second, second year of moving to become a Washington school. We mentioned brokering on in there and obviously that is still in the statutory process but our ambition as a council is to see that school move along with the language continuum. And then the third one is around the Scotland Camry and investment in the law age watch medium in the Bay Area again proposals, leading to come to cabinet for approval to proceed to the next stage. So a lot of the projects within within the top, a subject to that. No, no, no pre determination of divisions. I think that's clearly stated within the soft itself. So I feel that the, the soft itself does support the development of Welsh medium education, fast, strong, far more strongly than anything we put, put forward to before as part of a capital program. I don't know whether council Pete wants to come in at this stage. Thank you, Marianne. To my mind, this fully commits the council to a strategic development program, sitting alongside and fully aligned with the West. The West identifies a route forward. We are now putting the capital program in place that helps us to deliver that is then up to parents to choose where they are sending their children and the outcomes of that choice. We'll feed very strongly into the decisions that either this cabinet or its successor makes into the future around the final shape of Welsh medium education. But at the moment, we have a 10 year West, we have commitments within that West and the proposals that come forward from this cabinet are driving that West forward faster than we have seen previously. And this is the next strategic step on that route to delivering on our commitments to the Welsh language. I don't allow you to come back once if that's okay. Thank you. Thank you very patience, James. Yeah, thank Marianne for the connection between the West and what is currently happening. But it's important to understand that those particular areas you mentioned, do not serve the whole of powers, all the children within powers, and it's focused on those three leads to the removal of a dual stream. So that is what I will ask in the council to get against to ensure that the access to education, whether through the Welsh medium, or whether through the English medium is equal for all pupils across the whole of powers. Okay, yep, that's, thanks very much. I think we'll deal with that when the cabinet makes its response to the scrutiny recommendation on that issue. So, and it will be a proper and full response. But I agree, I think with, well, I certainly agree with the portfolio holder that I can't see anything in this so that that works against that. So I, as far as I'm concerned, I think this is this issue is covered off by the soap quite a very satisfactorily. Now, I must apologize, my computer keep telling me that it's going to restart and is insisting on doing so in a few minutes so if I disappear off the screens, that's why and I have to share the monitoring officer's computer was whilst that occurs. So, just to make that point, I see no other people wishing indicating to speak, portfolio do you wish to sum up. Thank you, leader. We have in front of us a paper that offers a thorough detail vision for the next nine to ten years. I'd just like to draw your word, the attention to one word within it, and this is at the bottom of option three, and that word is other. And that's an important word in this fits in with Council Allard's point about review. We have specifically sent a message to Welsh government in this document that as the school transformation process moves forward as the school reorganization moves forward into from wave two into wave three. There may be other opportunities, other remodelings, other new developments come forward in that process. And this proposal doesn't exclude that from future submissions. So, yes, Councillor, this is very much a program that will be reviewed, will be looked at from time to time. School's organizational code changes that may or may not happen will have a bearing on it. And if they do, there will be reviews as a result of that. All of the proposals here now have to move forward through the formal business cases model. The points made about finance and affordability will all have to be looked at at that stage. The point from Councillor Matthew about active travel, one of the key elements within that business process is looking at active travel and how proposals fit with climate and nature commitments. So, they will all come through within the SOC process. But what we have in front of us today, in option three. And let's be honest whilst officers have a responsibility to show a range of options in front of us. I don't think anyone reading this paper looked at option one and option two as being anything that we would want to move forward with. This Council is ambitious for the education of our children. It's ambitious for the environment in which they're taught and it's ambitious for power's future. And I'm very pleased now to move to the recommendation in front of us today. And that is a very simple recommendation. It's a 0.10 within the Cabinet report, and it is to recommend the Strategic Outline Program is approved for submission to Welsh Government. I'm quite happy to move that now. Thank you, Councillor Pete. Right. Do I have a seconder for that, please? Councillor David Thomas is seconded. All those in favour of the recommendation, please show. Anybody against? I think that's unanimous. That's unanimous. Thank you very much. And as I previously said, the recommendations from scrutiny will be considered separately and will be responded to in full very shortly. So, thank you very much, one-year-old, for that interesting debate. Thank you for members for the contributions, all of which were useful, I think. In particular, thanks to the scrutiny committee for its diligence in making its recommendations to the matter. A very important moment. As Councillor, let me point it out. In the life of this Council and for the future education of our children and young people in the county. Grant, onto another equally important issue, item five, again in the name of Councillor Pete Roberts. Councillor CUMMING and Chair in County Primary School, please. Thank you. That's item five. Thank you, Leader. This is another of the proposals that we have brought forward as part of the school's transformation process. This relates to the review of a primary education within Newtown and looks at the proposed, gives us the consultation report back from the proposal of combining. A school calendar there with three Owen primary school with the expansion of the proposal to go forward, which is part of the swap that we've just approved for the development of a new primary school on the current calendar. As always with these things and pass across to Marianne Evans to take us through the responses in the consultation report and the recommendations that come from it. Thank you. Thank you Marianne. Okay. Thank you all again. Right. So we have the consultation report here. Regarding the proposal for calendar went on through NCP school in the new town. So just a reminder, the consultation card out on the following proposal to phase it phase one. So close join C.P. School, from the case, first of August 2025, an extended school calendar that went to include the former drill and C.P. school site from first September 2025. So in essence, a school calendar that went, became the two cited school from the first of September 2025. Second phase is a school calendar went to move to a new building located on the existing school calendar website during 2026, 27, and the one site closes. So this is linked to plans that we had in place to build a new school for CalP. There went on the site on the school calendar went, and if you recall, it's called calendar when is newly formed school came about from the merger of have run and laid well green schools in new town. We consulted on this. This year, and we received around 124 responses, including 42 that were submitted before the consultation started. You will see in your document so you have the consultation document the consultation report itself, including all the issues raised by stakeholders, and the council's response to those issues. We include the minutes of meetings with staff and governor of both schools and updated impact assessment. So you see from the, from the papers, that there were a number of responses and consultation findings. Very in terms of comments about showing school self about the school calendar when and, and how both community feel about both schools. Then you can see the comments and concerns so a lot of the concerns were around the impact on puke pearls at a sculpture wine in particular impact on staff. And this came through from both both schools impact concerns on children by losing their school identity impact on the community showing school being seen as the heart of the show and community. Other key concerns were issues around the new built in terms of the space required for the building. Concerns around congestion. Those of you who know the area will know that it's fairly congested area. Anyway, concerns around how that congestion would increase, because we're also planning to build. A well being have on the same site. So concerns about how those building new school and the new well being campus would work and, and how that will then impact the surrounding area. And concerns about active travel coming in again so concerned about how parents and families would be able to walk to school and crossing key key chunk roads and crossing roads, such as safety, safety or pupils and safety of families who would have to go. And so I'm going to talk down from true went to Columbia and then and then queries about location of the new building the impact again on on early years provision, etc. So, a great deal of responses came in a lot of concerns raised and you can see our responses to those concerns. Having considered the findings of the consultation, our advice as officers, however, is that the council should proceed with the proposals in respect of calendar when I'm true and by publishing a statue notice. And in section 3.2 of the report you'll see our reasons for the proposal. And there's a number of reasons there. We'll leave it up that for now. There were a few queries raised by cabinet previously that we have addressed. There's a few questions around the impact of developing the new build on the site itself in terms of the impact on on on biodiversity and nature on the calendar event site so we've addressed that in the section and the climate change in the cabinet report. So we found the background maintenance costs and whether we would need to continue to fund works at both schools in the interim before the new building is ready so we have added a section there 4.3 that it may be possible some. And maintenance works would be required, but that we would then they would be assessed against the criteria of the major improvements program and prioritize accordingly. And I think that was mainly it's from cabinet queries last week. So we'll leave it at that for now on any any comments or questions. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Right. I've only comments from cabinet members. Anybody wishing to speak about Richard Council Richard Church please. Thank you, ladies. A couple of observations. The first one is to just to draw attention to how the report demonstrates the massive demographic change. That is happening in powers and I think we tend to associate declining school numbers with rural areas, but it's happening in our towns as well. And you can see it very clearly in these figures with the the size of trail and school from 2017 through to the forecast figures 5 years ahead showing the school declining in size by nearly 50%. And that is happening with with other schools as well. And we have to remodel our schools to reflect this huge demographic change that's happening within our county. That's one point and the other one relates to the North power as well being hub, which obviously we hope to see developed joining the school side. And I do think we need to impress on Welsh government that we wish to see that well being hub proposal proceed. It's very important, not just for new town, but for the whole of the north of Paris. And we really want to see the development of new school buildings to be happening alongside the well being hub proposal so that the two of them happen together and work together to minimize disruption in the local area. But I think that this change will provide for our young people, the kind of school buildings that they deserve and that they need. And it's only through this kind of remodeling that we can deliver both sustainable powers in terms of our finances and our environmental sustainability. And also offer the kind of education which our children needs under circumstances of declining numbers of young people living in our communities. Thank you, Richard. Thank you very much. Very good point. Very well made. If I may say so. Right. We have the local member joy Jones with this joy. Welcome. Welcome to speak. Although there are times when transformation of education provisions in our community is the right thing to do. We know that the council needs, and we know the council needs to make savings. There are also times when doing what seems to be the easy answer to fulfill some of the difficulties the council is facing is the wrong move. And we hear how the council, we are, we are listening to the voice of the constituents, and that we support their wellbeing and their communities. Yet this proposal goes completely against what the community wants or needs. This proposal is the center of the community and land the state that it serves. And over the years as often seeing fluctuation in people numbers. As a school, it has given a good standard of education for its pupils, which has led to many young people get in a great start tonight. We want to further education and to get qualifications that have led them to be in open to some amazing opportunities. The school is a hub in the community, which has, which is more, which has more of a personal connection to families who attend. We staff that able to notice not only their pupils well being, but the wellbeing of the extended family, leading them to be able to stay post or arrange that support when needed, removing this school is a mistake. There may be advantages in large schools, for some pupils, but not all some children naturally thrive in smaller environments. It is not, not only that children, we need to think about when, about when sending large groups of families into one school. But parents cannot, some parents cannot cope with crowds and the hustle and bustle that comes along, which with a large school environment, especially a drop off time and collection time. This can be detrimental and some parents wellbeing and their mental health. This is why they attend a smaller community school. Please consider the consequences of accepting this proposal, as it will have a devastating effect on trio in the state and the community and sadly many parents and pupils. Everybody is extremely frustrated as they feel that the consultation was a waste of time. And I can honestly stay apart from officers and the portfolio holder. I haven't heard anybody in the community support in this proposal of the closure of trio in school. Many people believe the consultations are only because of being part of a legal process and not because anybody is going to listen to the heartbreak and distress that the closure will bring to everyone effective. As a council, we talk about growing communities and building extra houses to rehome people on our ever increasing waiting list. Well, on this estate, there is a large area of ground that in the past has had planning permission for a huge amount of extra housing. If this, if this, if these are built in the future, the school will be needed more than ever to take the extra numbers. It is short-sighted to remove an aspect, which, which is doing well in the town and in far better condition than other schools or located around the town, which are in very poor condition and need a huge amount of investment and funding to maintain. Finally, we are supposed to think about getting people out of their cars and walking to school, et cetera. But moving the school further away is going to have the opposite effect on parents as they will take their cars, putting pressure on Park Street, which is which, as you've already heard, is meant real concern regarding the congestion, not only for the parents going to school, but the people living on Park Street and visiting Park Street, as that is where the doctor's surgery and hopefully the new hub, the health hub will be built. If parents are then forced to go into the local car park, they are going to have to park their cars and walk through the park, park area, and through the clay park, which on wet, cold days will mean everybody gets soaked and frozen. Some parents will choose not to attend, meaning children will miss school, especially if they've got younger siblings, as this means dragging them out in those sort of conditions. I am hearing from parents who want to stay in a small school, so they are already looking elsewhere in the town, or even out of town at village schools, which again goes against the council's brain agenda with people traveling and using their cars. So, as once again, please don't close Trio in school and show the public we listen and we can see that the community needs support and the amenities on their doorstep, and that the council acknowledges public opinion. Show the public that you're truly listening and care about their needs, let us work together to build a brighter future for our communities, by looking at other avenues that we can take to make savings. Thank you, leader. Okay, thank you very much. And we will recognize how passionate do you feel about this join and absolutely fair enough as a local member, would anybody wish to address any of the points that join us made. Sandra comes to Sandra Davis, please. Thank you very much. I do agree to some extent with what comes to the joy has said regarding closure of schools. It is traumatic. It is a huge impact on everybody within the close community, but having gone through that process, and been really involved in closing it's not one school, but all the schools in yesterday nice catchment area, I can assure you that it, it has good results. One of the schools that I was involved with was very, very small, and nobody wanted it to close, and there was another school which was a little bit larger. One of the schools has tripled in size, and I can assure you that all the people and the staff are driving, and the parents are very happy as a result, because this gives an opportunity for young people to share sporting activities within the school instead of having to go further and not even having enough children to put one sporting event on, because they haven't got enough children in the class to do so. But having large schools does have economies of scale with results of combined efforts, etc. So I can really assure you, comes to the joy, and parents that are listening to this, that are in your, who are in your community. It does have huge advantages. And please, please, if you have any doubts at all, I recommend that you visit one of the existing schools that have gone through the transformation and speak to some of the parents, because they are very, very happy. So, the staff, so the children, you're welcome there. Thank you very much Sandra. It is obviously always difficult when these sorts of changes are proposed for the community and indeed for those representing them to deal with. This is not an easy process and for anybody, as I'm sure you understand, the director would like to make a few comments, I think, Dr. Gens. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Councillor Jai for your observations. You know, I do appreciate the challenges that comes with the closure of schools. I would just like to reassure that the, you know, the wellbeing of staff and peoples which you mentioned is absolutely central to recommendations which are made. I think what's really important is the clarity of communication around it to make sure that people feel that they understand what's happening and involved in it. And I think linked with that is the very important point that in the formation of a new school, there will be need to be really careful consideration around culture and identity and what it means to belong to a new school community. As Councillor Sandra has said, I think if our learners and our pupils do feel like they belong to that larger community, there are real opportunities. If you look at leadership across some larger schools, you start to see consistency and coherence in leadership, professional learning opportunities open up for staff. And then ultimately that cascades down to pupils, improve teaching and learning through collaboration and a greater access to a wider range of extracurricular activities. So, you know, while I do appreciate the challenges, I did just want to pick out there some of the opportunities that comes from having those larger vibrant schools with a greater mix of individuals. Thank you, Richard, that's very helpful. I have another speaker wishing to speak, Adam Kennedy, Councillor Adam Kennedy, and again, another member from Newtown. And we have also received comments from Councillor Pete Lewington, another local member in Newtown around the points around strategic planning and education within the town. And I think it's been explained that actually our difficulty in getting answers on the wellbeing hub have hindered that process quite considerably and we've really gone to a point where we have to start taking decisions, rather than waiting for an answer from our government on the wellbeing hub. But the point is, I don't think Councillor Newton is with us today, but I think his points were made, but I think we are doing our best on that issue in not the most ideal circumstances, just to explain that Adam. Thank you. Thank you, Leader. I hope I can be heard, clearly, my apologies to officers and other local Councillors, I didn't get my comments in and we're being away from the work, but I submit them all Friday and hopefully just if I can read them through here. Before I make specific points, and obviously I'm a Councillor, one of the five Councillors for the new town, wider town, and I would agree with me that points joy is made, and indeed Peter around strategic planning. Before I make specific points, I do broadly agree that the school buildings and staff teams, particularly ones that are well resourced, which are like for professional progression, which in turn aids recruitment and retention of good staff. Our crucial elements to giving our children the best start in life. If we focus on the children, I have to say, I believe this is a good solution in front of us for those attending the two schools. I also note that as a Councillor, I have a responsibility to all of those who pay their taxes to make sure we spend them well, and the duty to the Council to establish a balanced budget, and achieving some savings as personal has to be welcomed, especially as it often delivers improved educational opportunities for children. However, I do acknowledge that there are some notable downsides that the Council should pay attention to, and plans for which should go hand in hand with the closure of the trim and school side. Should this be agreed? Aspects that should have firm and costed plans accompanying them are not just words and report. And I would remark on three here. It is undoubtedly the case that some children form better in smaller school settings, and Council enjoys highlighted that. And it's clear that this will be lost from sharing under this plan. These are still modest sized market town schools, but proposals for how they should provide small school experience in larger settings should be defined and made much clearer. Traveling to and from school is an issue that the new school location is within reasonable walking cycling distance foremost, and the investment into new town to active travel routes, exit one of the most well connected communities in powers. However, the Council shouldn't rely on this alone and clear plans on the routes to be used on the instigation, and support of things like walking buses, and support all families should be defined and made clear, which on a point made by Council Matthew earlier. I'm a third point of community cohesion is undoubtedly aided by the presence of a school, and its loss will be felt and I'm sure. However, many communities come together around activities that are not a school, as many communities actually don't have the school. A far more substantial plan should be developed in conjunction with the community alongside the development of community assets and services that might best support ongoing community cohesion. It will be different into shops, sports, community halls, and over the years childcare locations, all contributed to communication in other locations. As a specific point, I would encourage the Council to hold the trio and school site for a period that allows the community the chance to explore how it might best serve them, if not as a school. Whilst these are my comments on the proposal as submitted to the consultation, I would like to comment that I don't think this is the best solution for new town as a whole. So, the proposal was to build a new school at a different location, the grounds for high school was made as part of this consultation process back in January, and that's had an initial consideration as a solution that solves multiple issues. The proposal was to build a new single school that serves the states of Creowing, Myza Randir, for Haffron and Vayner on the current fields of the high school, with seven substantive benefits outlined, including solving some of the issues that Myza Randir faces presently. The significant, the single of yet obstacle cited for rejection of this being the quantity of land available to meet all the needs. Back into here to read a summary of that proposal, and there was a full proposal submitted and a full response is given in the, is given on 4.7.8.1 on the bottom of page 209 of the paper and page 121 of the report. As a local councillor from Utah, and one mindful of finance constraints, the council, I would ask that a long side progressing proposals within this paper, the council also further and more fully investigates how a single barrier of plot size is overcome. So I've achieved the substantial and multiple benefits of co location recognized in their analysis of this proposal. Yeah. Thank you very much. And you raise some very important points, not least the future use of the school site. Should we approve the recommendation, but before we get to that, let me bring in Council David so thank you. And I speak as another of the new town councillors, as well as a member of cabinet. Of course I recognize as we all do the concerns expressed by parents and for that matter by learners, when major changes in education take place. Any good school tracks to it, feeling a family and trialing does that as well as the other schools in you town. The list of concerns of around traffic and transportation. These large and small schools. And the way in which we can absorb one school within another. All being well made as issues to consider. In my view. I just remind members of cabinet as well that we're talking, not here of great distances. We're talking about and from a trail into the new school, a distance of about a mile. And it should be possible with using active travel in particular that there are changes that already been proposed to bring ways of getting those schools closer together. So, I support a change, difficult one as it may be, I have every confidence that the education team and the new leadership team of the new school will be working hard to create an environment of better education in new town. Thank you. Thank you very much. Right, I can see nobody else wishing to speak and thank all those who have contributed. Oh, Marianne my apologies. I'll just come back in on a few comments made there from council rather if that's if that's okay. So a couple of things for me there and thank you for all the comments which we received on Friday. Two things, the true insight when we met with join governors and staff. It was very, very apparent how, how much the trail and school site is part of that community and other side of the area with the heart of the community. Should this proposal go forward, and if implemented, we do need to consider what happens to the trail and sites. It's a, it's a fantastic site. It looks the overlooks new town. And I think there would be opportunity there for some community development, what we need to look at what services can we can we provide from that building should the council wish to wish to keep that. So I think that is really at the forefront of our minds going forward what that facility could provide for the community of pro and should this proposal be implemented. In terms of the alternative suggestion and thank you for that as well comes around them around potentially looking at another option of building a new private school for the most appropriate to run the calendar and all on the site of new town high school. And I think you can see from our response where we feel that that there are disadvantages to that proposal in terms of through the congestion on the site taking taking the land away. The sports fields away from Newton high school, what do we do in the meantime, et cetera. And also looking at how, whether that side can accommodate a new build primary years, community facility, et cetera, alongside potentially you know, developments after Newton high school further further down the line. So, whilst I think that proposal has merit. I think our hands are tied in terms of we already on we already developed designs and plans for the calendar went to an extent. And the condition of both or come in there, when in particular, the whole have run part of the event is now conditioned D. So it means that it needs, you know, to be dressed swiftly. I also think we are constrained by the fact that we are fundamental part of the North Bell as well being program and work has taken place over the years about how this school could integrate with the health and the benefits. On both being part of the single campus. We have the school, the school building element is critical path of the critical path of the North post fellow beings critical path, and everything, you know, everything is joined up. And what things happen in sequence so I think there are a number of constraints around looking at the alternative option. And for me as well, I think time is obvious as well as I said, the schools needs lead. And I think, if we did go back to the beginning, then we would be looking at, you know, years down the line before we had any development around the school in new town. So I'm leaving a data but Jim Jim around as well if you want to delve more into the space issue but I think, ultimately, when we look at that option, holistically, I don't think that that is possible. Although it does have marriage and I think we're explaining that in the report. Thank you. No, excellent and thank you for dealing with those issues. Right, I think we are at the point where we can move to the recommendation or something up and recommendation from the portfolio, please. Thank you, leader. There's a number of issues I do want to pick up on. This is never an easy decision and as portfolio holder, when these reports come through, I'll spend hours working through, if not days. And there were a few things that came out of this that made me look a bit further. The one thing in particular, Council enjoy picked up on about the fact that children will be leaving the estate and this is crucial to them. If you look at the consultation report of the number of pupils and then you look at the impact assessment, there is a breakdown of where pupils come from and where they go to. If you look at those, 11% of the pupils, which is approximately 25 pupils already come from the tree in the state, and the trillion school itself, 63% of the pupils come from the estate, so it's approximately 70 pupils. The others are made up from pupils that are within their nearest school. It's been a glove for St Mary's and quite a lot from my surrounding. So you've actually got a catchment in an area where movement between schools is quite commonplace. This is not a case of this is a school that is exclusively drawn from the local catchment. So that leads me to recognize that it is a local school and is a key part of the community there, but this is actually quite a fluid area. The second point and Marianne has touched on this, and that's if we move forward with this proposal, what happens to the site. But the thing is here, we are looking at a proposal to expand calendar to include that site and then move the schools once the new build is complete. So we're raising many of the proposals we're bringing forward in relation to this. We are looking to leave the site from an education perspective within 12 months of the decision being taken. Here, we are going to a period of at least two to academic years. And that gives us two academic years to work with officers work with other departments within the council and work within the community to fully evaluate what the site offers and what can be put in its place. And there are many possibilities that have not been explored fully yet, but which are there as to what comes forward. So those two real concerns that are genuine concerns from within the community concerns that I don't understate. I once said, I believe can be met. Before we go to the report, though, there is one other small thing I'd like to address because it is a concern that has been raised over the weekend. And that is a number of people have contacted me believing that we are about to change the name of the school. This stems from an infographic in the county times where in talking about the sustainable communities for learning proposal, they make reference to a school browser within their infographic. There are no plans by the council to change the school name. There are no plans that I'm aware of from the school community, and it is the school community that comes forward with the name, as we've seen recently with the naming of the new school in Breck and a school. Got like a pen of an. So I just want to use this opportunity to allow those concerns. Because I am aware that they have created a degree of concern within the community over this weekend. So those things being said, I now move to the recommendation. And whereas the last one was quite a short one. This, this one is a longer one. It's a point 10 within the report. The recommendation is one to receive the consultation report in respect to the proposal for a school calendar. One, and she owned the county primary school to, to approve the publication of a statutory notice proposing the following phase one to close triowing county primary school from 31st of August 2025 and extend a school calendar going to include the former triowing county primary school site from the 30 from the 1st of September 2025. And then phase two as the calendar when to move to a new building located on the existing. The school calendar when site during 26, 27. And the triowing site closes. So I move that recommendation for cabinet. Thank you. Sorry, James, we're not getting any sound online. My apologies. I forgot to do my light. I'll start again. Right before, so council David Thomas seconded the proposal. And before I go to the vote, I just wanted to say thank you to Marianne and her team and all the officers involved in indeed the portfolio holder in the preparation of this report, which members and those observing our meeting will all see over 300 pages well over 300 pages long, which just indicates the amount of work that is involved in in the school's transformation process. It's not a mechanical process. It takes a great deal of diligence and time and officer time and member time to consider these issues quite rightly so. They're very stages to it. And this is just the one stage and previous stage stage, just as just as lengthy and time consuming. So these are major pieces of work with big impacts on communities and individuals. So it's quite right that they are done very thoroughly. And I have to say this process has been done absolutely by the book and very thoroughly indeed. So thank you very much for that. So we've had a proposal. We've had a seconder with all those please in favor of the proposal show. Thank you very much. I believe that's unanimous. So that recommendation is agreed. Thank you. Well, thank you for those who've contributed to the discussion and a big decision, but properly made. Thank you very much. I think this is a convenient moment to have just five minutes come for break as we move on to other issues in on the agenda. So thank you. So return at 1130 please. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay, okay. Welcome back. We'll restart the agenda. We're moving to item six, which is in the name of council, David Thomas, the cabinet member finance and corporate transformation David. Thank you. Thank you, leader. This report is for decision. And it's reference the financial forecast for year ending 31st of March 2024 as of the 29th of February 2024. This report is actually being delayed because of the pre-election period for the police and crime commissioner elections. So it's coming to you a little late. The projected position currently reports 1.7 million pound under spend, which when compared to the position reported at quarter three is a reduction of forecast and the spend of 1.3 million pounds. The main change since quarter three is due to the release of the risk budget of services to cover unfunded pressures, mainly in adult social care children services and highways. The housing and community development departments and economy and digital departments are now forecasting under spends of 0.7 million pound each. Although projected out to in position in this report is welcomed, this has to be considered in the context of the challenges we expected face over the medium term as we set out during the budget debate at full council. These challenges cannot be underestimated. Inflation and increased demand for services continue to create pressures on our finances and our focus now will quickly turn to the delivery of sustainable powers to ensure that the council can remain financially stable. Appendix A of the report provides more detail at a service level with heads of service providing detailed commentary in Appendix B. Since quarter three children services have reported further unavoidable pressures with increased demand for placements for children with complex needs. This is compounded by a national shortage of these placements and the service is also supporting an increasing number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children. This has had some impact on the services ability to deliver the planned cost reductions in full and also on the financial position, which would be in a forecast over spend position of 1.4 million pound without the release of 810,000 pound from the risk budget. The services continue to work on measures that will address the remaining forecast over spend. With regard to cost reductions, services continue to deliver the cost reductions plan this year. The summary at table two shows that 77% or 13.3 million pound of the cost reductions have been delivered under further 16% or 2.7 million pound are assured of delivery by services. 1.3 million pound, 8% are unachieved under at risk of delivery in year. The reserves position is reported in table three, which shows the use of 12.1 million pound of specific reserves to support the council's budget this year. Schools set their budgets with an expected call in the reserves of 6 million pound. This figure had worsened during the year, but has now been brought back to a forecast position of 6 million pound column reserves in line with the original forecast. At the end of the financial year, school reserves will have reduced to an overall balance of 638,000 pound. These are challenging times for our schools and the authority continues to provide an appropriate level of challenge and support to assist schools with their budget recovery plans. Grants. Section 5.2 reports additional grants received during January and February, which will be incorporated into the budget. A large proportion relate to public transport without social care, receiving most of the remainder. Vyments. Section 5.3 of the report sets out a number of Vyments to be considered by carbonate. In summary, these include a transfer of 187,000 pound to the vehicle replacement reserve that has been raised through the sale of vehicles and equipment. This will allow the purchase of future vehicles or equipment, the aim being to purchase green vehicles where possible. A transfer of 150,000 pound of transformation funding related to post 16 transport requirements for the highways, transport and recycling service to support the cost of post 16 transport in 2324. A transfer of 230,000 pound from our social care revenue to capital budget for capital works required at the 12 power zone care homes to meet the terms of the new contract with the provider. A transfer of 300,000 pounds from the risk budget to the immediate repairs reserve to provide funding for a significant backlog of fire door remedial works that has been identified through the corporate landlord projects. A transfer of 150,000 pound is requested from the risk budget to establish a feasibility reserve that services can draw from when they need to access short-term resources or expertise to help develop business cases that change programs, whether for sustainable power program or other change programs, for example, as a result of legislative change. With regards to financial risks, section six of the report highlights the financial risks we continue to face in a short to medium term. Inflation does seem to be heading in the right direction, but prices are still rising just not as quickly as they have been. The revenue risk budget has served the council well in 2324 and the budget set in February also included a 3 million pound risk budget as mitigation for 8 million pound potential costs that were identified as part of financial results model. At this stage leader, I'd just like to invite the head of finance 151 office at the comments. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for David. Thank you, leader. Not much to add. I think it's, it's worthy to note that the position is stable as we see it for 2324, which is, is really good in terms of managing the budget throughout that year. And we are now taking any opportunity, albeit some small to really ensure that we are helping next year's budget as much as possible offset in anything that we can now to meet the pressures that we're seeing coming through. But it's worth noting that, you know, we are still under considerable challenge from a financial perspective and the delivery of sustainable powers over the next couple of years will be fundamental to maintain that financial resilience for the council. And also, although this is pleasing to see, it doesn't really stifle the challenge that we've got over the next couple of years. So it's just important to note that. Okay, many thanks. Do any other officers wish to comment from their own area service. You know, nobody. Right. Any other member of cabinet. Again, it's a fairly self-explanatory report. The finance panel had indicated that you wish to speak, does that still the case or your apologies that leader. I was off mic for a moment. The finance panel didn't meet to discuss this out and for a period because of the tight turn rounds, apologies for that. But personally, there was just what the one question. Well, there's quite a lot of questions, but just what what what what what when I caught my site was around the, the oversight board transferring money to the 12. Care homes to upgrade certain aspects, but the 400,000 that was due to be spent on robotics with in the program. How would that affect the service is going forward. There was great push for the robotics within the council. What's what's happened to that project. Thank you. Yeah, good question. Nina might be able to help us out to the director of services. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, cancer, for your question and cabinet and cancers will be made before that we took forward a report a number of months ago around the power zone care homes. And this report now is kind of wrapping up the financial requirements of required behind those decisions made at that point. The 6.62 million over two years, partly been met by the allocated 0.39 million from the robotics budget, which was already in the capital program. And that money wasn't being spent, hadn't been allocated. We've been progressing with our technology enabled care with budgets from other areas. And we've also been successful in getting granting coming into this area as well. So there hasn't been we're not stopping doing something we've been spending and progressing that agenda from other pots of money. So I just wanted to provide that assurance. If it's okay. Thank you, leader. Thank you, cancel out it again. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Right. I see no further indications of tuition to speak. So would you like to make the recommendations? Yes. So the recommendation is that cabinet note the current budget position on the projected for your forecast to the end of March 2024. The ground set out in section 5, 1, and noted the violence set out in section 5, 2, or approved. This is to comply with the violent rules of budget movements are set out in the financial regulations. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have a second? Counselor Pete Roberts is seconded. Oh, I'm Jacky, but people got their first. So. Could all those in favour of the recommendations? Please show. Grant, that's unanimous. Thank you very much indeed. And we can move swiftly on to item 7, the capital forecast also in the name of council David Thomas. Thank you, David. Thank you, leader. This report provides an update on the financial position of the council's capital program, but 2324 has it the 29th of February, 2024. Following the successful award of additional grants and the re-profiling of budgets between financial years, the revised program for 2324 is budgeted at 79.34 million pounds. At the end of February, actual spend amounts to 49.88 million pounds, representing 63% of the total budget, an increase of 11.41 million pounds since the report since that reported is quarter three. 35% or 28.06 million pounds of the capital expenditure is budgeted to be financed by borrowing. The interest cost for this is charged to the revenue accounts. Section three of the report details the grants that have been received and included in the capital program. Section four, set out some re-profiling of budget between financial years, following a review, the capital program by all services. Section five, set a requirement to funding works on the 12 power zone care homes in line with a new contract with the provider, 0.62 million pounds requested over two years. This will be met by reallocating 0.39 million pounds from the robotics budget already in the capital program along the environment of adult social care budget set out in the revenue forecast report. A total of 2.21 million pounds of capital receipts has been received to date. It's not expected that any further capital receipts will be received this financial year. There are currently sales agreed to the value of 0.2 million pounds. These are at a legal stage of the process and will generate capital receipts in 2425. Again, I'd just like to invite to 1-5-1 office at comment if she leaves. Yeah, Jane. Nothing better to add on this report. Thank you, Leader. Good. Right. This Jackie, Councillor Jackie Charlton, please. Thank you, Leader. I just wanted to draw members attention to 9.1 on the report where we're indicating that within the capital program, there is quite a high spend on the climate and nature emergency, which is helping us to get to our net zero target by 2030. I'm really grateful that this has been put into the report because sometimes these things can go unmissed or missed and not recognised. But just to say that we shouldn't be complacent, but I really, really welcome the fact that we are now embedding all these things into our services and how we're delivering them. But it's really useful to see how much is being set aside for these purposes as well. So just to say, thank you for putting that in the report and I look forward to more updates as we go forward. Thank you. You know, good point. Thank you very much. General Finance, Ben, Councillor Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Leader. I know there's significant and spend on the couple of budgets, which does. It does happen every year to submit some degree. Just a short and so on. It's just a matter of time and that money will be spent in the next financial period in order to, well, this financial period, sorry, in order to deliver services to residents across us. I accept it delivers significant savings to the revenue for the 12 months, and I hope that's not a sole motivation. And just a quick question to Councillor Jackie, and there's some, sometimes quite a bit of reference to the 2030 targets. Are we on track to hit the 2030 target? Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you, Councillor ALLID. And being brutally honest, at the moment, no, we're not on target to meet those that to meet that by 2030, but that doesn't mean to say that we're taking off of the agenda. We will be continuously looking at this. We are putting in quite a lot of things in place to see how we are doing. We're not very good at the moment of measuring what we're achieving, but I'm hoping that we will start to see that coming through in different reports as we move forward. And you're quite right to raise that. No, we're not on target at the moment, but we are not losing that target and we will keep heading towards it. So thank you for the question. Good, thank you. Jane, thank you very much. Just to pick up on the questions raised by Councillor ALLID. Yes, we are seeing, you know, and spend against the capital budget. Many of the programs have been re-profiled, so that spend will be incurred in the new financial year as you indicated. So we're not projecting any changes specifically to projects that would be reported either through this report or through the budget and the capital program accordingly. So all of that will be transparent if we were making any significant changes. The one thing we have done, which you'll recall from previous reports this year, is where we're not now undertaking the borrowing as early as anticipated. We have re-aligned that capital financing budget to recognize that reduction and we've used that funding then to support the pay award and other aspects through this financial year. So just as a reminder of what we've done there as well. Good, thank you for that. Right, I think we can move to the recommendation if that's okay. David. Yes, the recommendation is that the contents of this report are noted as request of the volume set out. Sorry if it's maxed out. Yes. Apologies. Right, the recommendation is that the contents of this report are noted and request that the volume set out in section five is approved by Cabinet. Thank you. Lots of hands. I guess one of those Sandra will take a second. All those in favor, please. Good. That's unanimous. So, excellent. We can thank you very much. One and all and on to number eight. The East Strategic Risk Strategy, which again is in the name of Council David Thomas, who's working hard to date. Thank you, Leader. Richard, is that a new hand or an open? Sorry. My apologies. It's gone. Okay. Right. David. Thank you, Leader. So this is the Strategic Risk Registry report for quarter three. As at the end of quarter three, 2324, there are 13 risks on the Strategic Risk Register and all Strategic Risk Owners have provided a short summary of progress. Since the last quarter to give assurance that mitigating actions are being actioned and monitored. Please see Appendix A for full details of the 13 strategic risks, including the mitigating, mitigating actions identified to control them and progress reviews. Please see Appendix B to view a heat map, which presents the results of the quarterly risk assessment process visually. During quarter three, the following risks have changed their probability or impact. If the council is unable to deliver a financially sustainable budget over the short and medium term, then the council will not be financially resilient. The actual score has gone up to 20 on that particular risk. PRO C 008. If global supply chain issues arise, such as political, economic or environmental pressures affect the global market, then this could lead to increased price variations under all labor and material shortages. That particular risk has moved down to six. HTR 0018, if we do not take action to address the nature emergency declared by Post County Council, then the impact of this emergency will affect our ability to deliver future services. That score has gone up to 20. And with regard to our CPCH 007, failure is complete process to secure agreements for service, continuation that that particular risk has now been closed. There's one risk, whether it's a request to escalate it to the strategic risk register, digital services would like to escalate the following risk, ICT 0067. If we receive an act upon a phishing email, then there's a risk that our information and systems will be vulnerable to a cyber attack. The rating score for this risk is 16, and the risk profile is likely on major. Phishing emails are the root cause of majority of cyber attacks experienced by any organization. Everyone everywhere is experiencing a rise in the amount of phishing emails being received. Phishing emails can be received by any member of staff in any service area, included elected members and improved awareness at a corporate level, as needed. During 2023, Post County Council, there have been two instances where our staff have been convinced by a phishing email. They received an as such we experienced two cyber incidents as a result. Thankfully, no serious consequences this time, although costs were incurred in resources to investigate, we mediate and report the incident. With regard to resource implications for the report as a whole, there are no direct resource implications in relation to this report. However, all riskholders need to consider the resource implications of managing the risk and decide if the best cause of action is to tolerate or treat. And that ends the report later. Many thanks. Good. Are there any officers wishing to add to this? No, no technical issues. Right. The recommendation is it is recommended the cabinet notes the current strategic risk register and is satisfied with progress against mitigating options for quarter three. Approved the escalation of ICT0067. The recommendation above will ensure appropriate understanding and management of strategic risks, which could prevent us from achieving our objectives. A risk-managed approach to decision making and good governance of the council. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have to say the sound of the services second of that? Thank you. I didn't ask. I didn't get. Well, I didn't ask for any comments from anybody. Are there any before we go to the vote? Sorry, I should have done that. No. Fine. Okay. Everybody in favor of the recommendations, please show. Good. Again, that's unanimous. Many thanks. Excellent. Thank you, David. Report approved. And removed to nine, which is a recommendation from the scrutiny helps working groups. Pages, 147 to 152. And I'll pack. Is anybody here? From the working groups to present? Okay. Yes. Yeah. We can members. Suggestions, we just received this for information. Is anybody wish to comment on what they have before them? Sure. There's one recommendation from the working group, which members will find on one page, one, four, nine of the report. And again, which we will need for the respond. Right. And recall the chair previously presented to us from this. Maybe. I think chair that was probably the informing meeting where we reviewed these. But we can provide a formal response to that recommendation. I think we accept it. And of course, we would want to make sure that should any further agreements or contracts be entered into. Then absolutely, we would want to consider the comments made from the government's Nordic Committee as part of that being progressed. Right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I just want to highlight to members of public, the lessons learned from this. There are some quite clear observations around chairing the projects around contract management around starting skills and some of the concerns. They're around how concerns are echoed around the chamber many times in the past. I think this is a very important piece of work and wonder. Both ourselves as politicians and officers have learned a lot from that will enable not just ourselves, but other authorities to move forward. On a very sound basis, if we so decided to look at this type of activity in the future. But also, when we're looking at insults, which is more common within this administration. It offers some things there to look at when we're looking at insourcing projects as well in reverse. Yes, thank you for that. And also, just I think it is worth noting that the tubing of staff back from the House to the council was achieved successfully. Yes, I think that's a good positive note. However, from the chair, I'd like to propose that we accept the recommendation and I seek a seconder. So, could I have a show of hands for those in favor of accepting the recommendation, please? Good. Again, unanimous. And I'm going to report that back to the chair. Good. Excellent. On to item 10, corporate safe going board activity report on pages 1, 5, 3, and onwards. Thank you, leader. The cabinet, we've got a report today, a briefing on the last corporate safeguarding board meeting, which was held on the 14th of March. And the normal agenda, mandatory standing agenda items, we reviewed the progress against actions in the safeguarding regulatory tracker. And it was noted that all items were either green, which is on track or blue completed. We received an update from the regional safeguarding board and confirmed the focus groups of due to be continued with alongside that work. An update was provided to the board on the joint inspection of child protection arrangements, the joint. JIC, that inspection, the report was received in early February. It was confirmed an action plan has been completed with our partners and as per the GP guidance has been submitted to CAW. An update was discussed around the education, a safeguarding action plan with comments that it was being monitored half terminally and that they were no new concerns to raise to the board at that current time. We had a presentation on the workings of the both Wales Safety Group, which was very interesting highlighting the valuable work that the partnership continues to do around the annual Royal Welsh Agriculture Show. Board members suggested that future reports could perhaps include benefits and impact of the work in terms to police, health, ambulance services and other partners, and this was accepted. A verbal update was provided to the board and noting concerns around the capacity of the public protection team to continue to chair channel and community safety partnerships. And the transition in terms of the channel is now to take place with a current chair, now being somebody from social services. We then received our normal reports from housing, from education. We also oversee mandatory safeguarding training, including wider SP at every board meeting. From adult social care and from children's social care as well. So the corporate safeguarding board meetings are in the diary with the next one being held on the 13th of June. So that's just a very brief update for you, Chair and for Cabinet. Thank you. No, thank you and good report actually some encouraging very encouraging things to report there. Are there any questions or is it very self-explanatory? No, I don't see any questions. Just to receive is it not? We don't need to. We just need to know. We don't need to vote. Good and many thanks for that. And we can move on then to item 11, the delegated decisions taken since the last meeting. That's on pages 157 and 158. Again, are there any questions or comments that members would wish to make about those decisions taken? No, I think what to draw attention to. We see the forward work program at item 12, again, a living document. It may change, but that's as things stand. That's our forward work program at the moment. Again, are there any kinds? None. So then we need to move to item 13, which is. Munching officer is recommending that item 14 is taken in confidential session, but we need to formally approve that as members. Just to clarify it, it's sometimes characterized that the monitoring officer decides whether something should be exempt or not. That's not true. It's members that decide on the recommendation or otherwise of the monitoring officer. So just for clarity, because I think there's been some misunderstandings about that, not these demands to council membership. It is not the monitoring officer who decides this is us as members. So item 13, we can see the recommendation. I need a proposal that we move to confidential session. Council Sandra. Council Sandra has so proposed. Could I have a seconder please? Jackie Jackie. Councillor Jackie Charlton has seconded. All those in favour that we move into confidential session. Good, I see unanimous. So thank you to members of public who have been attending and observing our work. But unfortunately now we have to move into.
Transcript
Okay, all right, good morning everybody, welcome to this morning's meeting of post countercouncils cabinet on Tuesday the 7th of May. We are starting on time, I'm pleased to say this is as is now the custom a hybrid meeting on Zoom, we have some members in the chamber, including myself as chair at various scene officers, a various officers joining remotely, a plaque is here in the chamber with us, and we have some members joining remotely as well, so we welcome all. We have a fairly full agenda, so we'll make a start, we also have some members, non cabinet members of council, who are joining us today to speak on various items as well, so welcome to them of course Candice Yellow, thank you very much, right, let's start with apologies please, do we have any apologies for absence, from Councillor Jack Berryman, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much for that, thank you very much and all right we have, we've moved right into on the minutes, on the agenda which is the minutes of the meeting held on the 19th of March, they are on pages 5 to 10 of our pack, could I have somebody to propose those, are there any other comments on the minutes before I ask for somebody to propose them as a true record, no everybody's happy with somebody who had to propose and propose them please, so which church has proposed, we accept those minutes, could I have a seconder from Councillor Jackie Charlton, thank you very much, would all those in favour please show, thank you very much, thank you very much, those minutes are accepted, good, let's move on to item 3 please, on the agenda, any other any declarations of interest from members relating to any items on the agenda, do you think of anything during the course of the debate, please show or indicate at the time, thank you very much, good, let's move on to item 4, new Sustainable Communities for Learning, this is in the name of Councillor Pete Roberts, Pete, pages 11 to 62 on our pack, thank you. Thank you, either, the Sustainable Communities for Learning Strategic Outline Program is the first strategic document that we brought forward that looks at the planned structure of our schools estate into the future, now outlines a program over the next 9 to 11 years of what we are looking at for development and as you will see when you look at the document it indicates another, a number of sites where proposals are coming forward now that will require statutory consultation processes in relation to the school's organisational code as part of the moving forward, so it's perhaps pertinent at this point to point out that where these are indicated this doesn't pre-determine anything that is going forward within the school's code, you can introduce two officers to take you through this, first the Director of Education, Richard is going to introduce it as strategic level and then Mary Ann Evans is going to take us through some of the more detailed aspects of it, so I'll pass you across to Richard now, just to take us on a strategic level. Thank you. Dr. Jones, all you everybody thank you very much. Sorry. [inaudible] Is that better, thank you apologies for that, it's a little tech issue there, thank you before I hand over to Mary Ann Evans, just from my point of view as Councillor Pidrobs has said this is the document which sets out our future direction, it's a strategy document very much a high level strategy setting out aims and objectives which will shape our work to transform the power education system over the coming years, there are four overarching strategic aims of the document, the first is to improve learner entitlement and experience including the rationalisation of primary schools and developing all age schools, the second is to improve learner entitlement and the experience of post 16, the third to improve the access to Welsh media education across our authority and finally to improve our ALN provision. As Councillor Roberts has said the strategy also includes a major capital investment program that will ensure that schools and powers have inspiring and environmentally sustainable buildings that our learners deserve. I'll pass over now to Mary Ann Evans to talk through the detail of the report. Thank you for that both, this represents the Council's ambition towards transforming its education sector and also linked to the Sustainable Police initiative as well, so just a little bit of background for you Welsh Government previously had capital programmes which you are very familiar with called 21st century schools. We had a band-aid which was funded for five years and then band-aid which ran for another five years. Welsh Government Connect did on how well that approach had been and have decided to change the way the couple of programme runs and is now looking for nine-year rolling programmes, so every local authority is required to submit a new strategic outline programme based on the nine-year rolling programme. It should persist and be projects on those projects that have were in the Council and I'll move into the new programme. The key difference with this programme is it's far more flexible than the previous programmes. There's no funding envelope, so if we submit this programme for 300 million, it doesn't mean that Welsh Government signed up to a £300 million programme and we have to deliver within that. What it means is there's an in-principled support for the programme and each project then has to be submitted, so every business case has to be submitted on its own merit and Welsh Government will consider each project based on that. So it's a nine-year rolling programme with the programme flexed into three bands. So the first three years they're looking for projects which will achieve full business case within those three years, i.e. those projects are ready to go very soon. There's three to six projects in development and undergoing statutory consultations and in the last three years they're looking for pipeline projects, so those really are not even started, but on the plan, so to speak. So we pulled together this strategic outline programme. It follows the high-paced business model, so it looks at the strategic case, the economic case, the financial and commercial and management case. We'll see within the document itself how we have addressed how this programme meets some of the key Welsh Government policy areas, such as Welsh medium education, climate change, regeneration, economic development, etc. So all that information is in the actual soft itself. We get to the economic case where we've looked at what options are available to us. We have protected our investment objectives and we assess three options based on investment objectives and our preferred option is option three. I believe this option gives us the flexibility required in order to be able to implement our current strategy, so it includes those project currently in designing, it includes projects aimed to develop to look forward the West, and it also gives flexibility around projects that will come in as part of the transformation proposal is going forward. We believe that this is the best option based on the fact that it does meet that the strategic aims and objectives, and it is, we believe, deliverable within this nine-year-old programme. James is on the call as well, so we have propelled it over 12 years rather than nine. I do think myself that the nine-year is a pretty short period for such a big capital programme, but I would like in future to see Welsh Government sort of extending the time skills around this one. And it also just addressed one other thing that was raised in the learning skills committee, how this programme links with Sustainable Palace, and I think for me, without this programme, it would be almost impossible to develop a sustainable education sector in Paris. We need a capital funding to enable us to invest in our schools, to improve the condition of schools, which then ultimately leads to improved learner experience. It helps us with our plans to rationalise the schools at the schools of state as well by investing where we need to invest, and it also helps us to meet the net zero agenda. So without this programme, I don't think we would be able to take forward the translation strategy to the degree that we need to do. So I'll leave it at that. I've got James Reavy on the call as well, from a more technical perspective in terms of design and the building process, etc., and as I said, I've got James from capital funding as well. Great. Thank you. Oh, do you want to say thank you, Marianne? Right. Does anybody wish to contribute to the discussion before I bring in members who are not on the cabinet? Any cabinet members wishing to speak? Mr. I don't think, Pete? I'll add at the end in the summing up. I would like to bring Jim in, though, so he can talk a little bit about the more general approach that we're starting to talk about, and the options for red and common standards across our schools. OK. I see no other... nobody else indicated you're on the cabinet wishing to speak. Two of the chair of scrutiny here, the learning and skills scrutiny committee, comes to Guinbar are you? You're with us, aren't you? Yes. Yes, I'm indeed. Yeah, I've just got a few comments to make, really, and I think I will report to yourself actually, really. Yeah, so, yeah. H-59 is packed for those who are looking for it. So, yeah. Do you wish to write anything? I mean, as you say... No, I'll just make a few comments, perhaps, to give a bit of meat to the bones of our report. Certainly welcome the aspiration, which is before us, and that was said in the committee. But we're not really... I'm trying to tell my words. We are enthusiastic, but we're not quite clear on where we still are going with this aspiration. It is an aspiration and not a commitment, and the commitment that there's been made is for the first three years of the program. So we did ask the question whether the resource can be found in years 4 to 12, if that resource isn't found, massive complications for our schools that just because we are relying on a transformation to deliver the education which our children deserve. We also recognize that Welsh government are making a massive contribution to this project somewhere in the region of 200 million, and we also ask the question there, then, is that resource going to be... We're going to be able to be found in this desperate situation, which we find the finances to be in at the moment. That preferred option is three, but we are struggling to find the evidence to see whether this option meets the Council's ambition, and we do not tie it in with sustainable powers. Obviously, sustainable powers and what was said about education was in its early days, but we don't see how it ties in with seasonal powers also with the development of the Welsh language and the current transformation program. It has put some of that transformation on the back burner, particularly in the north of our county, where we see schools, school closures proposed, backlog of maintenance, schools that were subscribed. This was an aspiration in the previous Council, and now we see it in year nine, and we're not really sure that whether that area of the community can continue to operate in the manner it is without disinvestments, which are highlights, but it almost seems too far away. I'm not going to say very little else. Much has been said about our approved facility recently, and obviously there's a budget proposal surrounding that, but there's nothing to be found in this paper in relation to that, so a bit confused with that budget proposal on the table, and nothing in this aspiration not to deal with that, really, so I hope that gives you a little bit of clarification on the report that we brought before you. Thank you, Leader. No, thank you very much. Councillor every Thomas has got his hand up, probably possibly deal with the monetary issues, the financial issues. Yes, thank you, Leader. I agree with the Chair of scrutiny, that this is a highly ambitious program, and that's commendable, because it's exactly what we as an authority need, and what our pupils in power require, but I think if you look at the comments there from the 151 officer, they make it perfectly clear that this is going to be a challenge after year three, there's no doubt about that, and it'll have to be monitored, and we'll have to take into consideration all the national economic and financial impacts that might actually impact this particular program, but I just want to address the question around sustainable powers, because in effect, that's the very program that we ensure that we can deliver this capital program for improvement, because we'll be well into the sustainable powers program, and we'll hopefully, but by that stage, have achieved what we initially want to achieve, because we've got to change as far as the authorities concerned, and be able to deliver our services that are more effective and at less cost to the authority, and that in turn will release other finances, which obviously can be used with this type of program, so Leader, I do believe that this is achievable, but it will have to be monitored very, very closely, thank you, thank you, there's anybody else wishing to comment on that aspect, Marianne, I mean, indeed the 1-5-1 officer, yeah? Thank you Leader, if I could comment, and I think the comment is included in the reporting in section 4.1, it highlights that this is ambitious, as Councillor David has pointed out, and there is a significant investment required from the Council as well as the potential Welsh Government funding that we are seeking through this plan, but it's worth noting that when we do consider the resources we have available as a Council, we have to consider all of our resources and make sure that they are all aligned to deliver the priorities that we set for the Council, whilst making sure, of course, that any capital investments that we do make are affordable, prudent and sustainable within the economic context within which we see, so as highlighted in the report, the commitment is there, but in terms of the individual projects and the financing of them as we move through this program, that will be considered at later stages of the business case, where we can actually confirm how the Council's part of any financial commitment will be financed at that stage as well, so just to reiterate that there is further work needed to be clear on how that financing will be put in place. Right, I have a series of hands, thank you, Jane, for the clarification, Jim Swaby, please. Thank you, Leader. Just in response to Councillor Piedt's comments, I thought it was worth putting a bit of explanation around the detail of the implementation of this, because the document is looking at the strategic approach, the individual projects that follow from that are very much intended to be fit the purpose, they will not be the same, once solution would not be the same as the next solution necessary with the caveat that we are working towards a standardised power school design to simplify some of the decision-making that will look at the standard elements within the building, and modulus is very much against that, so from my point of view, the flexibility of the approach within this allows us to get the best result for the particular application for each school, and the best outcome for learners, hope that helps. Yes, thank you, Jim. Marianne, before I bring any other members back in, would you like to comment? Yes, just to point out as well, it's in the text. This is key to this program, I think in the past we've tended to build new from scratch, so we've tended to go for new builds, I think, if I recall, we've only had one or two projects which haven't been new builds within the past Sunday and Bandi programs. Going forward, we need a bit of a change of mindsets. We need to think, when we're looking at each individual project, what is the best, so is new build best, or can we achieve what we need to achieve in another way through a remodeling, through an extension, so those are the kind of things we need to look at. We need to make sure that this money goes as far as it can, that more schools can benefit from it, and if we do that, then we may not be looking at the full-blown new builds everywhere kind of approach, so that's something we will need to keep in mind as we go forward and we look at new projects going through. Okay, thank you very much. Shall we just hear from Councillor MATÉDORANCE before I go back to Gwyndra, is that an old hand or a new one? It's a new one, have a great one. No, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. Matthew? Thanks, Leader. I just ask colleagues to look at 3.3 of this strategic outline program. I think the active travel element is quite liked for this proposal, and I'd like to have seen some more detail here about what we think the benefits might be in terms of active travel through communities. I think where there have been new school developments within the county, it would have been useful, I think, to capture some evidence of the added benefits and the added value of active travel from those schemes to the wider community, and I think we've missed an opportunity in the current paper. So, I just ask that going forward, whether this infirm the reflection that we can consider to this, because this is clearly a benefit, and again, for the Council to be able to improve active travel routes for walking, cycling and public transport through communities, rather than using cars all of the time, more complicated, except for our rural communities, but a bit of the report does at least acknowledge that, but I just think we've missed an opportunity around some of the developments that we've already undertaken and captured in those benefits, and where we've already got active travel plans in place for communities that may not have been developed yet, but are aspirational, how is that going to adapt and change to meet what's being proposed here in terms of the school re-organisation and sustainable powers? I think it'd be really important if we focus on that and try and increase the aspiration within the SOP, because I think it's lacking at the moment, and I'd like to see some more detail. Thank you. Okay, so Marianne, or yes, Marianne, would you... Just quickly, thank you for that. I agree. It is slightly like the back to travel, and it is a key part of the programme going forward. Yes, I'll take your comments on board, and maybe I can reflect on them before we submit to Welsh Government, so we'll do that, definitely. Good. Okay, so that's really helpful, thank you, Matthew, for that, that's a positive improvement. Gwen, will you have taken your hand down? Do you still want to speak? Yes, if I could, please, I'm sorry, I didn't intend to take my hand down, so I don't know my notes I made last night. It was screaming out at me once I finished speaking, so I was just a bit unclear when I was reading it through the papers last night, obviously a £300m commitment and got fantastic aspirations got me wrong, but in September 20, 2020, the capital expenditure identified at $560m then, so has that expenditure been identified to go somewhere else, perhaps, into the back of August school maintenance, or is this a reduction in the aspiration of the Council? Can I come in? Yes. Go on, Marianne. You're referring to the soft that went beyond this for the COVID in September 2020, yeah. That was the aspiration at that time, and again, that didn't, if I recall, that was based on the current van V plus a larger, I think, a more ambitious ambition at that time. So this one reflects where we are currently with van V, because some of those van V projects that haven't progressed as quickly as we would have liked to have seen, I think some of those would have been in place by now, if other things happen, so it's not a reduction in the ambition, I think it's a reduction in the total cost, but I think what we have now is a slightly, I think it's a different program to what we had back in 2020, but I need to go back and have a look at the detail in order to be able to respond to that more fully, Councillor Winmore, but it is the ambition as we found now, given the fact that the van V projects maybe have come in and haven't progressed as we would have liked them to have seen them progressed. Thanks, Marianne. Okay, no, thank you for raising that. Just before we leave the issue of the scrutiny report, there are a series of recommendations made by the scrutiny committee, some of them are very, you know, quite detailed and very important ones, which we need to consider, and I don't think it would be best if the cabinet was to consider those under a separate meeting and provide a proper and full response to the scrutiny committee rather than going into a longer debate now around them in this cabinet meeting. So when we will indeed do that, because some of the suggestions we make are very far reaching and will have an impact on this program, so forgive us if we could just leave that part of those for now, and we will return to them and provide a full response to the scrutiny committee into a course, if that's okay. Could I bring Councillor HOWARD DAVIS now, thank you very much for waiting patiently. Thank you, Leader, and thank you for inviting me to speak. I really appreciate that, and just picking up on Konwor's chair's scrutiny's last point of Marianne's response, that £500 million was before we had a significant bout of inflation in the intervening years as well. So that's £300 million will by far less than £500 million in the previous ambitious report. But that said, it's a hugely significant moment, a submission to the soft two world's government. And can we thank Richard and Marianne as well for highlighting the strategic aims, I think it's in 2011, those are crucial and they put the learner at the centre of everything, the learner's excitement is so important, going forward, and that's what we must keep a focus on. But I must go back as well, there must be clear links between this capital program and this sustainable powers program, or the reimagining of service delivery within powers. And schools is one of the biggest areas, education is one of the biggest areas, that impact on the spend within powers. And when you read in other reports or other presentations, you're looking at the minimum time of school size of 210 or high school size of 750 for a year, 7 2011, plus 600 pupils in a sixth form. It is, I don't see the linkages, Marianne has talked about the linkages, but these linkages need to be more explicit of how we achieve those, the aims of delivering for the pupils across powers, all areas in powers, and still have a council that is affordable to run. One of the strategic aims was medium education, and then again in other reports, we see the removal of dual-screen schools. Now, there is a perfection here, and that really must be bottomed out. We need that clear vision of the whole of powers rather than this past piecemeal approach that we sometimes see. The, I'm glad it's a long-term program, and I applaud Marianne for wanting to push it to 12 years as well. It's important that we do have a long-term vision. So the vision has to sit alongside this capital program. So I will continue to push and push for this. It is important that we achieve this. And also, we need a published council 10-year capital program to sit alongside this, to show the funding streams as we go forward. Of course, there will be lots of assumptions and presumptions in the longer term, and they can be adjusted as we go forward, as updates comes towards us. But we need to understand that long-term aim of the council and where we want to be in 15, 20 years' time. I think there's slightly missed opportunity here in the narrative around this. But I guess it's a rolling program. As it's a rolling program, I expect we will be here in 12 months of time, putting more bonds on the flesh and extending that program even further. So I don't know whether you can get that assurance. We would be revisiting this at a cabinet level, at a council level, every 12 months. But just that plea to make sure, as the previous council said, learning entitlement is key to this, and keep that focus on that. So thank you, Leader, for that opportunity. Dr. Hardrich, should I talk about Maria and her? No. Dr. He, thank you very much to you for your contribution. Now, this issue of the Welsh meeting provision has come up in the scrutiny recommendations very clearly. And as now we mentioned again, can we bottom that out, please? Because it is a really key part of the submission to our government. And you could view one of the recommendations in the scrutiny committee's list as running contrary in a way to the direction of travel, which we are currently engaged in in terms of creating Welsh medium provision rather than Jill's stream. Marianne. Yeah, I'll come in on the answer. I think the program, as it stands, supports the development of Welsh medium education. We've got investments in three schools where we've identified the need to develop Welsh medium provision. So, program again, obviously, cabinet made that decision out of the school. It's our next second year of moving to become a Welsh medium school. We mentioned brokering on in there, and obviously that is still in the statutory process, but our ambition as a council is to see that school move along with the language continuum. And then the third one is around the Scotland committee and investment in an old age Welsh medium in the Bay Area, again proposals leading to come to cabinet for approval to proceed to next age. So a lot of the projects within the SOAP are subject to that, that process, the statutory process. There's no pre-determination of divisions, I think, and that's clearly stated within the SOAP itself. So I feel that the SOAP itself does support the development of Welsh medium education fast, more strongly than anything we've put forward before as part of the capital program. I don't know whether Councilor Pete wants to come in at this stage. Thank you, Marianne. To my mind, this fully commits the Council to a strategic development program sitting alongside and fully aligned with the West. The West identifies a route forward. We are now putting the capital program in place that helps us to deliver that. Is there not to parents to choose where they are sending their children and the outcomes of that choice, will feed very strongly into the decisions that either this cabinet or its successor makes into the future around the final shape of Welsh medium education. But at the moment we have a 10-year WESP, we have commitments within that WESP and the proposals that have come forward from this cabinet are driving that WESP forward faster than we have seen previously, and this is the next strategic step on that route to delivering on our commitments to the Welsh language. I'll allow you to come back once if that's okay. Thank you. Thank you very patience, James. I know it's a thank you, Marianne, for the connection between the West and what is currently happening. But it's important to understand that those particular areas you've mentioned do not serve the whole of powers, all the children within powers, and its focus on those three leads to the removal of a dual stream from another school that I have a negative impact. So that is what I will ask in the council to guide against, to ensure that the access to education, whether through the Welsh medium or whether through the English medium, is equal for all pupils across the whole of powers to harm. Okay. Yep. Thanks very much. I think we'll deal with that when the cabinet makes its response to the scrutiny recommendation on that issue. So, and it will be a proper and full response. But I agree, I certainly agree with the portfolio holder that I don't see anything in this software that works against that. So, as far as I'm concerned, I think this issue is covered off by the SOP quite a very satisfactory. Now, I must apologise, my computer keeps telling me that it's going to restart and is insisting on doing so in a few minutes. So, if I disappear off the screens, that's why and I'll have to share the monitoring offices computer whilst that occurs. So, just to make that point, I see no other people wishing indicating to speak. So, portfolio holder, Mr. Summett, thank you, leader. We have in front of us a paper that offers a thorough detail vision for the next nine to ten years. I'd just like to draw your word, the attention to one word within it, and this is at the bottom of option three, and that word is other, and that's an important word, and this fits in with Councillor ALLAN's point about review. We have specifically sent a message to Welsh Government in this document that as the school transformation process moves forward, as the school reorganisation moves forward into from wave two into wave three, there may be other opportunities, other remodelings, other new developments come forward in that process, and this proposal doesn't exclude that from future submissions. So, yes, Councillor, this is very much a programme that will be reviewed, will be looked at from time to time. Schools' organisational code changes that may or may not happen will have a bearing on it, and if they do, there will be reviews as a result of that. All of the proposals here now have to move forward through the formal business cases model. The points made about finance and affordability will all have to be looked at at that stage. The point from Councillor Matthew about active travel, one of the key elements within that business process is looking at active travel and how proposals fit with climate and nature commitments. So, they will all come through within the SOC process. But what we have in front of us today, in option three, and let's be honest whilst officers have a responsibility to show a range of options in front of us, I don't think anyone reading this paper looked at option one and option two as being anything that we would want to move forward with. This Council is ambitious for the education of our children, it's ambitious for the environment in which they're taught, and it's ambitious for power's future, and I'm very pleased now to move to the recommendation in front of us today. And that is a very simple recommendation, it's a .10 within the cabinet report, and it is to recommend the Strategic Outline Program is approved for submission to Welsh Government. I'm quite happy to move that now. Thank you, Councillor Pete. Right, do I have a seconder for that, please? Councillor David Thomas has seconded. Could all those in favour of the recommendation please show? I think that's unanimous, that's unanimous, thank you very much. And as I previously said, the recommendations from scrutiny will be considered separately and will be responded to in full very shortly. So thank you very much, one at all, for that interesting debate. Thank you for members for the contributions, all of which were useful, I think, and particular thanks to the scrutiny committee for its diligence in making its recommendations to the matter. A very important moment, as Councillor, let me point it out, in the life of this Council and for the future education of our children and young people in the county. Grant, on to another equally important issue, item five, again in the name of Councillor Pete Roberts. Councillor CUMMING. Thank you. That's item five. Thank you, Leader. This is another of the proposals that we have brought forward as part of the school's transformation process, and this relates to the review of a primary education within Newtown and looks at the— gives us the consultation report back from the proposal of combining a school calendar there with Trio in primary school with the expansion of the proposal to go forward, which is part of the SOAP that we've just approved for the development of a new bill primary school on the current calendar low insight. As always, with these things, I'm going to pass across to Marianne Evans to take us through the responses in the consultation report and the recommendations that come from it. Thank you. Thank you, Marianne. Okay, thank you all again, right, so we have the consultation report here regarding the proposal for calendar when and Trio in CP school in the new town. So just a reminder, the consultation is carried out on the following proposal. Two phases. Phase one, closed Trio in CP school, from the 50th verse of August 20, 25, an extended school calendar that went to include the former Trio and CP school site from 1st September 20, 25. So in essence, a school calendar that went became the two-sided school from 1st September 20, 25. And the second phase is a school calendar that went to a new building located on the existing school calendar website during 2026, 27, and the Trio and site closes. So this is linked to plans that we had in place to build a new school called the school calendar there when, on the site on the school calendar when, and if you recall, a school calendar when is a newly formed school that came about from the merger of Hadrian and Lee Dwellgreen schools in the new town. We consulted on this year, and we received around 124 responses, including 42 that were submitted before the consultation started. You will see in your document, so you have the consultation document, the consultation report itself, including all the issues raised by stakeholders, and the council's response to those issues. We include the minutes of meetings with staff and governor of both schools, and updated impact assessment. So you see from the papers that there were a number of responses and consultation findings vary in terms of comments about the school itself, about the school calendar and how both communities feel about both schools. Then you can see the comments and concerns, so a lot of the concerns were around the impact on pupils at the school trailer and in particular the impact on staff, and this came through from both schools, impact concerns on children by losing their school identity, the impact on the community, children's school being seen as the heart of the children community. Other key concerns were issues around the new build, in terms of the space required for new building calendar when, concerns around congestion, those of you who know the area will know that it's fairly congested anyway, concerns around how that congestion would increase because we're also planning to build a well-being hub on the same site, so concerns about how building new school and the new well-being campus would work and how that will then impact the surrounding area. Concerns about active travel coming in again, so concerns about how parents and families would be able to walk to school and crossing key trunk roads and crossing roads, such as safety, safety of pupils and safety of families who would have to walk down from Chile to Colombia when, and then queries about location of the new building, the impact again on earlier's provision, et cetera, so a great deal of responses came in, lots of concerns raised, and you can see our responses to those concerns. Having considered the findings of the consultation, our advice as officers, however, is that councils should proceed with the proposals in respect of calendar when I'm joined by publishing the statutory notice, and in section 3.2 of the report you'll see our reasons for the proposal, and there's a number of reasons there. So I'll leave it up that for now, there were a few queries raised by Cabinet previously that we have addressed, concerns around the impact of developing the new build on the site itself, in terms of the impact on biodiversity and nature on the Calum Devan site, so we've addressed that in the section under climate change in the Cabinet report, there was a query around the backlog maintenance costs, and whether we would need to continue to fund works at both schools in the interim before the new build is ready, so if we have added a section there in 4.3 that it may be possible that some bouquets and maintenance works would be required, but that we would be assessed against the criteria of the major improvements program and prioritise accordingly, and I think that was mainly it's from Cabinet queries last week, so I'll leave it at that for now on any comments or questions. Okay, do you want to ask, thank you very much, Ryan, right, I'll only comment from Cabinet members, anybody who should speak? Richard, Councillor, it's a church, please. Thank you, Leader, yes, a couple of observations. The first one is just to draw attention to how the report demonstrates the massive demographic change that is happening in powers, and I think we tend to associate declining school numbers with rural areas, but it's happening in our towns as well, and you can see it very clearly in these figures, with the size of trail and school from 2017 through to the forecast figures 5 years ahead showing the school declining in size by nearly 50%, and that is happening with other schools as well, and we have to remodel our schools to reflect this huge demographic change that's happening within our county. That's one point, and the other one relates to the North powers well being hub, which obviously we hope to see developed joining this school site, and I do think we need to impress on Welsh Government that we wish to see that well being hubbed proposal perceived, it's very important not just for new town, but for the whole of the North of Paris, and we really want to see the development of new school buildings to be happening alongside the well being hub proposal, so that the two of them happen together and work together to minimize disruption in the local area, but I think that this change will provide for our young people the kind of school buildings that they deserve and that they need, and it's only through this kind of remodeling that we can deliver both sustainable powers in terms of our finances and our environmental sustainability, and also offer the kind of education which our children need under circumstances of declining numbers of young people living in our communities. Thank you Richard, thank you very much, very good point, very well made if I may say so. Right, we have the local member, Joy Jones with us, Joy, you're welcome to speak. Thank you, Leida, although there are times when transformation of education provisions in our community is the right thing to do, we know that the council needs and we know the council needs to make savings, there are also times when doing what seems to be the easy answer to fulfill some of the difficulties the council is facing is the wrong move. We often hear how the council, we are listening to the voice of the constituents and that we support their well being and their communities, yet this proposal goes completely against what the community wants or needs, the school is the centre of the community and land the estate that it serves and over the years as often seeing fluctuation in pupil numbers. As a school it has given a good standard of education for its pupils which has led to many young people getting a great start in life, only to move on to further education and to get qualifications that have led them to being open to some amazing opportunities. The school is a hub in the community which is more, which has more of a personal connection to families who attend with staff that are able to notice not only their pupils well being but the well being of the extended family, leading them to be able to signposts or arrange support when needed, removing this school is a mistake, there may be advantages in large schools for some pupils but not all, some children naturally thrive in smaller environments, it is not only that children we need to think about when sending large groups of families into one school but parents, some parents cannot cope with crowds and the hustle and bustle that comes along with a large school environment especially at drop-off time and collection time, this can be detrimental on some parents well being and their mental health, this is why they attend a smaller community school, please consider the consequences of accepting this proposal as it will have a devastating effect on trio in the state and the community and sadly many parents and pupils, everybody is extremely frustrated as they feel that the consultation was a waste of time and I can honestly stay apart from officers and the portfolio holder, I haven't heard anybody in the community supporting this proposal of the closure of trio in school, many people believe the consultations are only because of being part of a legal process and not because anybody is going to listen to the heartbreak and distress that the closure will bring to everyone affected, as a council we talk about growing communities and building extra houses to rehome people on our ever increasing waiting list, well on this estate there is a large area of ground that in the past has had planning permission for a huge amount of extra housing, if these are built in the future the school will be needed more than ever to take the extra numbers, it is short-sighted to remove an asset which is doing well in the town and in far better condition than other schools located around the town which are in very poor condition and need a huge amount of investment and funding to maintain, finally we are supposed to think about getting people out of their cars and walking to school etc, but moving the school further away is going to have the opposite effect on parents as they will take their cars putting pressure on Park Street which as you have already heard is meant real concern regarding the congestion not only for the parents going to school but the people living on Park Street and visiting Park Street as that is where the doctor surgery and hopefully the new hub, the help hub will be built, if parents are then forced to go into the local car park they are going to have to park their cars and walk through the park area and through the clay park which on wet cold days will mean everybody gets soaked and frozen, some parents will choose not to attend, meaning children will miss school especially if they got younger siblings as this means dragging them out in those sort of conditions. I am hearing from parents who want to stay in a small school so they are already looking elsewhere in the town or even out of town at village schools which again goes against the council's green agenda with people travelling and using their cars so as once again please don't close Trio in school and show the public we listen and we can see that the community needs support and the amenities on their doorstep and that the council acknowledges public opinion show the public that you are truly listening and care about their needs, let us work together to build a brighter future for our communities by looking at other avenues that we can take to make savings. Thank you, Leda. Okay, thank you very much and we will recognise how passionate do you feel about this join and absolutely fair enough as a local member. Would anybody wish to address any of the points that Joy has made? Sandra, Councillor Sandra Davis, please. Thank you very much. I do agree to some extent with what Councillor Joy has said regarding closure of schools, it is traumatic, it has a huge impact on everybody within the close community but having gone through that process and been really involved in closing not one school but all the schools in the Estragan nice catchment area I can assure you that it has good results. One of the schools that I was involved with was very, very small and nobody wanted it to close and there was another school which was a little bit larger but as a result, one of the schools has tripled in size and I can assure you that all the pupils and the staff are driving and the parents are very happy as a result because this gives an opportunity for young people to share sporting activities within the school instead of having to go further afield and not even having enough children to put one sporting event on because they haven't got enough children in the class to do so but having large schools does have economies of scale with results of combined efforts, etc. So I can really assure you Councillor Joy and parents that are listening to this, who are in your community, it does have huge advantages and please, please, if you have any doubts at all, I recommend that you visit one of the existing schools that have gone through the transformation and speak to some of the parents because they are very, very happy. So the staff, so the children, Jojung and Jojung were here. Thank you very much, Sandra. It is obviously always difficult when these sorts of changes are proposed for the community and indeed for those representing them to deal with. This is not an easy process and for anybody as I'm sure Joy, are you understand? The director would like to make a few comments, I think, Dr. Jones. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Councillor Joy, for your observations. I do appreciate the challenges that comes with the closure of schools. I would just like to reassure that the well-being of staff and pupils which you mentioned is absolutely central to recommendations which are made. I think what's really important is the clarity of communication around it to make sure that people feel that they understand what's happening and involved in it. And I think linked with that is the very important point that in the formation of a new school, there will be need to be really careful consideration around culture and identity and what it means to belong to a new school community. As Councillor Sandra has said, I think if our learners and our pupils do feel like they belong to that larger community, there are real opportunities. If you look at leadership across some larger schools, you start to see consistency and coherence in leadership, professional learning opportunities open up for staff and then ultimately that cascades down to pupils, improve teaching and learning through collaboration and a greater access to a wider range of extracurricular activities. So, you know, while I do appreciate the challenges, I did just want to pick out some of the opportunities that comes from having those larger vibrant schools with a greater mix of individuals. Thank you, Richard, that's very helpful. I have another speaker wishing to speak, Adam Kennedy, Councillor Adam Kennedy and again another member from Newtown and we have also received comments from Councillor Pete Lewington, another local member in Newtown, around the points around strategic planning of education within the town. And I think it's been explained that actually our difficulty in getting answers on the wellbeing hub have hindered that process quite considerably and we've really gone to a point where we have to start taking decisions rather than waiting for an answer from our government on the wellbeing hub. So, at the point, I don't think Councillor Newton is with us today, but I think his points were made, but I think we are doing our best on that issue in not the most ideal circumstances, so to explain that. Adam, thank you. Thank you, Leader. I hope I can be heard clearly my apologies to officers and other local Councillors, I didn't get my comments in with being away from the work, but I submit them on Friday and hopefully just if I can read them through here, if they then get the correct part of the meeting before I make specific points. And obviously, I'm a Councillor, one of the five Councillors for the Newtown, and I would agree with me, the points Joy has made, and indeed Peter, our strategic planning. Before I make specific points, I do broadly agree that the school buildings and staff teams, particularly ones that are well resourced and which are allowed for professional progression, which in turn aids recruitment and retention of good staff. Our crucial elements are giving our children the best start in life. If we focus on the children, I have to say, I believe this is a good solution in front of us for those attending the two schools. And I also note that as a Councillor, I have a responsibility to all of those who pay their taxes to make sure we spend them well, and indeed a duty to the Council to establish a balanced budget. I'm achieving some savings by this proposal has to be welcomed, especially as it often delivers improved educational opportunities for children. However, I do acknowledge that there are some notable downsides that the Council should pay attention to, and plans for which should go hand in hand with the closure of the trail and school site. Should this be agreed? Aspects that should have firm and costed plans accompanying them, and not just words and report. And I would remark on three here. It's an invaluable case that some children form better in smaller school settings, and Councillor Joy has highlighted that. And it's clear that this will be lost from Sriering under this plan. It is, however, already lost from schools like Pentaglodzo, which has just under 300 pupils, and largely from the already merged Helena Derwin School. These are still modest sized market town schools, but proposals for how they should provide small school experience in larger settings should be defined and made much clearer. Travelling to and from school is an issue that the new school location is within reasonable walking cycling distance for most, and the investment in new town through active travel routes makes it one of the most well connected communities in powers. However, the Council shouldn't rely on this alone, and clear plans on the routes to be used on the instigation and support of things like walking buses, and support all families should be defined and made clear, which is on a point made by Councillor Matthew earlier. I'm a third point of community cohesion is undoubtedly aided by the presence of a school, and its loss will be felt and I'm sure. However, many communities come together around activities that are not a school, as many communities actually don't have a school. A far more substantial plan should be developed in conjunction with the community, alongside the development of community assets and services that might best support ongoing community cohesion and trialing. It will be definitely trialing the shops, sports, community halls and over the years childcare, all contribute to community cohesion in other locations. As a specific point, I would encourage the Council to hold the trialing school site for a period that allows the community the chance to explore how it might best serve them, if not as a school. Whilst these are my comments on the proposal as submitted to the consultation, I would like to comment that I don't think this is the best solution for new town as a whole, such an odd point raised in the sponsored by Councillor Keep Lewington. A proposal about thinking strategically across the whole town, a proposal to build a new school at a different location with the grounds for the high school was made as part of this consultation process back in January and has had an initial consideration as a solution that solves multiple issues. The proposal was to build a new single school that serves the states of Creoing, Mysirandir for Haffron and Vayner on the current fields of the high school, with seven substantive benefits outlined, including solving some of the issues that Mysirandir faces presently. The significant single of yet obstacle cited for rejection of this being the quantity of land available to meet all the needs. Backing into here to read a summary of that proposal and there was a full proposal submitted and a full response is given on 4.7.8.1 on the bottom of page 209 of the paper and page 121 of the report there that was to read. My final bit, as a local Councillor from Utah and one mindful of financial constraints for Council, I would ask that a long side progressing the proposals within this paper of the Council also further and what fully investigates how a single barrier of plot size is overcome so I've achieved the substantial and multiple benefits of co-location recognised in their analysis of this proposal. Thank you. Thank you very much and you've raised some very important points, not least the future use of the school site should we approve the recommendation. But before we get to that, let me bring in Councillor David Selvie. Thank you. Thank you, Leader and I speak as another of the new town Councillors as well as a member of Cabinet. Of course I recognise as we all do the concerns expressed by parents and for that matter by learners when major changes in education take place. Any good school tracks to it feeling a family and trialing does that as well as the other schools in Utah. The list of concerns of around traffic and transportation, these large and small schools have a way in which we can absorb one school within another all being well made as as issues to consider. In my view this report had the work done by the Education Transformation team to address all of those concerns. I just remind members of Cabinet as well that we're talking not here of great distances. We're talking about from a trail into the new school assistance of about a mine. It should be possible with using the active travel in particular that there are changes that have already been proposed to bring ways of getting those schools closer together. I support a change, a difficult one as it may be. I have every confidence that the Education Team and the new leadership team of the new school will be working hard to create an environment of better education in Utah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good. Right. I can see nobody else wishing to speak and thank all those who have contributed. Oh, Marianne, my apologies. I'll just come back in on a few comments maybe from Council rather if that's if that's okay. So a couple of things for me there and thank you for all the comments which we'll receive done on Friday. Two things, the trail and site. When we met with join governors and staff, it was very very apparent how much the trail and school site is part of that community. Another side of the area with the heart of the community. Should this proposal go forward and if implemented, we do need to consider what happens to the trail and site. It's a fantastic site. It overlooks, it overlooks new town and I think there would be opportunity for some community development. What we need to look at, what services can we can we provide from that building should the Council wish to wish to keep that building. So I think that is really at the forefront of our minds going forward, what that facility could provide for the community of pro and should this proposal be implemented. In terms of the alternative suggestion and thank for that as well comes around them around potentially looking at another option of building a new private school for the for nice advantage of the calendar and all on the site of Utah High School. And I think you can see from our response where we feel that there are disadvantages to that proposal in terms of through the congestion on the site, taking the land away, the sports fields away from Newton High School, what do we do in the meantime et cetera. And also looking at how whether that site can accommodate a new built primary through years, community facility, et cetera alongside potentially, you know, developments after Newton High School further down the line. So whilst I think that that proposal has merit, I think our hands are tied in terms of we already on, we already developed designs and plans for calendar went to an extent. And the condition of both or calendar went in particular, the old hovering part of calendar went is now in condition D. So it means that it needs, you know, to be dressed swiftly. I also think we are constrained by the fact that we are fundamental parts of the North Bell as well being programmed and work has taken place over the years about how this school could integrate and with the health and the benefits from both being part of a single campus. We are the school building element is a critical path of it's a critical path of the North Bell beings critical path. And everything, you know, everything is joined up. The work things happen in sequence. So I think there are a number of constraints around looking at the alternative option. And for me as well, I think time is obvious as well, as I said, the schools need to come on their own particular needs in new school. And I think if we did go back to the beginning, then we would be looking at, you know, years down the line before we had any development around new primary school in Newtown. So I'll leave it at that. But Jim, Jim, around as well, if you want to delve more into the space issue, but I think ultimately, when we look at that option holistically, I don't think that that is possible. Although it does have many. So I think we're explaining that in the report. Thank you. No, excellent. And thank you for dealing with those issues. Right. I think we are at the point where we can move to the recommendation or summing up and recommendations from the portfolio, please. Thank you, leader. There's a number of issues I do want to pick up on. This is never an easy decision. And there's portfolio holder when these reports come through. I will spend hours working through them, if not days. And there were a few things that came out of this that made me look a bit further. The one thing in particular, Councillor Joy picked up on about the fact that children will be leaving the estate and this is crucial to them. If you look at the consultation report of the number of pupils and then you look at the impact assessment, there is a breakdown of where pupils come from and where they go to. Only have the where they go to for Kalanavirwin and Trioin. But if you look at those, 11% of the pupils, which is approximately 25 pupils at Kalanavirwin, already come from the Trioin estate. And the Trioin school itself, 63% of the pupils come from the estate. So it's approximately 70 pupils. The others are made up from pupils that are within their nearest school. It's Pennaglava, St Mary's and quite a lot from my surrounding. So you've actually got a catchment in an area where movement between schools is quite commonplace. This is not a case of this is a store that is exclusively drawn from the local catchment. So that leads me to recognise that it is a local school and it is a key part of the community there. But this is actually quite a fluid area. The second point, and Marianne has touched on this and that's if we move forward with this proposal, what happens to the site. But the thing is here, we are looking at a proposal to expand Kalanavirwin to include that site and then move the schools once the new build is complete. So we're raising many of the proposals we're bringing forward in relation to this. We are looking to leave the site from an education perspective within 12 months of the decision being taken. Here we are going to a period of at least two academic years. And that gives us two academic years to work with officers, work with other departments within the council and work within the community to fully evaluate what the site offers and what can be put in its place. And there are many possibilities that have not been explored fully yet but which are there as to what comes forward. So those two real concerns that are genuine concerns within the community concerns that I don't understate are ones that I believe can be met. Before we go to the report though there is one other small thing I'd like to address because it is a concern that has been raised over the weekend and that is a number of people have contacted me believing that we are about to change the name of the school. This stems from an infographic in the county times where in talking about the sustainable communities for learning proposal they make reference to a school browser within their infographic. There are no plans by the council to change the school name. There are no plans that I'm aware of from the school community and it is the school community that comes forward with the name as we've seen recently with the naming of the new school in Brecken school, the Coppina van. So I just want to use this opportunity to allow those concerns because I am aware that they have created a degree of concern within the community over this weekend. So those things being said I now move to the recommendation and whereas the last one was quite a short one this one is a longer one. It's a 0.10 within the report. The recommendation is one to receive the consultation report in respect to the proposal for a school calendar in the county primary school. Two to approve the publication of a statutory notice proposing the following. Phase one to close Creoan county primary school from the 31st of August 2025 and extend a school calendar burwing to include the former Creoan county primary school site from the 1st of September 2025 and then phase two a school calendar burwing to move to a new building located on the existing school calendar burwing site during 26/27 and the tree oven site closes. So I move that recommendation for cabinet. Sorry James, we're not getting any sound online. My apologies, I forgot to do my light to go off. I'll start again right before. So council David Thomas seconded the proposal and before I go to the vote I just wanted to say thank you to Marianne and her team and all officers involved in indeed the portfolio holder in the preparation of this report which members and those observing our meeting will all see is over 300 pages well over 300 pages long which just indicates the amount of work that is involved in the school's transformation process. It's not a mechanical process. It takes a great deal of diligence and time and officer time and member time to consider these issues quite rightly so they're very stages to it and this is just the one stage and previous stage stages just as lengthy and time consuming. So these are major pieces of work with big impacts on communities and individuals so it's quite right that they are done very thoroughly and I have to say this process has been done absolutely by the book and very thoroughly indeed so thank you very much for that. So we've had a proposal we've had a seconder with all those please in favor of the proposal show. Thank you very much I believe that's unanimous so that recommendation is agreed. Thank you for those who've contributed to the discussion and a big decision but properly made thank you very much. I think this is a convenient moment to have just five minutes come for break as we move on to other issues on the agenda so thank you. So return at 1130 please thank you very much. Okay okay welcome back we'll restart the agenda we're moving to item six which is in the name of council David Thomas the cabinet member finance and corporate transformation David. Thank you thank you leader. This report is for decision and it's referenced the financial forecast for year ending 31st of March 2024 as at the 29th of February 2024 that this report has actually been delayed because of the pre-election period for the police and crime commissioner elections so it's coming to you a little late. The projected position currently reports a 1.7 million pound underspend which when compared to the position reported at quarter three is a reduction of forecast underspend of 1.3 million pounds. The main change since quarter three is due to the release of the risk budget of services to cover unfunded pressures mainly in adult social care children services and highways. The housing and community development department and economy and digital department are now forecasting underspend of 0.7 million pound each. Although the projected out turn position in this report is welcomed this has to be considered in the context of the challenges we expect to face over the medium term as we set out during the budget debate at full council. These challenges cannot be underestimated. Inflation and increased demand for services continue to create pressures on our finances and our focus now will quickly turn to the delivery of sustainable powers to ensure that the council can remain financially stable. Appendix A of the report provides more detail at a service level with heads of service providing detailed commentary in appendix B. Since quarter three children services have reported further unavoidable pressures with increased demand for placements for children with complex needs. This is compounded by a national shortage of these placements and the service is also supporting an increasing number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children. This has had some impact on the services ability to deliver the planned cost reductions in full and also on the financial position which would be in a forecast overspend position of 1.4 million pound without the release of 810,000 pound from the risk budget. The services continue to work on measures that will address the remaining forecast overspend. With regard to cost reductions services continue to deliver the cost reductions planned this year. The summary at table two shows that 77% or 13.3 million pound of the cost reductions have been delivered and a further 16% or 2.7 million pound are assured of delivery by services. 1.3 million pounds, 8% are unachieved and are at risk of delivery in the year. The reserves position is reported in table three which shows the use of 12.1 million pound of specific reserves to support the council's budget this year. Schools set their budgets with an expected call in the reserves of 6 million pound. This figure had worsened during the year but has now been brought back to a forecast position of 6 million pound call and reserves in line with the original forecast. At the end of the financial year school reserves will have reduced to an overall balance of 638,000 pound. These are challenging times for our schools and the authority continues to provide an appropriate level of challenge and support to assist schools with their budget recovery plans. Grants. Section 5(2) reports additional grants received during January and February which will be incorporated into the budget. A large proportion relates to public transport without social care receiving most of the remainder. Biamonts section 5(3) of the report sets out a number of biamonts to be considered by carbonate. In summary these include a transfer of 187,000 pound to a vehicle replacement reserve that has been raised through the sale of vehicles and equipment. This will allow the purchase of future vehicles or equipment, the aim being to purchase green vehicles where possible. A transfer of 150,000 pound of transformation funding related to post-16 transport requirements for the highways, transport and recycling service to support the cost of post-16 transport in 2324. A transfer of 230,000 pound from our social care revenue to capital budget for capital works required at the 12-powice-owned care homes to meet the terms of the new contract with the provider. A transfer of 300,000 pounds from the risk budget to the immediate repairs reserve to provide funding for a significant backlog of fired or remedial works that has been identified through the corporate landlord projects. A transfer of 150,000 pound is requested from the risk budget to establish a feasibility reserve that services can draw from when they need to access short-term resources or expertise to help develop business cases to change programs, whether for sustainable powers program or other change programs. For example, as a result of legislative change. With regards to the financial risks, Section 6 of the report highlights the financial risks we continue to face in a short to medium term. Inflation does seem to be heading in the right direction, but prices are still rising just not as quickly as they have been. The revenue risk budget has served the council well in 2324, and the budget set in February also included a 3 million pound risk budget as mitigation for 8 million pound of potential costs that were identified as part of the financial results model. At this stage leader, I'd just like to invite the head of finance 151 office at the comments. Jane. Thank you, thanks for David. Thank you, leader. Not much to add. I think it's worthy to note that the position is stable as we see it for 2324, which is really good in terms of managing the budget throughout that year. We are now taking any opportunity, albeit some small, to really ensure that we are helping next year's budget as much as possible offsetting anything that we can now to meet the pressures that we're seeing coming through. But it's worth noting that we are still under considerable challenge from a financial perspective, and the delivery of sustainable powers over the next couple of years will be fundamental to maintain that financial resilience for the council. So although this is pleasing to see, it doesn't really stifle the challenge that we've got over the next couple of years. So it's just important to note that. Okay, many thanks. Do any other officers wish to comment from their own area of service? Is it all self-explanatory? No? Right. Any other member of Cabinet? Again, it's a fairly self-explanatory report. The chair of the finance panel had indicated that you wish to speak. Is that still the case? I saw you. Apologies that the leader was off mic for a moment. The finance panel didn't meet to discuss this out in about a period because of the tight turn rounds. Apologies for that. But personally, there was just the one question, well, there's quite a lot of questions, but just what when I caught my sights was around the oversight board transferring money to the 12 care homes to upgrade certain aspects. But the 400,000 that was due to be spent on robotics in the Seattle program. How would that affect the services going forward? There was a great push for robotics within the council. What's happened to that project? Thank you. Yeah, good question. Nina might be able to help us out to the director of services. Thank you, Leader. Thank you, Councillor ALLID for your question. Cabinet and Councillors will be made recall that we took forward a report a number of months ago around the power zone care homes, and this report now is kind of wrapping up the financial environments required behind those decisions made at that point. The 6.62 million over two years, partly being met by reallocating 0.39 million from the robotics budget, which was already in the capital program. That money wasn't being spent, hadn't been allocated. We've been progressing with our technology-enabled care with budgets from other areas, and we've also been successful in getting granting and coming into this area as well. So there hasn't been, we're not stopping doing something. We've been spending and progressing that agenda from other pots of money, so I just wanted to provide that assurance. If said, okay, thank you, Leader. Thank you, Councillor ALLID. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your question. Right. You should see no further indications of the original speak, so what photo holder would you like to make the recommendations? Yes, Leader. So the recommendation is that Cabinet note the current budget position on the projected full year forecast to the end of March 2024. The ground set out in section 5.1 are noted. The environment set out in section 5.2 are approved. This is to comply with the violent rules of budget volume and South set out in the financial regulations. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have a second here? Councillor Pete Roberts. Oh, seconded. I'm Jacky, but Pete got there first. So, could all those in favour of the recommendations, please show? Grant, that's unanimous. Thank you very much indeed. And we can move swiftly on to item 7, the capital forecast, also in the name of Councillor David Thomas. Thank you, David. Thank you, Leader. This report provides an update on the financial position of the Council's capital program for 23.24 as of the 29th of February 2024. Following the successful award of additional grants and the re-profiling of budgets between financial years, the revised program for 23.24 is budgeted at 79.34 million pounds. At the end of February, actual spend amounts to 49.88 million pounds, representing 63% of the total budget, an increase of 11.41 million pounds since that reported is quarter three. 35% or 28.06 million pounds of the capital expenditure is budgeted to be financed by borrowing. The interest cost for this is charged to the revenue accounts. Section three of the report details the grants that have been received and included in the capital program. Section four sets out some re-profiling of budget between financial years following a review of the capital program by all services. Section five sets of retirement to funding works on the 12 power zone care homes in line with the name contract with the provider. 0.62 million pounds requested over two years. This will be met by reallocating 0.39 million pounds from the robotics budget already in the capital program along the environment of adult social care budget set out in the revenue forecast report. A total of 2.21 million pounds of capital receipts has been received to date. It's not expected that any further capital receipts will be received this financial year. There are currently sales agreed to the value of 0.2 million pounds. These are at a legal stage of the process and will generate capital receipts in 24.25. Again, I'd just like to invite the 151 opposite comment if you leave. Yes, Jane? Nothing better to add on this report. Thank you, Leader. Right. Jacky, Councillor Jacky Charlton, please. Thank you, Leader. I just wanted to draw members' attention to 9.1 on the report where we're indicating that within the capital program there is quite a high spend on the climate and nature emergency, which is helping us to get to our net zero target by 2030. I'm really grateful that this has been put into the report because sometimes these things can go unmissed or missed and not recognised, but just to say that we shouldn't be complacent, but I'm really, really welcome the fact that we are now embedding all these things into our services and how we're delivering them, but it's really useful to see how much is being set aside for these purposes as well. So just to say thank you for putting that in the report and I look forward to more updates as we go forward. Thank you. You know, good point. Thank you very much. Chairman of Finance, Councillor Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Leader. I know there is significant underspend of the couple of budgets, which does happen every year to submit some degree. Kind of just a short and so on. It's just a matter of time and that money will be spent in the next financial period in order to, well, this kind of financial period, sorry, in order to deliver services to residents across powers. I accept it delivers significant savings to the revenue for the 12 months, and I hope that's not a sole motivation. And just a quick question to Councillor Jackie, and there's some, sometimes quite a bit of reference to the 20-30 targets. Are we on track to hit the 20-30 targets? Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you, Councillor ALLID. And being brutally honest at the moment, no, we're not on target to meet that by 2030, but that doesn't mean to say that we're taking off of the agenda. We will be continuously looking at this. We are putting in quite a lot of things in place to see how we are doing. We're not very good at the moment of measuring what we're achieving, but I'm hoping that we will start to see that coming through in different reports as we move forward. But you're quite right to raise that. No, we're not on target at the moment, but we are not losing that target, and we will keep heading towards it. So thank you for the question. Good, thank you. Jane, thank you very much. Just to pick up on the questions raised by Councillor ALLID, yes, we are seeing, you know, and spend against the capital budget. Many of the programs have been re-profiled, so that spend will be incurred in the new financial year as you indicated. So we're not projecting any changes specifically to projects that would be reported either through this report or through the budget and the capital program accordingly. So all of that will be transparent if we were making any significant changes. The one thing we have done which you'll recall from previous reports this year is where we're not now undertaking the borrowing as early as anticipated. We have re-aligned that capital finance in budget to recognise that reduction, and we've used that funding then to support the pay award and other aspects through this financial year. So just as a reminder of what we've done there as well. Good, thank you for that. Right, I think we can move to the recommendation of that, okay? David. Yes, the recommendation is that the contents of this report adopted are requested of items that have been said over the same time. Sorry. If it's maxed up? Yes. Apologies. Right, the recommendation is that the contents of this report are noted and request that the violence set out in section five is approved by carbonate. Thank you. Lots of hands. I guess one of those Sandra will take a second. All those in favour, please. Good. That's unanimous. So, excellent. We can thank you very much one and all and on to number eight, the East Strategic Risk Strategy, which again is in the name of Councillor David Thomas, who's working hard to date. Thank you, Leader. Richard, is that a new hand or an oven? Sorry, my apologies. It's gone, okay. Right, David. Thank you, Leader. So, this is the Strategic Risk Register Report for Court of Three. As of the end of Court of Three, 2324, there are 13 risks on the Strategic Risk Register and all strategic risk owners have provided a short summary of progress since the last quarter to give assurance that mitigating actions are being actioned and monitored. Please see Appendix A for full details of the 13 strategic risks, including the mitigating actions identified to control them and progress reviews. Please see Appendix B to view a heat map which presents the results of the Court of Three Risk Assessment Process Visually. During Court of Three, the following risks have changed their probability or impact. If the council is unable to deliver a financially sustainable budget over the short and medium term, then the council will not be financially resilient. The actual score has gone up to 20 from that particular risk. PROC travel zero eight. If global supply chain issues arise such as political, economic or environmental pressures affect the global market, then this could lead to increased price variations under all labor and material shortages. Now, that particular risk has moved down to six. HDR0018, if we do not take action to address the nature emergency declared by Pois County Council, then the impact of this emergency will affect our ability to deliver future services. That score has gone up to 20. And with regard to RCPCH-007, failures complete process to secure agreements for service continuation, that particular risk has now been closed. There's one risk, whether it's a request, to escalate it to the strategic risk register. Digital services would like to escalate the following risk, ICT0067. If we receive an act upon a phishing email, then there's a risk that our information and systems will be vulnerable to a cyber attack. The rating score for this risk is 16, and the risk profile is likely a major. Phishing emails are the root cause of majority of cyber attacks experienced by any organization. Everyone everywhere is experiencing a rise in the amount of phishing emails being received. Phishing emails can be received by any member of staff in any service area, including elected members and improved awareness at a corporate level, as needed. During 2023, Pois County Council, there have been two instances where our staff have been convinced by a phishing email they received, and as such, we experienced two cyber incidents as a result. Thankfully, no serious consequences this time, although costs were incurred in resources to investigate, remediate, and report the incidents. With regard to resource implications, for the report as a whole, there are no direct resource implications in relation to this report. However, all risk owners need to consider the resource implications of managing the risk and decide if the best cause of action is to tolerate or treat, and that ends the report later. Many thanks. Good. Are there any officers wishing to add to this? No, technical issues, right? The recommendation is recommended that the Cabinet notes the current strategic risk register, and is satisfied with progress against mitigating actions for quarter three, approves the escalation of ICT0067. The recommendation above will ensure appropriate understanding and management of strategic risks, which could prevent us from achieving our objectives. A risk-managed approach to decision-making and good governance of the Council. Thank you later. Good. Thank you. Do I have to say the sound of Davis' second of that? Thank you. I didn't ask, well, I didn't ask for any comments. Remember, are there any before we go to the vote? Sorry, I should have done that. No. Fine. Okay. Everybody in favor of the recommendations, please show. Good. Again, that's unanimous. Many thanks. Excellent. Thank you, David. The report approved and removed to 99, which is a recommendation from the scrutiny helps working groups, pages 147 to 152, and I'll pack. Is anybody here from the working groups to present? No, sir. No. Oh. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Did you see? We can. Members, suggestions, we just received this for information. Is anybody wish to comment on what they have before them? Chair, there's one recommendation from the working group, which members will find on one page 149 of the report. And again, we'll switch. We will need formally respond. Right. I recall the chair previously presented to us from this. Did he not? This is a familiar recommendation. That's all I'm seeing. Great. I think chair, that was probably the informal meeting where we reviewed these. But we can provide a formal response to that recommendation. I think we accept it. And of course, we would want to make sure that should any further agreements or contracts be entered into, then absolutely, we would want to consider the comments made from the government's Nordic Committee as part of that being progressed. Right. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. So I'm with Pete. Yeah. I just want to highlight to members of the public the lessons learned from this. There are some quite clear observations around chairing the projects, around contract management, around staffing skills, and some of the concerns there around house are concerns that have echoed around the chamber many times in the past. I think this is a very important piece of work and wonder both ourselves as politicians and officers have learned a lot from that will enable not just ourselves but other authorities to move forward. On a very sound basis, if we so decided to look at this type of activity in the future, but also when we're looking at insolesing, which is more common within this administration, it offers some things there to look at when we're looking at insolesing projects as well in reverse. Yes. Thank you for that. And also just, I think it is worth noting that the tubing of staff back from house to this council was achieved successfully. Yes. Yes. And I think that's a good positive note. However, from the chair, I'd like to propose that we accept the recommendation and I seek a seconder. Can I ask a few Roberts who's seconded that? So could I have a show of hands for those in favor of accepting recommendation, please? Good. Again, unanimous. I'd like to report that back to the chair. Good. Excellent. Onto item 10, corporate safeguarding board activity report on pages 153 and onwards. Nina? Thank you, Leader. The cabinet we've got a report today, a briefing on the last corporate safeguarding board meeting, which was held on the 14th of March. Normal agenda, mandatory standing agenda items. We reviewed the progress against actions in the safeguarding regulatory tracker and it was noted that all items were either green, which is on track or blue completed. We received an update from the regional safeguarding board and confirmed the focus groups of due to be continued with alongside that work. An update was provided to the board on the joint inspection of child protection arrangements, the joint JIC, that inspection. The report was received in early February. It was confirmed an action plan has been completed with our partners, and as per the GIPA guidance has been submitted to CIW. An update was discussed around the education a safeguarding action plan with comments that it was being monitored half terminally and that they were no new concerns to raise to the board at that current time. We had a presentation from on the workings of the both Wales safety group, which was very interesting highlighting the valuable work that the partnership continues to do around the annual Royal Welsh Agriculture Show. Board members suggested that future reports could perhaps include benefits and impact of the work in terms to police, health, ambulance services and other partners, and this was accepted. A verbal update was provided to the board and noting concerns around the capacity of the public protection team to continue to chair channel and community safety partnerships, and the transition in terms of the channel is now to take place with the current chair, now being somebody from social services. We then received our normal reports from housing, from education. We also oversee mandatory safeguarding training, including Vida SB at every board meeting, from adult social care and from children's social care as well. Further corporate safeguarding board meetings are in the diary with the next one being held on the 13th of June. So that's just a very brief update for you, Chair and for Cabinet. Thank you. No, thank you and good report, actually, some encouraging things to report there. Are there any questions or is it very self-explanatory? No, I don't see any questions. Just to receive, is it not? Just to receive the audit. We don't need to, we just need to know, we don't need to vote. Good and many thanks for that. We can move on then to item 11. The delegated decision is taken since the last meeting. That's on pages 157 and 158. Again, are there any questions or comments that members would wish to make about those decisions taken? No. I think what it drew our attention to. We see the forward work program at item 12. Again, a living document. It may change, but that's as things stand, that's our forward work program at the moment. Again, are there any comments? None. So then we need to move to item 13, which is, Munching Officer is recommending that item 14 is taken in confidential session, but we need to formally approve that as members. Just to clarify it, it's sometimes characterized that the monitoring officer decides whether something should be exempt or not. That's not true. It's members that decide on the recommendation or otherwise of the monitoring officer. So just for clarity, because I think there's been some misunderstandings about that, not these demands to council membership. It is not the monitoring officer who decides this is us as members. So item 13, we can see the recommendation. I need a proposal that we move to confidential session. Council Sandra. Council Sandra has so proposed. Could I have a second to please? Jackie. Jackie. Councillor Jackie Charlton has seconded. All those in favour that we move into confidential session. Good, I see unanimous. So thank you to members of public who have been attending and observing our work, but unfortunately now we have to move into
Summary
The council meeting focused on significant educational and financial matters, including the merging of schools and budget forecasts. Key decisions were made regarding the future structure of local education and the management of the council's finances.
Merger of Cwmtwrch and Ynyscedwyn Schools: The council approved the merger, citing declining pupil numbers and financial sustainability. Arguments for the merger emphasized more resource-efficient operations and enhanced educational opportunities. Opponents expressed concerns about community identity and travel logistics for students. The decision aims to streamline educational services but has stirred community concerns about losing a local school's presence.
Financial Forecast for 2023/2024: The council reviewed and accepted a financial forecast indicating a potential underspend, which was better than expected given current economic pressures. The discussion highlighted the challenges of inflation and service demands but also pointed to prudent financial management as a reason for the positive forecast. The implications are significant for future budgeting and resource allocation, ensuring the council remains financially stable amidst uncertainties.
Strategic Risk Register Update: Updates to the Strategic Risk Register were approved, with particular attention to cybersecurity risks due to recent phishing incidents. The decision to escalate the cybersecurity risk reflects a growing awareness and proactive stance on potential digital threats to council operations. This decision underscores the council's commitment to safeguarding its digital infrastructure and data.
Interestingly, the meeting also included a robust discussion on the impact of school mergers on community identity and access to education, reflecting broader concerns about preserving local services amidst structural changes. The council meeting focused on significant educational and financial planning, including the approval of strategic documents and budget forecasts. Key discussions revolved around the transformation of school infrastructure and the financial stability of the council.
Sustainable Communities for Learning Strategic Outline Program (SOAP) Approval:
- Decision: The council approved the SOAP, which outlines a 9-year plan for school estate development.
- Arguments: Proponents argued it would strategically enhance educational facilities and support Welsh medium education. Critics, like Councillor Gwynbar, expressed concerns about the financial feasibility and the long-term commitments beyond the initial three years.
- Implications: Approval sets the stage for extensive school development projects, potentially transforming educational landscapes but also committing significant future council resources.
Closure and Merger of Trioan and Kalan Derwen Schools:
- Decision: The council decided to close Trioan School and merge it with Kalan Derwen School.
- Arguments: Supporters, including the Director of Education, argued for more resource-efficient schooling and improved facilities. Local member Joy Jones and others opposed, citing community impact and the importance of small school settings.
- Implications: This decision will consolidate educational resources but may impact community dynamics and increase travel times for students.
Financial Forecast for Year Ending 2024:
- Decision: The council reviewed and noted a forecasted underspend, adjusting budgets accordingly.
- Arguments: The finance department highlighted the benefits of current savings against future financial uncertainties. Concerns were raised about ongoing economic pressures and inflation.
- Implications: The decision provides a temporary financial relief but underscores the need for strategic financial planning amid economic volatility.
Interesting Event: During discussions, there was a notable emphasis on integrating climate considerations into financial and educational planning, reflecting growing environmental concerns within council operations.
Attendees
- Berriman, Jake
- Brignell-Thorp, Jeremy
- Charlton, Jackie
- Church, Richard
- Cox, Sian
- Davies, Aled
- Davies, Sandra
- Dorrance, Matthew
- Gibson-Watt, James
- Jones, Joy
- Kennerley, Adam
- Roberts, Pete
- Selby, David
- Thomas, David
- Thomas, Gwynfor
- Andy Thompson
- Catherine James
- Clive Pinney
- Diane Reynolds
- Ellen Sullivan
- Emma Palmer
- Georgie Bevan
- Gwilym Davies
- Jack Straw
- Jane Thomas
- Jenny Ashton
- John Evans
- Kath Flanagan-Jones
- Matthew Perry
- Nina Davies
- Paul Bradshaw
- Rachel Evans
- Richard Jones
- Sharon Frewin
- Sharon Powell
- Sion Rowley
- Steve Boyd
Documents
- Printed minutes 07th-May-2024 10.00 Cabinet
- Qtr 3 2023-2024 Appx B Heatmap
- 2023-00-00 GA HoWPS Working Group Recommendations to Cabinet
- 2023-00-00 ERC HoWPS Working Group Recommendations to Cabinet
- Activity report for Cabinet - CSB 14th March 2024
- Revenue Cabinet Report P11 February 2024
- Public reports pack 07th-May-2024 10.00 Cabinet reports pack
- 2024-03-19 Cabinet minutes
- Agenda frontsheet 07th-May-2024 10.00 Cabinet agenda
- Strategic Outline Programme - Powys County Council
- 2024-04-23 Scrutiny Recs to Cabinet
- Cabinet paper - SOP
- Capital Q3.5 Report for February 2024
- Qtr 3 2023-2024 Appx A Strategic Risk Register Report
- 7.5.24 Qtr 3 23_24 Strategic Risk Register Report Cabinet
- Delegated Decisions by Cabinet Members
- Forward Work Programme
- Appendix D - YCDT Consultation Updated Impact Assessments
- Supplementary Agenda 07th-May-2024 10.00 Cabinet agenda
- Cabinet Paper - YCDT Consultation Report
- Appendix A - YCDT Consultation Document - English
- Appendix B - YCDT Consultation Report
- Appendix C - YCDT Minutes of Meetings with Staff Governors